Living Ministries

"I'm tired of helping others enjoy God―I just want to enjoy God for myself." With this painful admission, Ruth Haley Barton invites us to an honest exploration of what happens when spiritual leaders lose track of their souls. Each chapter includes a spiritual practice to ensure your soul gets the nourishment it needs. Forging and maintaining a life-giving connection with God is the best choice you can make for yourself and for those you lead.

Leslie Vernick, counselor and social worker, has witnessed the devastating effects of emotional abuse. Many, including many in the church, have not addressed this form of destruction in families and relationships because it is difficult to talk about. With godly guidance and practical experience, Vernick offers an empathetic approach to recognizing an emotionally destructive relationship and addresses the symptoms and the damage with biblical tools.

The Kingdom of God Is Within You by Leo Tolstoy is a philosophical treatise first published in Germany in 1894 after being banned in his home country of Russia. The work is the culmination of 30 years of Tolstoy's thinking, and sets out rules for a new organization of society, based on an interpretation of Christianity which focuses on universal love. In a bold and original way, Tolstoy shows his audiences why violence of any type - even that sanctioned by the state or the church - must be rejected.

Enjoy the magnificent panorama of Scripture like never before! Pastor Skip Heitzig shares a "flight" plan for all 66 books of the Bible to help you better understand the context and significance of each.

This revised edition includes a new epilogue, "Coming up on Twenty-Five Years" since the entry of the Evangelical Orthodox into the Holy Orthodox Church. This is the story of a handful of courageous men and their congregations who risked stable occupations, security and the approval of life-long friends to be obedient to God's call. It is also the story of every believer who is searching for the Church.

What if you discovered you have been entrusted with an invisible, invincible, and incorruptible weapon? Would you use it? Move beyond only study and begin to wield the Word of God! If there ever was a time for women to be armed, it's now. Yet the Word of God is a sword we often are more comfortable studying than wielding. It's time we give girls swords and watch them connect heaven to earth.

Available as an audiobook for the first time ever, Discernment: Reading the Signs of Daily Life invites you to adopt Nouwen as your personal spiritual guide. Each session was carefully prepared by Dr. Michael Christensen, an award-winning professor of Christian ministry and practice, and Dr. Rebecca Laird, who was Nouwen’s student at Yale Divinity School. Like other volumes in The Nouwen Trilogy, this audiobook collects Nouwen’s unpublished homilies, interviews, classes, and speeches, as well as excerpts from his published writings.

Probably no other dimension of human experience has been pondered, discussed, debated, analyzed, and dreamed about more than the nature of true love. Yet, for all our thinking and talking, where can we turn for genuine insight in matters of true love? Dr. Myles Munroe provides answers to the questions surrounding the true nature of love as he exposes the false images created in our culture.

With compelling and often humorous stories from his own life, Bible scholar Peter Enns offers a fresh look at how Christian life truly works, answering questions that cannot be addressed by the idealized traditional doctrine of "once for all delivered to the saints".

The opportunity to tour Israel came at a good time. For months, my life has been a mindless plodding through necessary routine, as monotonous as an all-night shift on an assembly line. Life gets that way sometimes, when nothing specific is wrong but the world around us seems drained of color. My weekly worship experiences and daily quiet times with God have felt as dry and stale as last year's crackers. I'm ashamed to confess the malaise I've felt. I have been given so much. Shouldn't a Christian's life be an abundant one, as exciting as Christmas morning, as joyful as Easter Sunday?

A poetic portrait of faith, futility, and the joy of this mortal life. In this astoundingly unique audiobook, best-selling author N. D. Wilson reminds each of us that to truly live, we must recognize that we are dying. Every second we create more of our past. Then, we must see the future. We stand in the now. God says create. Live. Choose. Shape the past. Etch your life in stone, and what you make will be forever.

When governments collapse, human philosophies fail and your life is crashing down around you, Rediscovering the Kingdom will become your guide through the treacherous storms of the 21st century. All of the past ideologies have failed - humanism, communism, totalitarianism, fascism, socialism and even democracy. This is a philosophy, an ideology that will not fail, for it was bore in the heart of God himself.

Do you believe your struggle with anger stems from the wrong behavior you see displayed in your children? The knee-jerk reactions and blowups you're facing are often a result of a bigger set of "triggers". Some of these are external, like a child's disobedience, back talk, or selective hearing, while others are internal, like an overflowing schedule, sleep deprivation, or perhaps your own painful experiences from childhood.

The Feeler by James W. Goll delivers a remarkable biblical perspective on our emotions and how they help us to discern and act on God’s voice. We experience the love, joy, and presence of God with our feelings. Our emotions have an impact on our bodies, our level of holiness, our relationships, and our decisions.The Bible tells us we need to have our “senses trained to discern good and evil” (Hebrews 5:14 NASB). What are we training? Both our natural senses and our spiritual senses.

The first book written by C.S. Lewis after his conversion, The Pilgrim's Regress is, in a sense, a record of Lewis's own search for meaning and spiritual satisfaction that eventually led him to Christianity.

M. Robert Mulholland Jr. defines spiritual formation as "the process of being formed in the image of Christ for the sake of others." Compact and solid, this definition encompasses the dynamics of a vital Christian life and counters our culture's tendency to make spirituality a trivial matter or reduce it to a private affair between "me and Jesus." In Invitation to a Journey, Mulholland helps Christians new and old understand that we become like Christ gradually, not instantly.

A classic work that has the potential of benefiting any true believer in God. Written with a humble heart, Francis De Sales outlines the practical points of living/pursuing the devoted life in a way that is able to be followed by the common man. Holy Scripture is interwoven throughout this piece, providing a sure foundation for us all to stand upon. Catholic and Protestant believers alike should find great insight into the the deeper things of walking with Christ, while partaking in this book.

Just like Superman, followers of Christ have the supernatural ability to conquer the challenges we face. But the problem for both Superman and us is there's a kryptonite that steals our strength. Of course, both Superman and kryptonite are fictional. But spiritual kryptonite is not. This book offers answers to why so many people - and the churches they attend - are unable to experience the divine strength that was evident among the first-century Christians. In Killing Kryptonite, John Bevere reveals what this kryptonite is and how to break free from its bondage.

A Praying Life is an honest look at the difficulties of prayer, unanswered prayers, and successes in prayer. Readers will appreciate Paul Miller's down-to-earth approach and practical nature. Parents will find his family-life experiences especially helpful.

All parents want their daughters to marry godly young men. But which qualities, specifically, should they be looking for? What He Must Be...If He Wants to Marry My Daughter outlines 10 qualities parents should look for in a son-in-law, including trustworthiness, a willingness to lead his family, an understanding of his wife's role, and various spiritual leadership qualities.