Religion Community

How do we connect the gospel message to the epidemic of shame in western culture? Trevor explores why our culture is now more shame based, and reflects on how the gospel message can make sense in this new reality. He unpacks what this means for the way we form our contemporary Christian communities while asking questions about their language, shape, style, and leadership.

Community. It's a word we often hear, but what does it really mean? And why is it so important to your spiritual life? Because you can’t grow spiritually unless you’re connected relationally. God designed us that way. He wants to use other people to grow us and he wants to use us to grow other people. In this 8-session audio Bible study, specifically designed for launching new small groups well, you’ll explore how building deep relationships with the people in your small group and serving in the larger community around you will grow your faith.

Bill Willits and best-selling author Andy Stanley share their successful approach, which has resulted in nearly 8,000 adults becoming involved in small groups at North Point Community Church in Atlanta . Simply put, the five principles clearly described here have passed the test. This is not just another book about community; this is a book about strategy - strategy that builds a small group culture.

In The Purpose Gap, Patrick Reyes reflects on a family member's death after a long struggle with incarceration and homelessness. As he asks himself why his cousin's life had turned out so differently from his own, he realizes that it was a matter of conditions. While they both grew up in the same marginalized Chicano community in central California, Patrick found himself surrounded by a host of family, friends, and supporters. They created a different narrative for him than the one the rest of the world had succeeded in imposing on his cousin.

When it comes to Christ-centered recovery, we, the church, have work to do. Our legalistic, box-checking, one-size-fits-all programs produce astonishingly high failure rates—which means far too many people are left to fight addiction, mental health problems, and suicidal thoughts on their own. The goal of The Uncovery is to help the church—and the world—see recovery through a grace-laced, gospel lens. Every single one of us has some trauma or issue from our past that may still be affecting our life today. This book offers listeners nudge to go deeper in the recovery space.

Emerging generations in the West are more diverse than ever—ethnically, socioeconomically, educationally, and politically. And as church attendance among younger generations declines rapidly, research shows that one of their primary sticking points is the lack of diversity in most churches. In Church for Everyone, pastors Dan Kreiss and Efrem Smith address this phenomenon head-on. In this research-based and theologically informed book, they explore the younger generations' expectations and disappointments with church and hold out a vision for true diversity taken from the pages of Scripture.

With all the hostility boiling just under the surface of our world, we need a renewed vision of Jesus as the Lamb of God who can lead us in the peaceable ways of the Kingdom. When we fail to keep Jesus at the center of our lives, we lean into the desires of our hearts more than the desires God has for us. As a result, our entire spirituality becomes driven by the self and for the self. We need renewed practices of centering Jesus in our hearts and minds. Derek Vreeland invites you to imagine what it looks like to keep Jesus as the Lamb of God at the center of three key areas of our lives.

​In times of isolation, heartbreak, and brokenness, reaching out to each other, being in conversation, finding ways to connect with compassion and openness can help us heal and thrive. This powerful, positive guide coaxes us to go beyond our individual and collective grief and courageously re-enter and reclaim our sense of community—which then further strengthens our spiritual practice.

In Slow Down, Show Up and Pray, Ruth Rice tells the story of the Renew Wellbeing charity, and offers practical resources to maintain our own mental health and support those around us. How can we renew wellbeing in our own lives and in our local communities? Looking after our mental health has never been so important. Many of us want to find simple ways to help our wellbeing that we can fit into our everyday life.

Indispensable Church provides you and your church real-world, hands-on steps to create a revolution of service to your local community in the name of Christ. By exploring the life of Jesus and the strategic ways he modeled serving the people around him, pastor Chris Sonksen shows you how to put love into action in your neighborhood and your city. The step-by-step instructions, biblical challenges, and teaching resources will help you take love to the streets and make an impact right where you live.

In Build Neighbors, Jimmy tells his story of discovering a life of community. What began as a simple effort to serve people in need led to relationships that not only changed his perspective of others, but also challenged his own inner brokenness. This collection of story-based lessons is aimed at helping anyone who wants to live more fully in community with friends and neighbors. Relational serving focuses on meeting physical needs but also sharing the love God holds for us.

This is the turbulent story of Naomi Parker, a courageous young woman who valiantly overcomes a series of devastating life experiences. She harbors a looming secret that dominates her thinking and negatively impacts her decision making. It infects her ability to process information and is compounded by a learning disability.

Greg Books reveals time-honored principles to help us experience stronger, more satisfying relationships in our families, friendships, and faith communities. To experience stronger, more satisfying relationships with our friends, our families, and our faith communities, it's time to get back to our roots. Greg Books shows us the way.

Have you ever felt like life was finally going well, when suddenly life decides to throw you a curve ball? Life will knock you down when you least expect it. The important thing is not how or why we got knocked down, the important thing is how will we respond? In her early 40's, Nadine found herself to be a newly successful entrepreneur...and simultaneously...the mother of a heroin addict. She used this situation to create an out-of- the-box therapeutic travel recovery project which later evolved into establishing a nonprofit serving those choosing to live a lifestyle of recovery.

Thomas H. York explores Christian deconstruction in its intellectual, ethical, political and interpersonal dimensions, to help pastors and leaders understand the mindset of those reexamining faith in the 21st century context. Reflections on U.S. history connect these issues to major 19th and 20th century movements of moral reform including the abolitionist movement and the civil rights movement.

First-century Christians knew what it meant to live in vital community with one another, relating with a depth and commitment that made "the body of Christ" a perfect metaphor for the church. What would it take to reclaim that kind of love, joy, support, and dynamic spiritual growth? Listen to this book and find out.

In the Bible, God set Ezekiel down in the middle of a valley full of bones. If reviewed on a travel website, that valley wouldn’t get more than a single star. But many of us don’t stop at a visit. We pitch a tent and buy a tract of that desolate land for ourselves—before passing it on to our children and grandchildren. Generations become mired in the valley of dry bones.

The Rule of St. Benedict arose from an era when a great civilization was threatened by violence, economic forces that favored the wealthy, political leaders that lacked the trust of the public, and rampant xenophobia. In How to Live, Judith Valente explores the key elements of the rule and clearly demonstrates how incorporating this ancient wisdom can change the quality and texture of our lives offering a way forward from the divisions gripping our country.

A Christianity Today survey identified the most common self-described leadership weaknesses to be in strategizing, visioning, and entrepreneurial skills. But there is a tension that exists between dreaming, vision-casting, and being able to actually pull it off. What is from God, what is from our own imaginations, how do we recognize the difference, and then what do we do with it? In Pastorpreneur, pastor and speaker John Jackson equips pastors to employ businesslike strategic planning and innovation skills to enhance their congregational leadership.

When Lynda MacGibbon moved from a small city in eastern Canada to a high-rise apartment in Toronto, she decided to follow Jesus' famous commandment to "love your neighbor" a bit more literally. In the past, she would have looked first for friends at her new job or her new church. This time, though, she decided to look for friends among the strangers who shared her apartment building - her actual neighbors in her new "vertical neighborhood".