Social Ministry

Renew your imagination for what family life can be. Many of us feel overwhelmed about the prospect of raising children in our high-performance, rapid-pace culture. Reflecting on difficulties from our own families of origin can increase our doubt and insecurity about being a good parent. Positive examples of family life can seem few and far between. Mark and Lisa Scandrette understand these challenges, and in Belonging and Becoming they cast a compelling vision of what the family can be.

Depression and addiction run rampant when joy is lacking. And yet most of us are never shown healthy ways to deal with our emotions, to express them well, and to build the joy we need in order to endure the hardships of life. This is precisely what this book intends to do.

Marxists guerillas, right-wing paramilitary, and the Colombian government each have their own agenda. Who would have guessed a meeting of the minds would take place under the helpful auspices of communist Cuba? And that these battle-scarred leaders would give reporters and missionaries the opportunity to challenge some of their core philosophies and even pray with them?

There is a war going on for the future of our country. Most people know that. What they may not know is that if Christians lose, the result won't merely be enduring public policy we disagree with, it will be a prison sentence for those who oppose it. We've all seen the attack coming. First the Supreme Court said kids can't pray in school. Then the Ten Commandments were ripped from the classrooms.

Many people today talk about justice, but are they living justly? They want to change the world, but are they being changed themselves? Eugene Cho has a confession: "I like to talk about changing the world but I don't really like to do what it takes." If this is true of the man who founded the One Day's Wages global antipoverty movement, then what must it take to act on one's ideals? Cho does not doubt the sincerity of those who want to change the world.

The role of women in the Christian Church is the subject of heated debate. In this powerful book Julia Ogilvy interviews twelve of the most notable Christian women of our time, providing a telling and at times shocking analysis of the situation today. The women – from the Dean of York and the Presiding Bishop in America to Helena Kennedy QC and Dr Elaine Storkey – share some of the pain, disappointment and hurt they have experienced and reflect on the impact of a patriarchal Church on the suffering of women across the world.

Strange rumors reached the ears of the people of Jerusalem and the surrounding country. It was reported that a new prophet had appeared in the valley of the lower Jordan, and in the wilderness of Northern Judea, preaching startling doctrines.

As the sun sets on a once-great nation, American Christians face a vital question: What now? It’s evening in America. The remarkable society whose light once shone as a beacon to the world is dimming. This is the sobering assessment of Robert Jeffress in Twilight’s Last Gleaming, yet he brings with that diagnosis a remarkably redemptive and hope-filled prescription for American believers.

Augustine and the Cure of Souls situates Augustine within the ancient philosophical tradition of using words to order emotions. Paul Kolbet uncovers a profound continuity in Augustine's thought, from his earliest prebaptismal writings to his final acts as bishop, revealing a man deeply indebted to the Roman past and yet distinctly Christian. Rather than supplanting his classical learning, Augustine's Christianity reinvigorated precisely those elements of Roman wisdom that he believed were slipping into decadence.

Bestselling author of Papal Sin and Why I Am a Catholic, Garry Wills spent five years as a young man at a Jesuit seminary and nearly became a priest himself. But after a lifetime of study and reflection, he now poses some challenging questions: Why do we need priests at all? Why did the priesthood arise in a religion that began without it and opposed it? Would Christianity be stronger without the priesthood, as it was at its outset?

Pastor Skip Heitzig breaks apart the basic components of today's society and looks at the threats that believers face at every level: personally, family, communally, nationally, and globally. This series focuses on what God's word says about each of these levels of society and how we can best follow God's original plan for our lives, our family, and the rest of the world.

What should a Christian say when confronted with today's burning political questions? How can a person of faith use the Bible as a resource when navigating controversial cultures issues? Skyline Church pastor James L. Garlow presents Well Versed, the ultimate Scripture-based guide for Christians looking for answers, reassurance, and resources on the issues of today. Topics include Israel, social justice, sexual identity, debt, taxes, abortion, bioethics, the role of government, war, Islam, entertainment, and more.

Many believers can relate to the process of exploring the world outside of faith and finding good, seemingly normal human beings who they were raised to view as "others": homosexuals, Muslims, atheists, secularists, liberals, and city people. This universal story, where an individual raised to believe in God has to reconcile their inherited belief with their world, points to every generation's struggle. It seems that Christianity is designed for a beautiful but confounding reconstruction of faith, generation by generation.

Christianity in America is under siege. From litigation over coaches starting games with prayer to expulsion from college for refusing to endorse beliefs at odds with the Christian faith, hardly a week goes by without news of the declining influence that Christianity has in the public square. Can Christianity in this country survive the advances of secularists and remain influential in our culture? And if a new spiritual awakening is possible, what form will it take?

Entering her 40th year, Beverly Donofrio, a "lapsed Catholic," inexplicably begins collecting Virgin Mary memorabilia at yard sales. Soon, immersing herself in a spiritual quest, she makes a pilgrimage to the holy city of Medjugorje. There, she learns that Mary comes into a person’s life only when pride steps out and receives a bonus: hope. In Looking for Mary, Donofrio offers the universal story about a woman who--in a quest for the Blessed Mother--finds herself.

The Good Book collects new pieces by writers from many different faiths and ethnicities, including literary fiction writers (Colm Tóibín, Edwidge Danticat, Tobias Wolff, and Rick Moody); best-selling nonfiction writers (A. J. Jacobs, Ian Frazier, Adam Gopnik, and Thomas Lynch); notable figures in the media (Charles McGrath, Cokie Roberts, and Steven V. Roberts); and social activists (Al Sharpton and Kerry Kennedy).

Revolution answers such questions as the following:? What is the role of the Christian and the church during these tumultuous times? How are we to respond to the racial upheaval happening in our nation? What is the church’s role in healing the divide in our fractured, divided country? Dr. Brown turns up the volume in this call to God’s remnant people to pray, repent, and act according to the teachings of Jesus - who is calling us to holy revolution.

For anyone looking for a practical blueprint for creating an additional stream of home-based income, Double Your Income with Network Marketing is for you. This book offers a fresh look at the home-based business industry, offering an original step-by-step plan for home-business success that includes a detailed look at the network marketing industry. By combining specific, turnkey strategies with inspiring stories of successful home-based entrepreneurs, listeners will move through the author's "success blueprint" learning.

In The Courage to Stand, best-selling and award-winning author Russell Moore calls listeners to a Christ-empowered courage by pointing the way to real freedom from fear - the way of the cross. That way means integrity through brokenness, community through loneliness, power through weakness, and a future through irrelevance. On the other side of fear is freedom: the freedom to stand.

With the United States more divided than at any time since the Civil War, polarization, mistrust, and blame permeate not only the talking points of Washington and the news media, but also most of our conversations and social media feeds. In Peace Talks, pastor and community developer David Drum carefully examines how we got into such a mess, boldly discusses some of Jesus' priorities within both political parties, and provides practical guidance for turning your painful and frustrating conversations into productive and fulfilling ones.