Spiritual Friendship

All ministry leaders need to cultivate healthy and life-giving friendships with peers, and especially with Jesus. Unfortunately, the concept of friendship has been reduced to clicks and “likes” on social media sites that are neither life-giving, nor truly signs of friendship.

We need companions on our spiritual journey. The modern world has taught us to value autonomy and individualism. Our churches often see spirituality as personal and private. But we cannot go long in our Christian pilgrimage before realizing that isolation leads to spiritual barrenness. We soon discover that our souls long for accompaniment, intimacy, and spiritual friendship. As a result, many Christians today are rediscovering the ancient practice of spiritual direction.

In a follow-up to the worldwide best-selling Conversations with God trilogy, Neale Donald Walsch continues his extraordinary dialogue, asking how the wisdom in Conversations with God can be applied to everyday situations and what we can all do to have a working friendship with God.

Author Steve Harrison draws from over fifty years of ministry to share personal lessons learned as well as valuable biblical insights. You will gain a deeper understanding of the cost of friendship along with the power of proximity. You will be challenged to seek Christ’s trust and know the foundation of God’s Kingdom. There is a fellowship of Christ’s followers who have found the treasure buried in the field and the pearl of great price. They have discovered a love and support that does not wane because of a friendship that does not end.

The Bible calls Jesus the friend of sinners, but it's hard to imagine what friendship with Jesus really looks like. We so often don't even know how to do friendship with the people around us, despite all the options we have to connect. So how are we supposed to feel that close to a holy, perfect, and invisible God? How do we see Jesus as the real person he is? And how do we experience true friendship with him when we struggle to maintain true friendship on earth? Join author Jared C. Wilson as he explores what it means to be a friend of Jesus.

Find power in your prayer like never before with this inspiring guide from #1 New York Times bestselling author Bishop T.D. Jakes. In a time when women carry more influence than any other generation, the power of prayer has never been more important to remind us that we do not have to bear our...

The emotion of friendship is among the most mighty and the most mysterious of human instincts. Materialistic philosophers delight in tracing even the most exalted emotions - art, religion, romance - to purely carnal sources, to the instincts of the propagation or sustentation of physical life. And yet, in this single experience at any rate - when we class together, as we can, all those varied relationships between men and men, women and women, as well as between men and women, under the common title of friendship - materialistic philosophy wholly breaks down.

Based upon powerful insights from the scriptural book of Ephesians, and seasoned with personal stories and practical wisdom, Defined challenges you to let the One who knows you best be the One who guides your heart the most. It’s time for all of us to live in the amazing light of His acceptance, abundance, and strength.

This program is read by the author. Merging the insights of inspiring voices with her own understanding of mindfulness, New York Times bestselling author Sharon Salzberg shows us how we can recover from the emotional effects of crisis. When confronted with pain and obstacles, we often shrink...

Women long for deep and lasting friendships but often find them challenging to make. The private angst they feel regarding friendship often translates into their own insecurity and isolation. Christine Hoover offers women a fresh, biblical vision for friendship that allows for the messiness of our lives and the realities of our schedules.

What do we do with our unmet expectations? When life has not turned out the way we imagined? Feeling fragmented and frazzled, many women today are caught in a vicious cycle trying to do too much, hold everything together, manage and control their circumstances, and avoid mistakes at all costs...

In No Greater Love, Rebecca McLaughlin walks us through the highs and lows of friendship love—a love that’s been neglected and malnourished in our modern world. She draws especially on Jesus in the Gospels and on Paul to show how powerful and precious Christian friendship is and how we can walk through the hurt, loss, and disillusionment that comes from broken friendship trust. Beginning with the words of Jesus on the night he was betrayed and abandoned, she points us to his battle-tested love as the unending source of our best love for one another.

Why is the third person in the Godhead - the one Jesus said would be the believer's ultimate source of truth and comfort - the source of such confusion? In The God I Never Knew, Robert Morris clearly explains that the Holy Spirit's chief desire is for relationship - to offer us the encouragement and guidance of a trusted friend. This insightful and biblically-based book moves beyond theological jargon, religious tradition, and cultural misconceptions to clarify what the Holy Spirit promises to do in your life.

For readers of The Wild Edge of Sorrow and Crying in H-Mart--a profound and searching memoir of life, loss, grief, and renewal from one of American Buddhism’s most vital new voices. How do we grieve our losses? How can we care for our spirits? one long listening offers enduring companionship...

In The Minister’s Wife, Karen shines a light on the rhythms and tough realities of the spiritual life for each and every one of us. She explores how community helps us grow; the unexpected beauty of doubt; the messy pain of families and funerals; how church can hurt and heal; and the beauty of showing up when sometimes it is more appealing to go to a coffee shop on a Sunday morning (even when you’re the pastor’s wife).

There's just something about people who are close to God. Through the ups and downs of life, they remain secure, hopeful. If you want a more rewarding spiritual life, if you want the pleasure of knowing your Creator's heart, this soul-lifting book is for you. Learn from Dutch Sheets as he shares his life lessons for cultivating an intimate relationship with God. Each of the 30 short chapters reveals a simple practice or biblical mindset that will help draw you away from the noise of life and into the Lord's peaceful presence.

“River of Fire is Sister Helen’s story leading up to her acclaimed book Dead Man Walking—it is thought-provoking, informative, and inspiring. Read it and it will set your heart ablaze!”—Mark Shriver, author of Pilgrimage: My Search for the Real Pope Francis The nation’s...

Every day, another Millennial becomes an adult. For many young people, the transition is a bumpy one, fraught with opportunities to make mistakes and bad choices. The clear expectations they had at home or in school are gone, and they may feel unprepared to face what comes next. But sometimes we make it harder than it has to be. Combining entertaining stories from his own experience, insights from the Bible, and compelling evidence from research, "JP" Pokluda lays out a roadmap for how to navigate life as an adult.

Mystery and danger are abound in book two of The Inkwell Chronicles, featuring magic Ink, a secret society, and siblings on a quest to protect the world's source of creativity from those who wish to blot it out for good. In book two of The Inkwell Chronicles, Everett and his little sister Bea...

Join Rachel Anne Ridge, author of the beloved memoir Flash, in a journey back to the pasture. As she adopts a second rescue donkey as a little brother for Flash - a miniature named Henry - she finds that walking with donkeys has surprising lessons to teach us about prayer, renewing our faith, and connecting to God in fresh ways.