Thomas Paine said, "These are the times that try men's souls." In the midst of a pandemic, social unrest, natural disasters, and other challenges, we'd like to invite you on a journey of joy. For 21 days, you will be lead to embrace the joy of the Lord as your strength in an effort to create lifelong habits of happiness. Enjoy the journey by rediscovering joy as God's delight in the human heart.-Pastor R. Timothy Jones
Edited by David Platt, Daniel L. Akin, and Tony Merida, this new commentary series, projected to be 48 volumes, takes a Christ- centered approach to expositing each book of the Bible. Rather than a verse-by-verse approach, the authors have crafted chapters that explain and apply key passages in their assigned Bible books. Readers will learn to see Christ in all aspects of Scripture, and they will be encouraged by the devotional nature of each exposition. Projected contributors to the series include notable authors such as Russell D. Moore, Al Mohler, Matt Chandler, Francis Chan, Mark Dever, and others.
Many powerful voices are influencing our grandchildren, from those at home and in their schools to those in the world of entertainment and media. What can you as a grandparent do to speak wisdom and godliness into their lives? Biblical Grandparenting is a full-length leadership book that places grandparenting ministry on a firm scriptural foundation. It is ideal for pastors and church leaders as well as for use in the classroom at seminaries.
Wise singles will shine and lead many to righteousness like the stars forever and ever (Daniel 12:3). God loves each single adult, seeing them as precious, worthy, and complete in Christ. He always has their best interests in mind and holds their earthly and heavenly security within his hands. All single adults, including those never married, divorced, and widowed, will reap satisfaction in life when they unleash their dunamis as God intends, such as when they trust in God, the Lord becomes their everlasting strength (Isaiah 26:4). The blessed assurance of eternally good life is theirs to embrace. God is faithful and true (Revelation 19:11). Nowhere in life is there anything that reaches higher and achieves more than the love and wisdom of Christ. As church leaders reach their potential for God, they can transfer their knowledge and experience to singles so that they can attain the life they were made to live. It will be a privilege and an honor to provide what singles need for unleashing their dunamis. May God bless the church and all wise singles.
In a world where agility, motion, and communication are key, churches and ministry organizations find themselves aching to achieve something meaningful but are mired in the past—trapped in the way things used to be. A Bias Toward Action offers dynamic leaders a new perspective into cultural re-creation that can move these helping organizations out of the paralysis our pews have engendered and into the light of active, gracious, life-sustaining activity. Let A Bias Toward Action inspire you to boldly approach your own call to action. Reach out effectively to bring God’s kingdom to earth as it is in heaven—in your newly re-created ministry setting where everything is fresh and every avenue is a possibility. Give us a call 512) 994-4684
Miriama Young explores the relationship between the human voice and recording technology, offering startling insights into the ways in which recording affects our understanding of the human voice, and more generally, the human body. She discusses a selection of musical works in which the human voice is captured, transformed or synthesized using technology. This book transcends time and musical style to reflect on the larger way in which 'the machine' transforms our comprehension and experience of the human voice. The book is an interdisciplinary enterprise that combines music aesthetics and musical analysis with literature and philosophy.
Preface: "The book is intended to be a source for better understanding the Tabernacle in the wilderness and how God used it and its sacrificial rituals to create the pathway for the believer's salvation in Christ Jesus.
Here John advises us that loving one another is not an option or a suggestion, it is a commandment. John doesn’t want any believer to become like Adam and Eve’s firstborn, Cain. That happened because Cain was under the influence of Satan. This is, therefore, a warning not to mess with the world. So, what if they hate us? We are bound for everlasting life in the presence of God. That’s why death has no power over us. And that’s why, if our thoughts do not tell us that we are guilty, we will not be afraid to come to God. We can pray to God and we can ask Him to help us. He will give us what we ask Him for. That is because we obey His commands and we do the things that please Him. Furthermore, we should all love each other because God makes us able to love other people. Everyone who loves other people confirms our claim to be a child of God. If anyone says clearly that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in that person. And that person lives together with God. We know the kind of love that God has for us. That’s why if we love God, we will not be afraid of Him. So, how do we know that we love God’s children? We know it when we love God and we do what He tells us to do.
This collection of original essays provides a broad overview of regionalism, together with detailed analyses on the construction, activities, and implications of both established and emerging examples of formal political and economic organizations as well as informal regional entities and networks. Aimed at scholars and students interested in the continuing growth of regionalism, The Ashgate Research Companion to Regionalisms is a key resource to understanding the major debates in the field.
Sean McDowell offers a comprehensive, historical analysis of the fate of the twelve disciples of Jesus along with the apostles Paul and James. McDowell assesses the evidence for each apostle’s martyrdom as well as determining its significance to the reliability of their testimony. The willingness of the apostles to die for their faith is a popular argument in resurrection studies and McDowell offers insightful scholarly analysis of this argument to break new ground within the spheres of New Testament studies, Church History and apologetics.
This book demonstrates how and why biblical discipleship has been abandoned by a significant majority of Christian parents and church leaders. A catastrophic failure to fulfill the Great Commission to make disciples who can effectively pass on the Good News, sound doctrine, and a biblical worldview to future generations is the result. The adoption of secular philosophies of education, age segregation, the creation of adolescence, the formation of youth ministry, the adoption of a teen subculture, and a fundamental rejection of practical aspects of the doctrine of sola Scriptura are at the heart of the problem. Warnings from Christians who wrote on this topic over the past 150 years have now become a manifest reality with devastating results. The only way to overcome this discipleship cataclysm is to go back to a biblical philosophy of education both in the home and in the church.
All children must have an opportunity to share the joy of choral music participation - whether in school, church, or community choirs. What happens before the singing begins, is critical to supporting, sustaining, and nurturing choirs to give every child the opportunity to experience the wonder of choral singing. Based on years of experience conducting and teaching, Barbara Tagg brings a wealth of practical information about ways of organizing choirs. From classroom choirs, to mission statements, boards of directors, commissioning, auditioning, and repertoire, Before the Singing will inspire new ways of thinking about how choirs organize their daily tasks. The collaborative community that surrounds a choir includes conductors, music educators, church choir directors, board members, volunteers, staff, administrators, and university students in music education and nonprofit arts management degree programs. For all these, Tagg offers a wealth of knowledge about creating a positive environment to support artistry, creativity, dedication, and a commitment to striving for excellence.
The collection, interpretation and display of art from the People’s Republic of China, and particularly the art of the Cultural Revolution, have been problematic for museums. These objects challenge our perception of ‘Chineseness’ and their style, content and the means of their production question accepted notions of how we perceive art. This book links art history, museology and visual culture studies to examine how museums have attempted to reveal, discuss and resolve some of these issues. Amy Jane Barnes addresses a series of related issues associated with collection and display: how museums deal with difficult and controversial subjects; the role they play in mediating between the object and the audience; the role of the Other in the creation of Self and national identities; the nature, role and function of art in society; the museum as image-maker; the impact of communism (and Maoism) on the cultural history of the twentieth-century; and the appropriation of communist visual iconography. This book will be of interest to researchers and students of museology, visual and cultural studies as well as scholars of Chinese and revolutionary art.
The revised edition of A Theology for the Church retains its original structure, organized under these traditional theological categories: revelation, God, humanity, Christ, the Holy Spirit, salvation, the church, and last things. Each chapter within these sections contains answers to the following four questions: What does the Bible say? What has the church believed? How does it all fit together? How does this doctrine impact the church today? Contributions from leading Baptist thinkers R. Albert Mohler, Jr., Paige Patterson, and Mark Dever among others will also appeal to the broader evangelical community. Included in this revision are new chapters on theological method from a missional perspective (Bruce Ashford and Keith Whitfield) and theology of creation, providence, and Sabbath that engages current research in science and philosophy (Chad Owen Brand). Chapters on special revelation (David Dockery) and human nature (John Hammett) have also been updated.
Multicultural growth in churches has increased significantly over the past few decades. Changing neighborhood demographics, styles of worship, leadership values, and denominational brands are all factors in church congregations becoming more diverse. As a result, many spiritual and sociological dynamics associated with such growth can significantly affect the overall health of any local church. Who Shall Separate Us? explores the divisions within the church that reflect the separation of races and cultures in the United States as a whole. Author Dr. Angelo O. Dart identifies the underlying dynamics of these divisions as racism, bias, discrimination, and prejudice—elements that could certainly act on the development of the knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors between cultures in society. As the church, the Body of Christ has served humankind in both spiritual and social venues. If one of the purposes of the church is to provide the spiritual utility by which values and morals are created, it becomes vitally important for it to exude the kind of spiritual health worthy of emulation by the rest of society.
In this practical handbook for families and churches, Dr. R. Timothy Kearney shows how the healing touch of God can come, frequently through God's people, to children who have experienced sexual abuse.
Drastic changes in lay religiosity during the High Middle Ages spurred anxiety about women forsaking their secular roles as wives and mothers for religious ones as nuns and beguines. This anxiety and the subsequent need to model an ideal of feminine behavior for the laity is particularly expressed in the German versions of Latin and French narratives. Using thirteenth-century penitentials, monastic exempla, and sermons, Karina Marie Ash clarifies how secular wifehood was recast as a quasi-religious role and, in German epics and romances from the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, how female characters are adapted to promote the salvific nature of worldly love in ways that echo the pastoral reevaluation of women at that time. Then she argues that mid and late thirteenth-century German literature not only reflects this impulse to idealize women's roles in lay society but also to promote an alternative model of femininity that deploys ways of privileging secular roles for women over religious ones. These continuously evolving readaptations of female protagonists across cultures and across centuries reflect fictive solutions for real historical concerns about women that not only complement contemporary pastoral and legal reforms but are also unique to medieval German literature.
Is it possible for one person to make a noticeable difference in the life of a child? Through stories, research, and strategies, Dr. John W. Hodge shows how children can be successful despite the risk factors that typically hold them back. Children who overcome usually have one thing in common: the presence of educators, counselors, social workers, community advocates, and family members – people just like you – who can see beyond demographic and social limitations to the unlimited potential that lies within the hearts and minds of all children. This book will clearly explain how the actions of caring adults have been the difference between success and failure for children like the ones you see in your schools every day. As you read, you will gain a fundamental understanding of how the resilience phenomenon works and gain insight into ways you can foster resilience in students. You’ll Learn About: - School Accountability and the Achievement Gap - The Role of Resilience in Overcoming Obstacles - Positive Actions that Can Reduce the Impact of Adversity - The Long-Term Power of Relationships - Developing a Collaborative Action Plan The evidence is overwhelming that one person’s willingness to act can enhance resilience in children to such an extent that they overcome obstacles and eventually thrive. That one person just might be YOU.
Edited by David Platt, Daniel L. Akin, and Tony Merida, this new commentary series, projected to be 48 volumes, takes a Christ-centered approach to expositing each book of the Bible. Rather than a verse-by-verse approach, the authors have crafted chapters that explain and apply key passages in their assigned Bible books. Readers will learn to see Christ in all aspects of Scripture, and they will be encouraged by the devotional nature of each exposition. Exalting Jesus in Mark is written by Daniel L. Akin.
Sharing Friendship represents a post-liberal approach to ecclesiology and theology generated out of the history, practices and traditions of the Anglican Church. Drawing on the theological ethics of Stanley Hauerwas, this book explores the way friendship for the stranger emerges from contextually grounded reflection and converses with contemporary Anglican theologians within the English tradition, including John Milbank, Oliver O’Donovan, Rowan Williams, Daniel Hardy and Anthony Thiselton.
Through an in-depth ethnographic examination of London's 'South Bank', this book explores the value widely presupposed on urban public space. Based on subjective accounts of the value of public space, as well as observations of how the South Bank is used and 'practised' on a daily basis, it argues that this value is not so much inherent to physical public space itself as it is derived through the everyday use and production of that space. Public space is valued not only for its essential material characteristics but also for the productive potential that these characteristics, if properly managed, afford on a daily basis.
Ordinary Christology is defined as the account of who Jesus was/is and what he did/does that is given by Christian believers who have received no formal theological education. In this fascinating study Ann Christie analyses, and offers a theological appraisal, of the main christologies and soteriologies operating in a sample of ordinary churchgoers. Christie highlights the formal characteristics of ordinary Christology and raises questions about how we should respond to the beliefs about Jesus held by ordinary churchgoers. Empirical findings have important pastoral, theological, and missiological implications, and raise important questions about the importance (or otherwise) of 'right' belief for being Christian. This book presents a model for how the study of ordinary theology can be conducted, with the in-depth theological analysis and critique which it both requires and deserves.
No-one doubts that Gustav Mahler's tenure at the Vienna Court Opera from 1897-1907 was made extremely unpleasant by the antisemitic press. The great biographer, Henry-Louis de La Grange, acknowledges that 'it must be said that antisemitism was a permanent feature of Viennese life'. Unfortunately, the focus on blatant references to Jewishness has obscured the extent to which 'ordinary' attitudes about Jewish difference were prevalent and pervasive, yet subtle and covert. The context has been lost wherein such coded references to Jewishness would have been immediately recognized and understood. By painstakingly reconstructing 'the language of antisemitism', Knittel recreates what Mahler's audiences expected, saw, and heard, given the biases and beliefs of turn-of-the-century Vienna. Using newspaper reviews, cartoons and memoirs, Knittel eschews focusing on hostile discussions and overt attacks in themselves, rather revealing how and to what extent authors call attention to Mahler's Jewishness with more subtle language. She specifically examines the reviews of Mahler's Viennese symphonic premieres for their resonance with that language as codified by Richard Wagner, though not invented by him. An entire chapter is also devoted to the Viennese premieres of Richard Strauss's tone poems, as a proof text against which the reviews of Mahler can also be read and understood. Accepting how deeply embedded this way of thinking was, not just for critics but for the general population, certainly does not imply that one can find antisemitism under every stone. What Knittel suggests, ultimately, is that much of early criticism was unease rather than 'objective' reactions to Mahler's music - a new perspective that allows for a re-evaluation of what makes his music unique, thought-provoking and valuable.
War is traditionally considered a male experience. By extension, the genre of war literature is a male-dominated field, and the tale of the battlefield remains the privileged (and only canonised) war story. In Australia, although women have written extensively about their wartime experiences, their voices have been distinctively silenced. Shooting Blanks at the Anzac Legend calls for a re-definition of war literature to include the numerous voices of women writers, and further recommends a re-reading of Australian national literatures, with women’s war writing foregrounded, to break the hold of a male-dominated literary tradition and pass on a vital, but unexplored, women’s tradition. Shooting Blanks at the Anzac Legend examines the rich body of World Wars I and II and Vietnam War literature by Australian women, providing the critical attention and treatment that they deserve. Donna Coates records the reaction of Australian women writers to these conflicts, illuminating the complex role of gender in the interpretation of war and in the cultural history of twentieth-century Australia. By visiting an astonishing number of unfamiliar, non-canonical texts, Shooting Blanks at the Anzac Legend profoundly alters our understanding of how Australian women writers have interpreted war, especially in a nation where the experience of colonising a frontier has spawned enduring myths of identity and statehood.
Most voters during the 2016 presidential election were largely unaware of Trump’s forty-year history as a skilled con man but an incompetent failure otherwise. In anticipation of the 2020 election, this book describes Trump’s public life from his mob connections in the early 1980s through his first two stumbling years in the White House. It documents Trump’s inescapable history of ignorance, self-absorption, poor judgment, corruption, impulsive decision-making, bigotry, and strong authoritarian instincts. Taken together, all guaranteed a disastrous presidency. His first two years in the White House fulfilled this guarantee, threatening America’s constitutional democracy.
Putting the latest theoretical thinking into empirical use, the author assesses how the function of the state and its citizens changed during the Paris Commune and Franco-Prussian War.
In the book “Nurture” Dr. Mattie demonstrated how the social, emotional, and cognitive development of children are connected and how by creating nurturing environments children will thrive now and into adulthood. e second edition of the book Nurture allowed her to research and take a deep look into nurturing for traumatized children and what the lack of nurturing relationships and environment has on the type of adult they become. It reveals the urgency for the use of the nurturing approach to trauma for all children and adults.
This book provides a conceptual framework for visualizing and institutionalizing the thinking, communications, and behaviors needed to maximize business enterprise and human potential. It explores a multi-phase strategy for enlisting and engaging organizational stakeholders in a learning journey to create a high performance organization. High performance organizations learn and adapt with customer demand, grow with marketplace competition, and retain marketplace relevancy over time. By utilizing a multi-phase strategy of Recognition, Reinvention, Reinforcement, Repetition, and Renewal, managers can transform base level or underperforming organizations into high performing organizations: organizations that create value and maximize business and human potential faster than their competition.
While honoring the historical context and literary diversity of the Old Testament, Telling the Old Testament Story is a thematic reading that construes the OT as a complex but coherent narrative. Unlike standard, introductory textbooks that only cover basic background and interpretive issues for each Old Testament book, this introduction combines a thematic approach with careful exegetical attention to representative biblical texts, ultimately telling the macro-level story, while drawing out the multiple nuances present within different texts and traditions. The book works from the Protestant canonical arrangement of the Old Testament, which understands the story of the Old Testament as the story of God and God’s relationship with all creation in love and redemption—a story that joins the New Testament to the Old. Within this broader story, the Old Testament presents the specific story of God and God’s relationship with Israel as the people called, created, and formed to be God’s covenant partner and instrument within creation. The Old Testament begins by introducing God’s mission in Genesis. The story opens with the portrait of God’s good, intended creation of right-relationships (Gen 1—2) and the subsequent distortion of that good creation as a result of humanity’s rebellion (Gen 3—11). Genesis 12 and following introduce God’s commitment to restore creation back to the right-relationships and divine intentions with which it began. Coming out of God’s new covenant engagement with creation in Gen 9, this divine purpose begins with the calling of a people (who turn out to be the manifold descendants of Abraham and Sarah) to be God’s instrument of blessing for all creation and thus to reverse the curse brought on by sin. The diverse traditions that comprise the remainder of the Pentateuch then combine to portray the creation and formation of Israel as a people prepared to be God’s instrument of restoration and blessing. As the subsequent Old Testament books portray Israel’s life in the land and journey into and out of exile, the reader encounters complex perspectives on Israel’s attempts to understand who God is, who they are as God’s people, and how, therefore, they ought to live out their identity as God’s people within God’s mission in the world. The final prophetic books that conclude the Protestant Old Testament ultimately give the story of God’s mission and people an open-ended quality, suggesting that God’s mission for God’s people continues and leading Christian readers to consider the New Testament’s story of the Church as an extension and expansion of the broader story of God introduced in the Old Testament. The main methodological perspective that informs the book includes work on the phenomenological function of narrative (especially story’s function to shape the identity and practice of the reader), as well as more recent so-called “missional” approaches to reading Christian scripture. Canonical criticism provides the primary means for relating the distinctive voices within the Old Testament texts that still honor the particularity and diversity of the discrete compositions. Accessibly written, this book invites readers to enter imaginatively into the biblical story and find the Old Testament's lively and enduring implications.
This curriculum manual is the culmination of a yearlong exercise in the form of workshops, symposia and seminars by young scholars from South Asia, South East Asia, Middle East and the Horn of Africa, organized by United Nations Mandated University for Peace at Costa Rica. The curriculum titled "An Introduction to Environmental Security and Peace" covers the various aspects and nuances of Peace and Conflict Studies with special reference to Environmental Security, Environmental Conflict and Environmental Peace Building. The curriculum explains in details the various sub-themes of the discipline, the methodology to be adopted in teaching the subject and lesson plan along with an exhaustive bibliography of each session is given for the reader. It is a handy and ready reference book for those who want to be introduced to the arena of Environmental Security and Peace building.
Drawing on many avenues of inquiry: archaeological excavations, surveys, laboratory work, highly specialized scientific investigations, and on both historical and ethnohistorical records; Ancient Civilizations, 3/e provides a comprehensive and straightforward account of the world’s first civilizations and a brief summary of the way in which they were discovered.
What should I do with my life? Whether you're just starting out on your journey or you've found yourself at a crossroads and feel the need to change direction, each of us wants to know what our purpose is on this earth. We want our work and our lives to have meaning and impact far beyond our immediate context. But how do you know what you were meant to do? And once you know . . . then what? Based solidly in the most up-to-date Barna research, You on Purpose offers you a clear and simple 4-step process for discovering and carrying out your calling with confidence: Define: set your intention for what you want to achieve Discover: dig deep into who and where you are Decide: narrow your choices and zero in on your calling Do: start acting on your calling, one step at a time Each chapter dismantles a common myth about calling, replacing it with truth born from solid, current research. If you long to discover your unique place in the world, this book will help you catch that vision and make a plan to pursue it.
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