Perhaps no one knows how to touch the hearts and minds of young people as writer and radio broadcaster Jim Burns. These fifty fresh devotional readings cover many of the major issues of life and faith that students wrestle with today. Sexual purity, the pressure to compromise, family relationships, trusting God, servanthood, worry, fatigue, and daily surrender are just a few of the topics Burns explores. Scripture and personal application questions are integrated throughout, while historical and contemporary stories, quotes, profiles of courage, and even illustrations from children's literature help students relate these concepts to their lives. Youth leaders and parents will find this a tremendous resource for teaching, while young adults will enjoy the book for use in their personal quiet time.
After hearing the words no one wants to hear--"you have cancer"--Jim Burns set out to articulate the most important principles for a life well lived and now shares them with you as a collection of essential truths for a healthy, balanced, and successful life. What's truly important for leading a life well lived? After being diagnosed with cancer and facing his mortality, prolific author and family-life expert Jim Burns learned what it really means to live a meaningful life from the perspective and practical wisdom only gained from facing death. Now cancer free, those same life-changing lessons continue to guide and enrich Jim's faith, work, and relationships in immeasurable ways. With his conversational style and heartwarming and entertaining stories, Jim brilliantly distills that hard-earned wisdom into 13 simple yet powerful life principles you can put into practice today. Jim will help you learn how to: Break the cycle of being overcommitted and underconnected once and for all Make family the priority you want it to be with an action plan that will nurture your closest relationships Embrace the discomfort of discipline and avoid the pain of regret Incorporate the vital element of fun in your life for connection and relief in even the toughest times Train your mind in reflexive gratitude to rise above negative circumstances. Don't wait any longer. Let these principles guide you into deeper joy, more purpose, and better connection--and start truly living today.
Where is your life headed? How are you spending your time? Want to really change your life? For students who don't know how, or whose time seems to be absorbed by MySpace, text messaging, and hanging out at the mall, bestselling author Jim Burns challenges students to create one of the most important habits of life in fifty days--spending daily time with God. This exciting devotional is filled with inspiring stories that will challenge students to adopt an attitude of thankfulness, spread their love around, make the most of today, find hope in the midst of hassles, never settle for mediocrity, and much more. And in fifty days, they will have read fifty Scriptures and been challenged to go deeper in their relationship with God. Burns tackles real-life issues in a readable format that will give more purpose to lives on autopilot, awaken the dreams of those who have given up, and encourage all who long to get closer to the God who loves them.
Jim Burns has put together an outstanding devotional for teens that speaks to the major issues touching every Christian's faith. These 40 daily readings incorporate quotes and illustrations from classic children's literature, biographies, personal stories and notable historical events to convey eternally significant themes and help teens to relate these concepts to their own lives. Perfect for teens, young adults, lay leaders, pastors and families. In addition, this book is a tremendous resource for teaching todays teens!
Be the Parent Your Family Needs If we are truly honest, most of us don't really know what we're doing as parents. We have good intentions, but daily frustrations and ongoing struggles might be evidence that we were better prepared to drive a car or pursue our career than raise children. To counter the usual trial-and-error method of parenting, Jim Burns offers time-tested advice and strategies for today's busy families. Infused with his signature candidness and practicality, each chapter explores a different aspect of parenting--from breaking generational chains of dysfunction and creating a warm atmosphere at home to handling discipline issues and blessing your children with a legacy of faith. Helpful follow-up exercises and questions along the way reinforce the basics of good parenting and provide a foundation for developing your own family plan. You won't find any quick fixes here, but you will learn how to make a positive difference in your family.
Most Christian parents know that the best way to leave a God-honoring legacy to their family is to nurture their children's faith...but many don't know where to start! This new resource from Jim Burns, founder of HomeWord, will equip parents to start important conversations with their kids- family time with an eternal impact. Faith Conversations for Families makes it easy to invite God into quality family time. Each section of the book outlines an easy-to-follow dialog, which is flexible for children of different age groups. In addition, suggested activities and exercises make spiritual formation adaptable for kids with varying learning styles. The six family friendly topics included in this book are: *Who is Jesus and Why it Matters- Help parents talk with their kids about why His life, death and resurrection are so important. *What Prayer Is All About- Parents can introduce vibrant conversation with God into their family's time together *What It Means to Be Christian- Parents can lead their kids toward a faith commitment and spiritual growth, through open communication and exciting biblical expression. *A Strong Family- Parents can teach, guide and strengthen healthy bonds within the family *Loving and Serving Others- Parents can talk with their children about servant leadership and self-sacrifice and be challenged to serve in and outside of their home *Building Morals and Values- Parents can help their kids discern and navigate cultural influences that run contrary to a biblical worldview In the heart of every Christian parent is a desire to help their children grow spiritually. Faith Conversations for Families helps parents make that desire a beautiful reality.
Most Christian parents know that the best way to leave a God-honoring legacy to their family is to nurture their children's faith . . . but many don't know where to start! This new resource from Jim Burns, founder of HomeWord, will equip parents to start important conversations with their kids--family time with an eternal impact. Faith Conversations for Families makes it easy to invite God into quality family time. Each section outlines an easy-to-follow dialogue, which is flexible for children of different age groups. In addition, suggested activities and exercises make spiritual formation adaptable for kids with varying learning styles. The six family-friendly topics included in this book are: Who Is Jesus and Why It Matters: Help parents talk with their kids about why His life, death, and resurrection are so important. What Prayer Is All About: Parents can introduce vibrant conversation with God into their family's time together. What It Means to Be Christian: Parents can lead their kids toward a faith commitment and spiritual growth, through open communication and exciting biblical expression. A Strong Family: Parents can teach, guide, and strengthen healthy bonds within the family. Loving and Serving Others: Parents can talk with their children about servant leadership and self-sacrifice and be challenged to serve in and outside of their home. Building Morals and Values: Parents can help their kids discern and navigate cultural influences that run contrary to a biblical worldview. In the heart of every Christian parent is a desire to help their children grow spiritually. Faith Conversations for Families helps parents make that desire a beautiful reality.
Are you struggling to connect with your child now that they've left the nest? Are you feeling the tension and heartache as your relationship dynamic begins to change? In Doing Life with Your Adult Children, bestselling author and parenting expert Jim Burns provides practical advice and hopeful encouragement for navigating this tough yet rewarding transition. If you've raised a child, you know that parenting doesn't stop when they turn eighteen. In many ways, your relationship gets even more complicated--your heart and your head are as involved as ever, but you can feel things shifting, whether your child lives under your roof or rarely stays in contact. Doing Life with Your Adult Children helps you navigate this rich and challenging season of parenting. Speaking from his own personal and professional experience, Burns offers practical answers to the most common questions he's received over the years, including: My child's choices are breaking my heart--where did I go wrong? Is it OK to give advice to my grown child? What's the difference between enabling and helping? What boundaries should I have if my child moves back home? What do I do when my child doesn't seem to be maturing into adulthood? How do I relate to my grown child's significant other? What does it mean to have healthy financial boundaries? How can I support my grown children when I don't support their values? Including positive principles on bringing kids back to faith, ideas on how to leave a legacy as a grandparent, and encouragement for every changing season, Doing Life with Your Adult Children is a unique book on your changing role in a calling that never ends.
Personal problems loom in the lives of teens and appear to them to be bigger and more threatening than the gigantic crocodiles that lurk in Florida's Everglades. Here, popular author and youth leader Jim Burns sensitively takes up their concerns and offers sound, biblically based advice. Topics include eating disorders, broken families, physical abuse, loneliness, low self-esteem, boredom, stress, unbelief, and much more.
You Don't Have to Be a Perfect Parent. Do you every worry that you're just not getting the parenting thing right? This truthful and enlightening book from one Christian parent to another is filled with encouragement and time-tested techniques for anyone who wants to ensure the health and happiness of their own family. Jim Burns will be the first to tell you that no family is perfect-including his own. The 10 Building Blocks for a Happy Family emphasizes the heartening news that most parents do a good job of parenting but just don't know it. Here you'll find many personal stories from interviews with parents and experts on family relationships covering almost every aspect of parenting. TRIM SIZE: 5.5 X 8.5
Healthy families are becoming an endangered species in today’s culture, and healthy families with happy, healthy teens are an even rarer commodity. So how can youth ministers help the teens in their group relate well with their parents and siblings? Youth ministry veteran Jim Burns has developed Parents and Family to equip leaders with the tools they need to guide the discussion. Using these action-packed, fun activities and indispensable tips for starting crucial dialogue, youth pastors will have their teens talking in no time. The book includes a link to download student handouts for every session.
When the kids are gone, you can discover a richer, deeper, and more fulfilling life than you ever imagined! Whether you've been looking forward to it or dreading it, the experience of coming home to an empty nest brings with it a well of emotions, realizations, and one gigantic, all-consuming thought: Now what? In Finding Joy in the Empty Nest, Jim Burns combines his personal experiences with his expertise as a family educator to help you navigate your new life as an empty nester and find joy in this new season of life. Rather than offering shallow suggestions of hobbies you should take up, Burns encourages you to actively pursue a fresh start, reinvent yourself, and thrive. Backed by extensive research and filled with interviews with fellow empty nesters, this book equips you with practical advice and timeless principles, teaching you how to: Change the relationship you once had with your children for the better Face big issues--including aging parents, finances, and kids returning home--with confidence Rekindle your fire and purpose to live with passion day by day Amid Burns' wealth of know-how, you'll uncover what may be the most important takeaway of all: the best is yet to come. Praise for Finding Joy in the Empty Nest: "Jim Burns is smart, witty, grounded, and immeasurably practical. Whether you're getting close to the second half of marriage or are in the thick of it, you won't want to miss out on this fantastic book." --Drs. Les and Leslie Parrott, bestselling authors of Saving Your Marriage Before It Starts
Jim Burns continues his critical history of off-beat writers, artists and jazz musicians of the last century. This is volume 4 of his acclaimed series of essays.
The Love Dare challenged individuals to love their spouse more. Closer shows wives and husbands how to grow that love together. Introduced with Scripture verses and engaging stories, these 52 devotionals will inspire couples to draw closer through faith conversations--those quiet talks so vital for emotional and spiritual intimacy in a marriage. Guided, practical action steps round out each reading. Closer, with its flexible weekly format, is an appealing alternative to a daily devotional.
Teens have a reputation for being self-absorbed and “all-about-me,” but most of them care deeply about God and others and just wish they knew how to show it. With Sharing Your Faith and Serving Others Uncommon High School Group Study, you can equip the students in your group to make a difference in the world by seeing others as Jesus sees them. Teens will learn how to use their gifts in service to others, how to lead their peers with gentleness and compassion, and how to share their faith by being an encouraging, generous friend. These 12 sessions of youth-friendly Bible study are the newest edition to the Uncommon curriculum series created by veteran youth minister Jim Burns. Action-packed, fun activities and insightful discussion outlines will get your teens thinking about the Great Commission and the Great Commandment, and talking about how they can follow Jesus in love and obedience. Inside the book you'll find a special download link for additional reproducible student handouts and options for every session to tailor each study to your group's unique needs.
Provide a solid foundation for teens with The Christian Life high school Bible study. Part of the exciting new Uncommon youth resource line, this straightforward presentation of the Gospel will help young people discover for themselves what it means to be a follower of Christ and how they can walk in God's love and forgiveness. The three four-week modules examine one of the most critical parts of a young person's life, their faith. Teens will discover the basics of the Christian life, starting with God's love, how to set a strong foundation and understanding God's will for their lives. The Christian Life DVD is available for session starters.
Today’s teens deal with stresses that most of us never imagined when we were in high school: teen depression, suicide, AIDS and other STDs, pornography at the click of a mouse. Many teenagers feel stressed out and helpless in the face of such issues. So how can youth leaders help teens in their group develop the coping skills and strength of heart to deal with the crises that arise in their lives? Youth-ministry veteran Jim Burns has developed Uncommon: Dealing with Stress & Crisis to equip leaders with the tools they need to start effective conversations and build a supportive peer community. Using the Bible as a foundation, this study provides leaders with indispensable tips for guiding dialog to get their teens talking, thinking and praying. Includes downloadable, reproducible handouts to make planning interactive Bible studies a snap.
This seventh collection of essays and reviews kicks off with a survey of some overlooked British poets from the 1940s who, through a network of little magazines with anarchist inclinations, attempted to offer an alternative to the MacSpaunDay generation's sensibilities. Another piece considers how British writers were monitored by MI5 and local police forces, while a third switches attention to the USA and looks at the still-controversial case of Alger Hiss and his alleged role as a spy who passed information to Russia. There are essays about lesser-known Beat-related writers like Bob Kaufman and Brion Gysin, inspections of some little magazines of the 1950s and 1960s, and two long reviews which consider the effect that Dadaism had and the role played in the movement by Tristan Tzara. Walt Whitman, Woody Guthrie, and Malcolm Cowley also make an appearance.
It's Not Too Late to Find Intimacy and Fulfillment Don't settle for mediocre when it comes to satisfaction in marriage--pull out all the stops and discover the joy of true intimacy! This book will help you take back the life you dreamed of when you said your vows and experience the joys of an awe-filled marriage. Jim Burns' honest and vulnerable writing coupled with practical advice will inspire you to reconnect with the most important person in your life: your spouse.
In recent years, movie goers have been taken back to the beginnings of nearly every modern action hero - Batman, Spider-Man, James Bond and Iron Man (and company), just to name a few. Our fascination with these heroes' origins are a reflection of our longing to know where we came from and why we are the way we are. With The Old Testament, you can share with teens their own origin story and help them make sense of their world and themselves. These 12 sessions of youth-friendly Bible study will introduce your students to the God who keeps His promises, works miracles and forgives His people when they make terrible choices, and help them understand the physical and spiritual history of our human family. And when they meet Adam and Eve, Samuel, Job, Esther, Daniel and many more biblical characters, your students will get to know the real heroes of the faith. Downloads for reproducible student handouts for every session are available.
Pulling off a successful wedding is one thing but fortifying a lifelong relationship is an entirely different endeavor. Relationship experts Jim Burns and Doug Fields invite couples to take a proactive approach to their marriage union—one that doesn’t shy away from sticky areas and tough topics—in order to develop a solid course from the very beginning. Jim and Doug apply decades of frontline experience working with couples into this fresh and practical resource. Organized in nine highly relevant sessions, each centered on key biblical and relational touchstones, Burns and Fields equip participants to confront big issues including communication, finances, spirituality, and intimacy—prior to their wedding day. Great as a stand-alone resource or partnered with the Getting Ready for Marriage: A Practical Road Map for Your Journey Together book and companion video package.
This honest and enlightening book from one Christian parent to another is filled with encouragement and time-tested techniques for anyone who wants to ensure the health and happiness of their own family. Jim Burns will be the first to tell you that no family is perfect--including his own--and in 10 Building Blocks for a Strong Family, he emphasizes the heartening news that most parents do a good job of parenting but just don't know it. Here parents will find personal stories from interviews with parents and experts on family relationships, covering almost every aspect of parenting--from helping children deal with stress to learning to play together as a family. When readers learn the ten essential principles for creating a strong, close-knit household, they'll discover a family that shines with love for God and one another!
Jim Burns' Arizona Birds is a portrayal of the habits and habitats of seventy-five of these unique southwestern species. Birdwatchers new to the game will find a wealth of knowledge on and insight into some familiar favorites, as well as all idea of what it takes to accomplish more uncommon sightings. Veteran birders will appreciate Burns' unique incorporation of natural history and other details beyond the usual taxonomic data and will enjoy reminders of their own triumphs and heartbreaks in his colorful personal accounts of vehicular breakdowns, photographic faux pas, and egregious identification errors in the field.
Teens love to reach out and help others in need. Some just do not know it yet! Uncommon Missions & Service Projects, part of a series of resources and group studies developed by youth ministry veteran Jim Burns, will help youth leaders prepare their group to discover the joy of serving God while serving others. This comprehensive resource has everything leaders need to prepare, organize and execute successful service projects and mission trips, giving teens life changing opportunities to put their faith into action. Included are more than 25 practical projects for groups of any size; Bible study suggestions on the topics of mission and service; sample letters, forms, checklists, itineraries and job descriptions; a short-term missions handbook with step-by-step directions for planning trips and much more. Now leaders can inspire in their teens a hunger for God and an appetite for loving their neighbors, at home and around the world! Includes CD-ROM with reproducible resources.
Perhaps no one knows how to touch the hearts and minds of young people as writer and radio broadcaster Jim Burns. These 50 fresh devotional readings cover many of the major issues of life and faith students wrestle with today. Sexual purity, the pressure
Thank you for visiting our website. Would you like to provide feedback on how we could improve your experience?
This site does not use any third party cookies with one exception — it uses cookies from Google to deliver its services and to analyze traffic.Learn More.