What happens when the storm does not pass? When the pain does not stop? When the prodigal does not return? When our sins continue to taunt us? When we make the same mistakes and break the same hearts again and again? When the chasm between what we do and what God intends widens until we can't even see the other side? In six very special encounters recorded in the Gospels, Jesus addressed the too much and the too late scenarios of our lives. Pastor, teacher and author Shane Stanford brings these meetings vividly to life, offering a glimpse of Jesus' passion for restoring the unrestorable and redeeming the unredeemable. As a hemophiliac who lives with HIV and hepatitis-C, Stanford has deeply and personally experienced the too much and the too late of life, and recognizes his own story in these six appointments with Jesus. In When God Disappears, he helps us to do the same: to see ourselves in these messy, all too-human Jesus encounters and to experience the grace and hope of a God who has not forgotten us.
In a world of fast-paced schedules and priorities, conversations about what makes for a life well lived are a rarity and a luxury. But what if the daily pace of life held in itself the way to make choices more significant? What if the daily to-do lists gave a glimpse into how people might change their future? What if the daily grind, as arduous as it might seem, held the key to a life full of meaning and potential? What if everyday, simple steps, instead of some complex list of seemingly unattainable principles, showed how to make life matter? Making Life Matter answers these questions and shows that the steps for making life matter are found in rather ordinary decisions, attitudes, and patterns found in normal routines. This book is about our story and our journey, and what we do and feel along the way.
Awaken the imagination to what is possible when people of faith respond to God's call. We've forgotten that the key to being healthy is realizing we're not on the path alone. When we're not well, it affects the entire system in which we live and work and play. When we grasp our shared humanity rather than resisting it, the mirror becomes less dim, and we begin to cast light on questions of health and healthcare. Wholeness and wellness are necessities for the kind of world we want to create, a world that regards individuals with worth and dignity because God regards them that way. Bound up in our shared humanity is our shared pilgrimage of health and faith. In community, both in body and spirit, we journey together toward the heart of God.
The real need for our world is not that we do EVERYONE'S part; just that we do OUR part. And with all of us working together, we will transform the world. Shane Stanford says: “On my office wall is a picture of a small child who lives in a remote village in sub-Saharan Africa. She is an orphan, having lost most of her family to the HIV/AIDS crisis. Each day, the little girl eats only half of her meager lunch. She takes the other half and puts it into her travel sack, so that she can take the leftovers to her dying aunt. The world might look at this child and assess that her little life has little to offer. But don’t tell the child’s aunt. Without this child’s sacrifice and maturity, her aunt would have no food and would die. In spite of this child not being able to do much for her dying aunt, she does something, every day. The real need for our world is not that we do every part; it’s that we just do our part. And working together to do that something God calls us to do--all of us working together--we will transform this world.” Read an interview with Shane
What causes some people—in spite of incredible challenges—to be more alive and content than others? When Shane Stanford discovered he was HIV positive at the age of sixteen, he knew he had a choice: he could feel sorry for himself, or he could live as passionately and boldly as possible. Now, more than twenty years later, Stanford speaks nationwide about what it means to turn a positive diagnosis—or any difficult circumstance—into an opportunity for positive living. If you want to appreciate life to the fullest, this A Positive Life Ebook reveals nine basic yet powerful lessons for living well. What does it mean to be satisfied with never being satisfied? Why is simplicity a key to finding joy? Most importantly, what does it look like to live, laugh, and love in community as Jesus did—with dirty hands and feet and a love of adventure? Stanford reminds you that even struggles offer glimpses of grace. Choosing how to live out that grace is the key to making life matter—and to being more alive than ever before.
More than any other part of his ministry, Jesus’ prayers inform and engage his intentions for how the gospel would change lives and affect the world. When we take time to review the moments when Jesus prayed with his disciples or went away to pray alone, we engage both a story and a set of lessons. Jesus doesn’t just pray as a means to be with the Father; he uses prayer as an instructional. Discover Jesus’ own hopes and desires when he prayed for us to Have a relationship with the Father Be shaped by God’s wisdom and guidance Be united with one another Bring glory to God Have consistency in our spiritual life What the Prayers of Jesus Tell Us About the Heart of God refines our understanding of Jesus’ plans for his disciples (both in that first century and for every century to follow). By witnessing even the most intimate moments between the Father and the Son, we can learn something about the big plan God has for our lives.
A breast-cancer survivor and an HIV-positive pastor share their experiences of hopelessness and how compassion, understanding, response, and encouragement helped them overcome their difficult situations.
In What the Prayers of Jesus Tell Us About the Heart of God, author Shane Stanford introduced five prayer focuses—the five purposes Jesus had for praying to his Father that reveal Christ’s hopes and desires for how we might also commune with God. Now, in this coordinating leader guide, Stanford provides helpful direction for groups wishing to study Jesus’ prayers together. Five sessions coordinate with each of the five chapters of the book. Designed for a 45- to 60-minute meeting. Discussion questions engage group interaction. Group activities and easy-to-reproduce handouts provided for life application. Additional leader prompts, closing prayers, Scripture references, and summaries are included.
Our most important battles are not always with the 'giants out there'--those external challenges which we all face. The greatest battles are often within ourselves. Too often, we diminish our own potential in ministry, business, and in life. Shane Stanford and Brad Martin frame their powerful book on one of the most well-known and well-loved stories in history: David and Goliath. We all feel like the seemingly powerless, scrawny boy David sometimes. And we all must face “giants”—those challenges that threaten to overwhelm us in ministry, work-life, and in our personal lives. Five Stones is a series of clear and compelling lessons. Each lesson arms the reader with practical and powerful tools of self-discovery, so that the reader’s own liabilities, opportunities, convictions, and capabilities are revealed. Like modern-day Davids, readers will leave this book empowered to conquer challenges, in ministry and in life, with clear-eyed confidence and well-grounded hope.
A 40-Day Lenten Devotional written by Shane Stanford and the members of Christ United Methodist Church in Memphis, Tennessee. Join us on a meaningful journey from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday through learning to love Jesus and to love like Jesus.
Award-winning artist Anthony Thaxton captures the beauty of the Gulf of Mexico in this stunning book of photographs pre-dating the BP oil disaster. Complete with prayers from best-selling author Shane Stanford, The Gulf is a must-have for those who love that region.
JourneyWise: Finding meaning in each step along the path of life and being transformed by the journey as a whole. A common thread binds us together: the broken and winding roads we all travel. Most of us carry with us some form of spiritual, emotional, or physical baggage. That type of weight takes its toll. Our paths can be difficult or daunting if we try to journey them on our own. In JourneyWise, noted pastor and author Shane Stanford offers us a different understanding of our life's path, enabling us to reframe our journey into one that is healed and redeemed. He begins by asking these questions: What if you could have Jesus Himself as your life’s companion? What if you had access to His innermost thoughts, tapping into His wisdom? What if your story could intimately intertwine with His and of others who closely follow Him? And what if all of this were possible by purposefully applying only a few paragraphs of His teachings? The Beatitudes are more than just poetic verse used to begin Jesus's Sermon on the Mount. They are the essence of Jesus’s message from beginning to end. These familiar words establish the overall tone of Jesus’s teaching ministry and reveal His most deeply held values. To be JourneyWise is to discover and live out the simple yet powerful truths of the Beatitudes. It is through the Beatitudes, which literally mean “blessings,” that Jesus gives us a new definition of significance before leading us to reflect on the deeper meaning of life, our relationship with God, and the interconnections we have with others. They speak to our friendships, actions, fears, prejudices, and joys. They are pragmatic, powerful lessons wrapped in simple words. In their simplicity and accuracy, the Beatitudes yield amazing results when practiced faithfully. This book will stir your spirit and touch your emotions to bring healing so you can follow Jesus wholeheartedly. Writing with honesty, poignancy, and compassion about the complexities of our daily existence, Shane shows how, in each beatitude, Jesus provides a foundation for developing a significant and spiritually formed life. Here, you will find words of hope and the infinite possibilities of Christ’s simple blessings. JourneyWise with Jesus.
No one wants to talk about failure, but we all miss the mark from time to time. Even our biblical heroes like Noah, Abraham, and Moses did things they shouldn’t have done. But when we mess up or our circumstances seem dire, God steps in to make things right. That’s the beauty of an unfailing God, One who is with us every step of the way. The Bible is full of struggle, failure, and denying God—Noah’s drunkenness, Moses’s temper, David’s sins of lust and murder. But God... Ever since the garden of Eden, listening to the right voices has been critical when it comes to turning our troubles into future blessings. While failure may feel like losing, un-failing is finding the courage to hand over our dreams, goals, and plans to God and following through. In Un-failing: Stumbling Our Way into God’s Unlimited Goodness, authors Shane Stanford and Anthony Thaxton explain how viewing failure as an opportunity for spiritual growth can help us through experiences and seasons when we seem to have lost our way. From God’s perspective, knowing that free will means we won’t always do things His way, failure provides an opportunity for us to turn to Him. No matter what we do, His love is unfailing, and He makes all things work together for our good.
Includes Study Guide We often hear about the Seven Last Words of Christ. Rarely, though, do we focus in the same way on what Christ said after the Resurrection as he surprised, consoled, rebuked, and inspired his followers through seven powerful encounters--what Shane Stanford calls the Seven Next Words of Christ. "In a warm and intimate way the author uses stories from his own life and experience to make the continuing power of Christ more real and accessible to any earnest believer." -J. Ellsworth Kalas, author of Parables from the Back Side "Shane Stanford demonstrates that the 'seven next words of Christ' are not just ancient sayings but living words. This book left me listening for the next words the risen Christ would speak to me." -Michael E. Williams, editor of The Storyteller's Companion to the Bible "Shane Stanford breathes life into the Easter faith with his lively exploration of the 'Seven Next Words' of Christ, words full of resurrection surprise and vitality that will reinvigorate your faith that 'Christ is Risen, he has risen indeed.'" -William H. Willimon, author of Sinning Like a Christian
»Postnaturalism« offers an original account of human-technological co-evolution and argues that film and media theory, in particular, needs to be re-evaluated from the perspective of our material interfaces with a constantly changing environment. Extrapolating from Frankenstein films and the resonances they establish between a hybrid monster and the spectator hooked into the machinery of the cinema, Shane Denson engages debates in science studies and philosophy of technology to rethink histories of cinema, media, technology, and ultimately of the affective channels of our own embodiment. With a foreword by media theorist Mark B. N. Hansen.
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