Do something for the environment—pray for the earth. The icecaps are melting. The air we breathe and the water we drink are polluted. Forests are being cleared of oxygen-making trees and ecosystem-integral wildlife. Our daily lives impact our earth—mostly leaving negative footprints. The environmental challenges we face are real and almost out of control. We're free to enjoy the earth's bounty and beauty, but along with that privilege comes responsibility. How are Christians to respond as ste...

Sometimes life seems full of storms. All of us experience hardships at one time or another. It's when several crises happen at once that you begin to wonder, "Am I going to make it?" Times of difficulty can grind us down, or they can invite us to become more aware of God's presence and concern. Prayers for Hard Times is a collection of scriptures, prayers, and meditations designed to help you find hope and discover God's presence in the midst of fear, worry, and distress. These booklets, shri...

Transformation comes from questions, not answers. We often look to the Bible as the book of answers. How often, though, do we consider the challenging questions God asks? Hudson notes that Jesus was asked 183 questions in the Gospels but directly only answered three. The Creator is teaching us as we teach children when they struggle with schoolwork: You learn more by doing than being fed an absolute answer. In Questions God Asks Us, we're encouraged to focus on the quest rather than a resolut...

"Gospeled" lives are lives that have encountered Jesus Christ. Christ's call leads to a continually unfolding story for each of us. An encounter with the living Christ demands a response, John Indermark says. In this book you will learn about New Testament characters who encountered Jesus. Some responded with joy and gratitude. Others ignored or rejected his offer of good news. Indermark's powerful reflections on the various biblical characters, along with daily reading of scripture, written ...

Completing the series, The Africana Worship Book (Year C) offers the same diversity as the 2 other volumes with all new material from new voices.

Do you practice extreme compassion? When a calamity strikes, you're ready to organize, donate, volunteer. But there are quieter personal tragedies all around you every day. Whether it's a faraway look in the eyes of a coworker, friend, family member, or stranger at the next table in the coffee shop, burdens come in all sizes but weigh equally. Carrying one another's burdens means being attuned to stressed intimates as well as suffering strangers. Sometimes we all may be a little guilty of ste...

Go beyond merely forgiving and forgetting … and discover how to make peace with your past. "Like many of you, I've been dealt a few cards I do not think I deserved," writes Amy Lyles Wilson. "In response, I used to think forgiving and forgetting meant I had to act like I had never been wronged. The writers in this collection tell me otherwise. Forgiving, they say, does not require pretending you were never hurt. It does mean, however, that you'll need to make peace with your past to embrace t...

The Only Resource of Its Kind Is Now Two Bestsellers in One! Tragically, churches have not always been safe places for children or youth or vulnerable adults. With this in mind, attorney, pastor, and author Melton outlines a process for developing policies and procedures to recognize and reduce the risk of abuse in the church. Safe Sanctuaries combines and expands information from two of her earlier groundbreaking books, which focused, separately, on children and teens. "Safe Sanctuaries is t...

It's hard to hear yourself think in today's culture, much less refresh your soul. Sights and sounds—from ads placed on toilet stall doors to loud ringtones or cars pulsing with bass—assault us every day. Peace and quiet seem out of place in 21st-century everyday life. It's time to mute the cacophony. Meaningful and serene contemplative silence is possible. And it doesn't require an expensive trip to a spa. "We yearn for rest, and our souls hunger to be fed, yet we seldom give ourselves permis...

Where do we go from here? The dynamic history and identity of the United Methodist Church is lost among the pluralistic landscape in America today. As a living organism, the church can expect to evolve with the culture that surrounds it. The problem, according to lifelong member and author Scott Kisker, is that the United Methodist Church seems to have lost its missional foundation as it climbed to mainline American Protestant church status. Trying to be both mainline and Methodist is a dead...