Grown-Up Faith


Book Description

Why isn't life everything we expected it to be? And why doesn't our faith resolve our frustrations and problems? Kevin Myers, the founding pastor of 12Stone Church, a congregation of more than 30,000 active attenders near Atlanta, believes the reason we don't experience a transformed life is that we fail to grow up spiritually. We focus on developing physically, intellectually, emotionally, and financially, yet our faith remains immature and anemic. In this powerful new book, Myers offers a deep yet simple roadmap to a grown-up faith through understanding the whole context of the Bible, developing spiritual intimacy with God, and gratefully embracing holy obedience. As you understand the Bible and the big picture of God's story with humanity, you begin to find answers to life's most compelling questions. As you begin to understand God more, your longing and ability to experience spiritual intimacy with him increases, as does your desire to obey what God asks of you and your ability to follow through. This is the way to the bigger life, a life even better than you expected--or even dreamed possible.




Simple Faith


Book Description

Trapped in complicated Christianity? Here's permission to come out of confinement! How did so many people wind up trapped by complicated systems of performance-based faith? Why do we push ourselves past our limits in pursuit of more works than any reasonable Pharisee would have demanded? Must we run at a pace somewhere between maddening and insane to prove we're among the faithful? "No!" is the emphatic answer from best-selling author Chuck Swindoll. In Simple Faith, he shows us how to get free from such arbitrary confinement. He reminds Christians that they serve a God who promised freedom, peace, and rest. And it's everlasting---not exhausting---life, remember? Here at last is an exhilarating invitation to simple faith. Move beyond rat-race Christianity and break the bars calculated to wilt free spirits. A cage is no place for a Christian. Welcome to your wings!




Divine Blessing and the Fullness of Life in the Presence of God


Book Description

The concept of blessing pervades the everyday life of Christians—from testimonies recounting God's provision, to praise songs, to wishing someone well. In fact, the term has been so integrated into Christian language that it is rarely considered thoughtfully. In the pages of Scripture, blessing seems to be either physical or spiritual, but a fuller biblical-theological approach reveals that God's blessing has always been both spiritual and physical. In Divine Blessing and the Fullness of Life in the Presence of God, William Osborne traces the theme of blessing throughout Scripture as he guides readers into a deeper understanding of how God's gracious benevolence impacts the everyday lives of Christians.




A Faith Like Mine


Book Description

A Faith Like Mineis a wonderful celebration of the diversity of religious faith, as experienced in the daily lives of children across the world. What do other people believe? How do they pray? What are the differences between churches, mosques, and temples?




The Call to Wonder


Book Description

Jesus encourages us to become like children in order to inherit God's Kingdom. Childlike faith is not an option. R. C. Sproul Jr. explores in depth what it means to accept Jesus' invitation to practice a childlike faith. As the father of eight children, R. C. Sproul Jr. watches how his own children approach every day, buoyed by trust, hope, and joy. Through their eyes, the world is fresh and brand-new. Everything is an invitation to express astonishment and wonder at the great gift of life—and, the great Giver. The Call to Wonder is an invitation to rest in childlike joy and peace built on a deep trust in the living God. Like a child, you, too, can rest in God's almighty arms and gasp at the fireworks of his glory exploding around you every day in his creation.




A Childlike Faith


Book Description

On Friday night, August 7, 1987, my three youngest children-Amanda (eleven), Kevin (nine), and Craig (eight)-went with their daddy, my cousin Coby (seventeen, we had taken him in to live with us), and Amanda's friend Samantha to see the movie He-Man: Masters of the Universe. Craig, our youngest, had just celebrated his eighth birthday on Monday on the third (he was our seventh wedding anniversary gift). Our oldest daughter Michelle (fourteen years) had asked to go "eat and ride" with a friend and would be back by ten o'clock that night. I stayed home to wait for their return. My family would never return home on Aster Dr. The strangest fact about what happened that fateful night was that Amanda knew she was going to die. She did not know when or how. She never seemed to be afraid, but in Amanda's last eight months on this earth, she began to ask me and other family members, "Am I going to die?" She would also ask this strange question about her younger brothers whenever they fell ill or if they were injured while playing. This is not a happily-ever-after type fairy tale. No one except for God and the hosts of heaven can rejoice the death of a child. This is a true, gut-wrenching story about love, gratitude, relationships, mistakes, forgiveness through repentance, and, most of all, faith. I know with every fiber of my being my three children are with God in heaven. You see, they believed in Jesus more than they believed in anyone! After losing them, I can clearly see God had a plan for their short lives here on this earth. As a repentant, forgiving, born-again Christian, I am simply...His witness. God had a plan for my three youngest children. This is their story, or, as some say, "their legacy of love."




Faith Like a Child


Book Description

A well-known challenge of Jesus to his followers is to become like little children. Lacy Finn Borgo considers this invitation to childlike faith and explores seven different ways of welcoming the child within. Offering wisdom from years of experience as a spiritual director, Borgo explores practices to welcome and enliven your childhood self.




Faithful Families


Book Description

A new and expanded version of Seamless Faith, now with more than a dozen new spiritual practices and additional resources for parents, kids, grandparents, and communities that care about families! Add family faith moments to your daily routine with little or no prep, and share meaningful spiritual experiences with your children! Traci Smith, a pastor and mother of three, offers ways to discover and develop new spiritual practices as a family, whether you're a new seeker or a lifelong follower. Faithful Families is brimming with easy, do-it-yourself ideas for transforming your family's everyday moments into sacred moments! Faithful Families helps you: connect faith to your family's everyday life; add family faith moments into your daily routine; learn new spiritual practices alongside your children; teach your children to appreciate religious diversity with time-tested non-Christian and Christian spiritual practices; respond to life's everyday challenges and opportunities with meaningful practices Faithful Families is the perfect gift for Parents, Grandparents, Aunts and Uncles; Baptisms; Baby Showers; New Families; Christian educators and those they serve; Preschool Classes; and Godparents Faithful Families is part of The Young Clergy Women Project




God, I Know You're There


Book Description

Where is God? Is He real? Look closely and you can see God's touch all over creation. Like the sun, God is warm. Like the stars, God is dazzling. Like the wind, God is all around, everywhere. God, I Know You're There, by bestselling author Bonnie Rickner Jensen and illustrator Lucy Fleming, reminds children of the nearness and goodness of God. Children will discover that God never leaves their side, even if they can’t see or feel Him. Each page will help children understand the many things in the world we can't see, touch, or hear are just as real as God is. And even if God feels distant, He is real and He is near.




Spiritual Conversations with Children


Book Description

When children have a listening companion who hears, acknowledges, and encourages their early experiences with God, it creates a spiritual footprint that shapes their lives. Lacy Finn Borgo draws on her experience of practicing spiritual direction with children as she introduces key skills for engaging kids in spiritual conversations, offering sample dialogues, prayers to use together, and ideas for play, art, and movement.