Jesus, Single Like Me


Book Description

Jesus, Single Like Me is a celebration of who you are as a single adult. Because Christ is single, he knows first-hand what we are going through. He can relate to being alone, desiring a mate, family issues and responsibilities, friendships with the same and opposite sex, pain and disappointment, financial issues, etc. But even through the storms of our single lives, Jesus shows us the victory of being single. Read and celebrate Jesus, Single Like Me. Jesus, Single Like Me is an excellent resource for single adults. It has a great outline and progression with clear content. The concise leader's guide will help you lead as you prepare, work through, and close/follow-up.-Joseph Northcut, Director of Church Ministries Church Initiative (creator of DivorceCare.org, SingleandParenting.org)




True Love Dates


Book Description

It is possible to find true love through dating. In True Love Dates, Debra Fileta encourages singles not to "kiss dating goodbye" but instead to experience a season of dating as a way to find real love. Through powerful, real-life stories and Fileta's personal journey, this book offers profound insights from the expertise of a professional counselor. Christians are looking for answers to finding true love. They are disillusioned with the church that has provided little practical application in the area of love and relationships. They're bombarded by Christian books that shun dating, idolize courting, fixate on spirituality, and in the end, offer little real relationship help. True Love Dates provides honest help for dating by providing a guide into vital relationship essentials. Debra is a professional Christian counselor who reaches millions with her popular blog, Truelovedates.com, and her book offers sound advice grounded in Christian spirituality. She delivers insight, direction, and counsel when it comes to entering the world of dating and learning to do it right the first time around. Drawing on the stories and struggles of hundreds of young men and women who have pursued the search for true love, Fileta helps readers bypass unnecessary pain while focusing on the things that really matter in the world of dating.




7 Myths about Singleness


Book Description

If marriage shows us the shape of the gospel, singleness shows us its sufficiency. Much of what we commonly assume about singleness—that it is primarily about the absence of good things like intimacy, family, or meaningful ministry—is either flat-out untrue or, at the very least, shouldn’t be true. To be single, we often think, is to be alone and spiritually hindered. But the Bible paints a very different picture of singleness: it is a positive gift and blessing from God. This book seeks to help Christians—married and unmarried alike—value singleness as a gift from God so that we can all encourage singles to take hold of the unique opportunities their singleness affords and see their role in the flourishing of the church as a whole.




Intentional Relationships For Singles


Book Description

Intentional Relationships for Singles is a 12-week Bible study designed to help individuals get healthier through personal growth in all their relationships including God, family, friends, work, and church with the goal of preparing for marriage. TOPICS DISCUSSED - Your Identity in Christ - Gender Roles - Understanding the Opposite Sex - Blind Spots - Boundaries - Conflict Resolution - Forgiveness - Reconciliation - Friendships - Intentional Friendship(TM) - Intentional Dating - Engagement - Plus self/group reflection questions, Online Leaders Resources and Videos. "Kris and Dan have walked the ups and downs of singleness, friendship and dating - and lived to tell about it. Lucky for us, we get to learn from their victories and mistakes. Their immensely practical book is full of advice, strategies and personal, real-world examples that will empower you to pursue personal and relational health - and most importantly, to trust Godin the process." - Lisa Anderson, Director of Boundless.org/Focus on the Family and author of The Dating Manifesto "Every 'us' requires intentionality. Lots of purposeful intentionality before and during dating, and then again before and after the wedding. This guide will help you do just that." - Ron Deal, President of SmartStepfamilies.com and bestselling author of Dating and the Single Parent and Building Love Together in Blended Families (with Dr. Gary Chapman); smartstepfamilies.com "In a world where relationships are lost and have become a dying art too often replaced by cell phones and social media, Kris Swiatocho and Dan Houk have hit a home run. Intention takes time, perseverance, and prayer. Relationships don't flourish without intention. Kudos on bringing practical tips and life application to the millions of singles who desire true and authentic relationships." - Jennifer Maggio, Chief Executive Officer, The Life of a Single Mom Ministries; thelifeofasinglemom.com "Wow! What a powerful book of information and strategy for building intentional, authentic relationships! This book is so fresh, reads well, and is one of the sharpest, laser-focused tools I have ever read to help single adults build God-honoring relationships that last. Without hesitation, I recommend this book to single adults and to those leaders who work closely with single adults. Dan and Kris do a masterful job in sharing their life experiences that only brings greater authority to the content of this book. You gotta get it! You won't be disappointed." - Joseph Northcut, Director of Church Resources, ChurchInitiative.org (creator of DivorceCare.org and GriefShare.org) For more information, to order in bulk to save or to bring Kris and Dan to your city, go to www.IntentionalRelationshipSolutions.org




Singles and Relationships


Book Description

Dick Purnell is a gifted communicator, prolific writer, and a true servant of the Kingdom. His wisdom on relationship issues is God-centered and 'right on the money' --Gary Smith, Singles Adult Ministries speaker.




I Love Jesus, But I Want to Die


Book Description

A compassionate, shame-free guide for your darkest days “A one-of-a-kind book . . . to read for yourself or give to a struggling friend or loved one without the fear that depression and suicidal thoughts will be minimized, medicalized or over-spiritualized.”—Kay Warren, cofounder of Saddleback Church What happens when loving Jesus doesn’t cure you of depression, anxiety, or suicidal thoughts? You might be crushed by shame over your mental illness, only to be told by well-meaning Christians to “choose joy” and “pray more.” So you beg God to take away the pain, but nothing eases the ache inside. As darkness lingers and color drains from your world, you’re left wondering if God has abandoned you. You just want a way out. But there’s hope. In I Love Jesus, But I Want to Die, Sarah J. Robinson offers a healthy, practical, and shame-free guide for Christians struggling with mental illness. With unflinching honesty, Sarah shares her story of battling depression and fighting to stay alive despite toxic theology that made her afraid to seek help outside the church. Pairing her own story with scriptural insights, mental health research, and simple practices, Sarah helps you reconnect with the God who is present in our deepest anguish and discover that you are worth everything it takes to get better. Beautifully written and full of hard-won wisdom, I Love Jesus, But I Want to Die offers a path toward a rich, hope-filled life in Christ, even when healing doesn’t look like what you expect.




Not Yet Married


Book Description

Life Is Never Mainly About Love and Marriage. So Learn to Live and Date for More. Many of you grew up assuming that marriage would meet all of your needs and unlock God's purposes for you. But God has far more planned for you than your future marriage. Not Yet Married is not about waiting quietly in the corner of the world for God to bring you "the one," but about inspiring you to live and date for more now. If you follow Jesus, the search for a spouse is no longer a pursuit of the perfect person, but a pursuit of more of God. He will likely write a love story for you different than the one you would write for yourself, but that's because he loves you and knows how to write a better story. This book was written to help you find real hope, happiness, and purpose in your not-yet-married life.




Marriage and the Mystery of the Gospel


Book Description

"This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church." — Ephesians 5:32 Marriage reveals something of eternal significance. From the beginning, God designed marriage to convey a greater reality—the passionate, unfailing, redeeming love of God for sinners, the eternal romance between Christ and his bride. In this volume, Ray Ortlund traces marriage throughout Scripture—from the first marriage in the garden of Eden to the ultimate marriage in the book of Revelation—laying out a transcendent vision of marriage that dignifies our own imperfect unions as a display of the gospel. This book offers insight and hope to every married person today. Part of the Short Studies in Biblical Theology series.




Wholeheartedly Devoted


Book Description

Wholeheartedly Devoted is a bible study that will guide you as you search the scriptures for what the Lord has called you to as a single woman - to peace, contentment, purpose, adventure, and so much more. It's time to forget the pressures and expectations of society, and figure out what God has planned for our time as singles. Along with solid scriptural truth, I will share my story and how those truths changed what could have merely been a season of waiting to a season I truly cherish and am grateful for. My hope is that this study will drastically change your views on what God has in store for you, get you excited for the adventure ahead (mine surely was!), and experience a life-giving, even enjoyable season of singleness.




Does Jesus Really Love Me?


Book Description

“Fascinating, thoughtful, and important. [Jeff Chu] captures the fractures and conflict at a moment when the issue of what to do with L.G.B.T. people is tearing Christian denominations apart. Does Jesus Really Love Me? deserves to be widely read.” —Dan Savage, New York Times Book Review In this timely work—part memoir, part investigative analysis—a prize-winning writer explores the explosive and confusing intersection of faith, politics, and sexuality in Christian America. When Jeff Chu came out to his parents as a gay man, his devout Christian mother cried. And cried. Every time she looked at him. For months. As a journalist and a believer, Chu knew that he had to get to the heart of a question that had been haunting him for years: Does Jesus really love me? The quest to find an answer propels Chu on a remarkable cross-country journey to discover the God “forbidden to him” because of his sexuality. Surveying the breadth of the political and theological spectrum, from the most conservative viewpoints to the most liberal, he tries to distill what the diverse followers of Christ believe about homosexuality and to understand how these people who purportedly follow the same God and the same Scriptures have come to hold such a wide range of opinions. Why does Pastor A believe that God hates me, especially because of my gayness? Why does Person B believe that God loves me, gayness and all? From Brooklyn to Nashville to California, from Westboro Baptist Church and their god hates fags protest signs to the pioneering Episcopal bishop Mary Glasspool, who proclaims a message of liberation and divine love, Chu captures spiritual snapshots of Christian America at a remarkable moment, when tensions between both sides in the culture wars have rarely been higher. Both funny and heartbreaking, perplexing and wise, Does Jesus Really Love Me? is an intellectual, emotional, and spiritual pilgrimage that reveals a portrait of a faith and a nation at odds.