A Family Shaped by Grace


Book Description

As a teenager, Gary Morland lived in an unhappy, dysfunctional family characterized by addiction and disharmony. When he started a family of his own, he brought with him those same destructive patterns. Yet he sensed there must be a way to have a family shaped by acceptance and grace, a family that was loving, whole, and at peace with one another. The problem was, he didn't know how. In this life-giving book, Morland shares his journey of discovering the timeless tools of family peace that transformed him and his family. He shows how these tools broke the unhealthy patterns of the family he grew up in and saved his relationship with his wife and two daughters. With refreshing honesty and humility, he helps readers believe that they too can start from where they are right now--no matter how broken--to transform their family culture and their family legacy and to generously offer grace to the people who matter most in their lives.




Gospel-Shaped Marriage


Book Description

A Gracious, Biblical Model for Marriage Married Christians, and those preparing for marriage, know that they're sinners—and that their sin threatens God's great purposes for their union, including mutual support, companionship, and intimacy. But how often do believers recognize that they are also saints, equipped through God's power to create a healthy, loving marriage? In Gospel-Shaped Marriage, Chad and Emily Van Dixhoorn encourage couples with how Christ calls and enables them to love their spouse. They give a brief assessment of the biblical design for marriage while offering practical, proven advice for husbands and wives. Drawing from Scripture and the writings of Puritan minister William Gouge, their advice also prepares churches, friends, and others to support married couples in their lives. Comprehensive and Theological: Includes a summary of marriage in redemptive history, recommended Bible verses with each chapter, and prayer prompts Accessible: Offers guidance for singles preparing for marriage, young and mature couples, struggling couples, and those who want to strengthen their relationship Practical Advice: Written by a pastor and his wife, this concise, easy-to-understand guide includes discussion questions for each chapter




Grace and Gigabytes: Being Church in a Tech-Shaped Culture


Book Description

Grace and Gigabytes: Being Church in a Tech-Shaped Culture explores change and ministry at the intersection of technology, culture, and church. In today's tech-shaped culture, we learn and we know through questions, connection, collaboration, and creativity--the networked values of the digital age. Drawing on experiences from a career as an instructional designer in the technology industry and a lifetime of leadership in the Lutheran church, Ryan M. Panzer argues that digital technology is not a set of tools, but a force for cultural transformation that has profound implications for ministry.Grace and Gigabytes explores shifts in culture that have heightened amid accelerated adoption and use of digital media. Just as previous revolutions in technology have disrupted culture, especially processes of cultural meaning-making related to faith and spirituality, so we are living through a powerful revolution of digital technology, culture, and spiritual thought. This revolution calls the church to change. This needed change requires not so much a shift in tactics: launching a website, building a podcast, or starting a social media page. The change is a philosophical pivot: prioritizing collaboration, making the flow of knowledge more dynamic, celebrating connection and creativity, and always affirming the question. Panzer discusses each of these philosophical pivots, describing their technological origins. He tells stories of ministries that have aligned to this cultural moment. And he provides concrete recommendations for the practice of ministry in a digital age.




Models of the Mind


Book Description

The human brain is made up of 85 billion neurons, which are connected by over 100 trillion synapses. For more than a century, a diverse array of researchers searched for a language that could be used to capture the essence of what these neurons do and how they communicate – and how those communications create thoughts, perceptions and actions. The language they were looking for was mathematics, and we would not be able to understand the brain as we do today without it. In Models of the Mind, author and computational neuroscientist Grace Lindsay explains how mathematical models have allowed scientists to understand and describe many of the brain's processes, including decision-making, sensory processing, quantifying memory, and more. She introduces readers to the most important concepts in modern neuroscience, and highlights the tensions that arise when the abstract world of mathematical modelling collides with the messy details of biology. Each chapter of Models of the Mind focuses on mathematical tools that have been applied in a particular area of neuroscience, progressing from the simplest building block of the brain – the individual neuron – through to circuits of interacting neurons, whole brain areas and even the behaviours that brains command. In addition, Grace examines the history of the field, starting with experiments done on frog legs in the late eighteenth century and building to the large models of artificial neural networks that form the basis of modern artificial intelligence. Throughout, she reveals the value of using the elegant language of mathematics to describe the machinery of neuroscience.




Gospel Shaped Worship Leader's Guide


Book Description

Leader's Guide for the Worship track of Gospel Shaped Church from The Gospel Coalition, exploring how a church should be a worshipping community. Gospel Shaped Church is a curriculum from The Gospel Coalition that will help whole congregations pause and think carefully and prayerfully about the kind of church they are called to be. This seven-week whole-church curriculum explores what it means to be a worshiping community. The Leader's Guide contains everything you need to lead this flexible course. Christians are people who have discovered that the one true object of our worship is the God who has revealed himself in and through Jesus Christ. For most believers, worship is what happens for an hour on Sunday morning as we sing and pray together. But the Bible reveals a much bigger vision for what worship really is and how it should shape our lives. So what exactly is worship? What should we be doing when we meet together for “church” on Sundays? And how does that connect with what we do the rest of the week? As we search the scriptures together we will discover that true worship is more than this-it is to encompass the whole of life. This engaging and flexible resource will challenge us to worship God every day of the week, with all our heart, mind, soul and strength. This flexible resource will train your whole church through teaching, preaching, daily reading and small-group Bible study and discussion-or any combination of those elements. The overall aim is that your church will embark on a journey to discover the kind of people they should be as they are shaped by the gospel of Jesus Christ. Works alongside the Gospel Shaped Worship DVD and the Gospel Shaped Worship Handbook for use by church members.




Habits of Grace


Book Description

The Christian life is built on three seemingly unremarkable practices: reading the Bible, prayer, and fellowship with other believers. However, according to David Mathis, such “habits of grace” are the God-designed channels through which his glorious grace flows—making them life-giving practices for all Christians. Whether it’s hearing God’s voice (the Word), having his ear (prayer), or participating in his body (fellowship), such spiritual rhythms of the Christian life have the power to awaken our souls to God’s glory and stir our hearts for lifelong service in his name. What’s more, these seemingly simple practices grant us access to a host of spiritual blessings that we can only begin to imagine this side of eternity—and the incredible joy that such blessings bring to God’s children today.




The Scars That Have Shaped Me


Book Description

21 surgeries by age 13. Years in the hospital. Verbal and physical bullying from schoolmates. Multiple miscarriages as a young wife. The death of a child. A debilitating progressive disease. Riveting pain. Abandonment. Unwanted divorce... Vaneetha begged God for grace that would deliver her. But God offered something better: his sustaining grace.




The Grace Effect


Book Description

"Simply defined, the 'grace effect' is an observable phenomenon-that life is demonstrably better where authentic Christianity flourishes." What does Christianity give us beyond televangelists, potlucks, and bad basketball leagues? Not much, according to the secular Left. The world, they say, would be a better place without it. Historian and Christian apologist Larry Taunton has spent much of his career refuting just this sort of thinking, but when he encounters Sasha, a golden-haired Ukranian orphan girl whose life has been shaped by atheistic theorists, he discovers an unlikely champion for the transforming power of grace. Through the narrative of Sasha's redemption, we see the false promises of socialism; the soul-destroying influence of unbelief; and how a society cultivates its own demise when it rejects the ultimate source of grace. We see, in short, the kind of world the atheists would give us: a world without Christianity-cold, pitiless, and graceless. And yet, as Sasha shows us, it is a world that is not beyond the healing power of "the grace effect." Occasionally infuriating, often amusing, but always inspiring, The Grace Effect will have you cheering for the courageous little girl who shamed the academic elitists of our day. "This highly readable book is a collection of powerful insights into the long-term consequences of spiritual indifference and, above all, a remarkable example of how to conquer it." - Dr. Olivera Petrovich, research psychologist, University of Oxford "What would a world without Christianity look like? We don't have to guess because such a world does exist: it exists in the current and former Communist bloc. Through the inspiring story of a little girl born in Eastern Europe and now living in America, Larry Taunton draws a sharp contrast between the life-giving influence of Christianity and the worn out theories of atheism and radical secularism. The effect--The Grace Effect--is nothing less than powerful and moving." -- Dinesh D'Souza, former White House policy analyst, fellow of the Hoover Institute at Stanford University, and current president of Kings College




Grace Hopper


Book Description

“If you’ve got a good idea, and you know it’s going to work, go ahead and do it.” The inspiring story of Grace Hopper—the boundary-breaking woman who revolutionized computer science—is told told in an engaging picture book biography. Who was Grace Hopper? A software tester, workplace jester, cherished mentor, ace inventor, avid reader, naval leader—AND rule breaker, chance taker, and troublemaker. Acclaimed picture book author Laurie Wallmark (Ada Byron Lovelace and the Thinking Machine) once again tells the riveting story of a trailblazing woman. Grace Hopper coined the term “computer bug” and taught computers to “speak English.” Throughout her life, Hopper succeeded in doing what no one had ever done before. Delighting in difficult ideas and in defying expectations, the insatiably curious Hopper truly was “Amazing Grace” . . . and a role model for science- and math-minded girls and boys. With a wealth of witty quotes, and richly detailed illustrations, this book brings Hopper's incredible accomplishments to life.




Center Church


Book Description

Practical and Gospel-centered thoughts on how to have a fruitful ministry by one of America's leading and most beloved pastor. Many church leaders are struggling to adapt to a culture that values individuality above loyalty to a group or institution. There have been so many "church growth" and "effective ministry" books in the past few decades that it's hard to know where to start or which ones will provide useful and honest insight. Based on over twenty years of ministry in New York City, Timothy Keller takes a unique approach that measures a ministry's success neither by numbers nor purely by the faithfulness of its leaders, but on the biblical grounds of fruitfulness. Center Church outlines a balanced theological vision for ministry organized around three core commitments: Gospel-centered: The gospel of grace in Jesus Christ changes everything, from our hearts to our community to the world. It completely reshapes the content, tone, and strategy of all that we do. City-centered: With a positive approach toward our culture, we learn to affirm that cities are wonderful, strategic, and under-served places for gospel ministry. Movement-centered: Instead of building our own tribe, we seek the prosperity and peace of our community as we are led by the Holy Spirit. "Between a pastor's doctrinal beliefs and ministry practices should be a well-conceived vision for how to bring the gospel to bear on the particular cultural setting and historical moment. This is something more practical than just doctrine but much more theological than "how-to steps" for carrying out a ministry. Once this vision is in place, it leads church leaders to make good decisions on how to worship, disciple, evangelize, serve, and engage culture in their field of ministry—whether in a city, suburb, or small town." — Tim Keller, Core Church