Welcoming Resistance


Book Description

Resistance can be a sign of vital, high-quality, and faithful life in a congregation, and a learning opportunity for congregational leaders who recognize the value of hearing from those who resist ministry initiatives, inviting their input and listening to their response. Hobgood proposes a "continuum of interventions" that can be made by pastors and lay leaders. He also observes that the degree of resistance will intensify as the degree of change deepens, but suggests that when we try to squelch resistance, we threaten the congregation's very existence. Congregational leaders will appreciate Hobgood's positive and pastoral approach to the resistance they encounter in their own faith communities and his concrete and practical suggestions for building more constructive relationships.




Welcome to the Revolution


Book Description

When the Women’s March gathered millions just one day after Trump’s inauguration, a new era of progressive action was born. Organizing on the far Right led to Trump’s election, bringing authoritarianism and the specter of neo-fascism, and intensifying corporate capitalism’s growing crises of inequality and injustices. Yet now we see a new universalizing resistance among progressive and left movements for truth, dignity, and a world based on democracy, equality, and sustainability. Derber ​offers the first comprehensive guide to this new era and an original vision and strategy for movement success. He convincingly shows how only a new ​universalizing​ wave, a ​progressive​ and revolutionary "movement of movements," can counter the world-universalizing economic and cultural forces of intensifying corporate and far-right power. Derber explores the crises and eroding legitimacy of the globalized​ capitalist system ​and the right wing movements​ that helped create the Trump era​​. He shows​ how​ left universalizing movements can--and must—converge ​ to propel a​ mass base that can prevent societal, economic, or ecological collapse, stop a resurgent Right, and build a democratic social alternative. He describes tactics and strategies for ​this​new progressive movement. Brief guest "interludes" by Medea Benjamin, Noam Chomsky, Ralph Nader, Bill Fletcher, Juliet Schor, Gar Alperovitz, Chuck Collins, Matt Nelson, Janet Wallace, and other prominent figures tell how to coalesce and universalize activism into a more powerful movement wave—at local, community, national, and international levels. Vivid and highly accessible, this​ book is for activists, students, and all ​citizens concerned about the erosion of justice and democracy. It thoroughly illuminates the rationale, theory, practice, ​humanism, love, ​and joy of ​the​ ​social transformation that we urgently need.




Organic Resistance


Book Description

France is often held up as a bastion of gastronomic refinement and as a model of artisanal agriculture and husbandry. But French farming is not at all what it seems. Countering the standard stories of gastronomy, tourism, and leisure associated with the French countryside, Venus Bivar portrays French farmers as hard-nosed businessmen preoccupied with global trade and mass production. With a focus on both the rise of big agriculture and the organic movement, Bivar examines the tumult of postwar rural France, a place fiercely engaged with crucial national and global developments. Delving into the intersecting narratives of economic modernization, the birth of organic farming, the development of a strong agricultural protest movement, and the rise of environmentalism, Bivar reveals a movement as preoccupied with maintaining the purity of the French race as of French food. What emerges is a story of how French farming conquered the world, bringing with it a set of ideas about place and purity with a darker origin story than we might have guessed.




In It for the Long Haul


Book Description

When pastors and congregations come together in ministry, they generally do so with the hope that the relationship will be long-lasting and dynamic. The reality, however, is that long-term pastorates are an increasingly rare phenomenon in congregations. White there are many reasons that most pastors can only sustain their ministries in a parish for a relatively limited number of years, Glenn Ludwig argues that this does not have to be the case if both pastors and congregations take deliberate steps toward an enduring friendship.




Addiction to Recovery


Book Description

This book, Addiction to Recovery: Unlocking Your Potential, is an accumulation of existential realization, many resources, years of recovery, education, insights, and years working in the field of addiction, with all adepts in the goal of personal transformation from addiction to recovery. This is an integrative approach to living in wellness of recovery. I vacated my own mind through deep personal process, my own form of meditation, and this book came about. My hope is this book unlocks the potential that advances new insight into the recovery process for each individual by reframing the process in such a way that the right interpretation by the reader will help recovery click into place. What we need to celebrate in recovery is the self-discovery of the individual. I offer my carefully considered overviews and assessments on the best-known treatments (theories) connected to recovery. I have provided a new outlook as a guide for the unwary who had failed at recovery in the past and those just coming into recovery for the first time. I count myself among the autodidacts, the self-taught perpetual student fueled by a passion for new answers and a sense of mission.




Absolute Essentials of Creative Thinking and Problem Solving


Book Description

This concise textbook provides a comprehensive and clear overview of the theory and practice of creative problem solving from a management perspective. The book works step by step through the creative thinking process. Beginning with theoretical frameworks, it considers ways of thinking, defining problems and structuring responses to them, techniques for generating ideas, evaluating and defining them, and finally how technology can be used within the creative problem-solving process. Pedagogical features to aid learning include objectives at the start of each chapter, further reading suggestions and practical examples. Divided into ten short chapters to suit content delivery, this textbook is designed as either core or recommended reading for advanced undergraduate, postgraduate, MBA and Executive Education students studying Creativity and Innovation, Management and Leadership and Management Skills.




The Romance of the Rose


Book Description

Many English-speaking readers of the Roman de la rose, the famous dream allegory of the thirteenth century, have come to rely on Charles Dahlberg's elegant and precise translation of the Old French text. His line-by-line rendering in contemporary English is available again, this time in a third edition with an updated critical apparatus. Readers at all levels can continue to deepen their understanding of this rich tale about the Lover and his quest--against the admonishments of Reason and the obstacles set by Jealousy and Resistance--to pluck the fair Rose in the Enchanted Garden. The original introduction by Dahlberg remains an excellent overview of the work, covering such topics as the iconographic significance of the imagery and the use of irony in developing the central theme of love. His new preface reviews selected scholarship through 1990, which examines, for example, the sources and influences of the work, the two authors, the nature of the allegorical narrative as a genre, the use of first person, and the poem's early reception. The new bibliographic material incorporates that of the earlier editions. The sixty-four miniature illustrations from thirteenth-and fifteenth-century manuscripts are retained, as are the notes keyed to the Langlois edition, on which the translation is based.




Starting with Spirit


Book Description

Starting with Spirit is a spiritual and professional resource for new pastors, their family members, and congregations, as well as ministers in every season of ministry who seek to grow in vitality and skill in the ongoing adventure of ministry. For more than thirty years, Bruce Epperly has followed the call of the spirit, moving through his vocations as a congregational pastor, university chaplain, seminary and university professor, and seminary administrator. Drawing on these experiences, he addresses the new pastor's transition from seminary student to congregational leader; pastoral authority; the 'honeymoon;' boundaries; death; the pastor's spiritual life, health, and relationships; the role of the associate pastor; and continuing education.




Creative Problem Solving for Managers


Book Description

Stimulating and developing the creative potential of all members of an organization (not just those in the more traditionally creative functions such as design or research and development) is widely seen as contributing to performance and results. This textbook introduces ideas, skills and models to help students understanding how creative thinking can aid problem-solving. The latest edition of this well-regarded book brings the story up to date whilst retaining popular features such as case studies and case histories together with extensive diagrams, examples and thought-provoking questions. New to this edition are sections on thinking styles and types, creativity and its role in innovation, implementation, and software aids to creativity. This rounded textbook will continue to be an ideal resource for a range of courses and modules across the business school curriculum including problem-solving, strategic management, creativity and innovation management.




Transforming Acts


Book Description

In Healing Marks (Energion Publications, 2012), Dr. Bruce Epperly challenged Christians to take the healings of Jesus seriously as a pattern for how we can become healing communities. Now he turns to the book of Acts as a pattern for the church in the 21st century. He says, “I believe that Acts of the Apostles provides a fluid, open-spirited, and holistic faith for twenty-first century people as well as a vision for congregational transformation and renewal. Anything can happen to those who follow Jesus. Life is adventurous, surprising, and interesting. Worship leads to mission and mission challenges narrow-mindedness and self-imposed limitations. For those who embrace the spirit of Acts of the Apostles, worship will never be boring and every day will be a holy adventure.” This book is not just an exposition of the book of Acts. It is a call to action. But it is more than that. It draws from the lessons of the early church a plan of individual and communal action to live an adventurous life of faith and to change the world. Each chapter includes activities to help you apply the content to your life and mission. Labeled “Transforming Acts” these point to the transforming acts you can take in your personal or congregational life . Acts is a story of a small group of people who set out to do what appeared humanly impossible – change their world. In this book you are invited to become a part of that story, to attempt the humanly impossible, and to bring transformation and renewal to the church and to the entire world.