Writing for Life and Ministry


Book Description

Is Your Biggest Ministry Obstacle Writer’s Block? As an active member in ministry, writing is usually inevitable. Perhaps you approach these opportunities with excitement—or maybe you procrastinate to avoid the task altogether, your pages remaining forever blank. No matter how you feel about writing, approaching a project can be overwhelming. Knowing what to say can be as confusing as knowing where to begin. Perhaps for you, the first step in the writing process is simply to demystify the writing process, to realize that you are capable of accomplishing your projects. If so, then Writing for Life and Ministry is for you. Seasoned writer and writing coach Brandon J. O’Brien examines the obstacles that often inhibit ministry leaders from thriving as writers. Most importantly, he simplifies the writing process, so it is both accessible and flexible to fit your style. Don’t let the craft of writing keep you from flourishing in your ministries. With this resource, you’ll learn how to plan, draft, and revise. The included exercises will enable you to hone your craft and develop your skills. Best of all, you’ll be ready to tackle that writing project you’ve been putting off with confidence.




Word-Filled Women's Ministry


Book Description

The Bible is clear that women as well as men are created in God's image and intended to serve him with their lives. But what does this look like for women in the church? Helping church leaders think through what a Bible-centered women’s ministry looks like, this collection of essays by respected Bible teachers and authors such as Gloria Furman, Nancy Guthrie, and Susan Hunt addresses a variety of topics relevant to women. Whether exploring the importance of intergenerational relationships, the Bible’s teaching on sexuality, or women’s roles in the church and the home, this book of wise teaching and practical instruction will become a must-have resource for anyone interested in bolstering the health and vitality of Christian women in the context of the local church.




You Can Trust God to Write Your Story


Book Description

WHAT’S GOD DOING IN YOUR STORY? Our kids beg us for stories at bedtime or while we drive; we gather around firepits and dinner tables to tell and retell our favorite tales—the more dramatic the better. But when it comes to our actual lives, we prefer something less sensational, even boring—sunny skies and smooth sailing, please and thank you. We want our own stories to be predictable, safe, controllable, and catastrophe-free. When plans fall apart, jobs are lost, kids wander off, doctors give bad reports, we often wonder, "What are you doing, God? Are you sure you have this under control? It doesn’t really seem like it right now." God is the master Storyteller. He’s writing your story and it’s a part of His bigger, grander, eternal Story. But we’re still in the middle. We haven’t gotten to the happy ending yet, and it can be hard to trust Him in the thick of our struggles. That’s why Robert and Nancy share their own story, friends’ stories, and the stories of people in the Bible who have faced life-altering challenges, but, in the end, have found God to be faithful. Learn why you really can trust God to write your story—no matter what plot twists you may encounter along the way. "This is a unique and charming book, integrating stories of God’s providence from His people and His Word. Nancy and Robert write personally and beautifully, infusing readers with a Christ-centered vision, hope, and trust for the future." -Randy Alcorn, author of Heaven, Giving is the Good Life, and Deception "You Can Trust God to Write Your Story is an amazing book whose title says it all. For if you are a follower of Jesus, every day of your life—whether you feel like it or not—is weighted with kingdom purpose, eternal significance, and a royal destiny filled with joy and contentment. Let my dear friends, Robert and Nancy, help you embrace the mysteries of the Lord’s Providence. For when it comes to happy endings, you can’t find a better Author than the God of the Bible. Happy endings are His forte—turn the page, trust Him, and discover it for yourself." -Joni Eareckson Tada, Joni and Friends International Disability Center




Excellence


Book Description

We are called to excellence in all aspects of our lives and activities, and not least in our character. Andreas Köstenberger summons all Christians, and especially aspiring pastors, scholars, and teachers, to a life of virtue lived out in excellence. Köstenberger moves through Christian virtues chapter by chapter, outlining the Bible's teaching and showing how Christ-dependent excellence in each area will have a profound impact on one's ministry and scholarship. Virtues covered include grace, courage, integrity, creativity, eloquence, humility, diligence, and service. This unique book is an important character check for all Christians engaged in teaching and ministry, and especially for those in training. Köstenberger's thoughtful volume will be a valuable touchstone for readers, for one's character is a critical matter in both scholarship and ministry.




Sensing Jesus


Book Description

This is a book about the behind-the-scenes reality of a life in ministry. It tells you what Zack Eswine wishes somebody else would’ve told him. With over 20 years of experience in ministry, Zack shares with incredible honesty about his own failures, burnout, and pain, all the while addressing the complexities of leadership decisions, church discipline, family dynamics, and so on. Presenting sound pastoral theology couched in autobiographical musings and powerful prose, this book offers a fresh and biblically faithful approach to the care of souls, including your own.




Keeping Your Balance


Book Description

Keeping Your Balance looks at the challenge that Christians face in maintaining a biblical balance in seven key areas of life.

These include the following: family and ministry; self-denial and liberty; patience and confrontation; the temporal and the eternal; the inner man and the outer man; reality and hope; and striving and trusting.

In each of these categories, the author first highlights the balance that is clearly set forth for the believer in Scripture. Second, a discussion is presented of the symptoms that may be manifested when an individual loses balance in a particular area. The practical life consequences of that imbalance are also examined. An understanding of these tensions is absolutely vital for living a life to the glory of God.




Help! I'm Married to My Pastor


Book Description

Ministry is hard. And every ministry wife needs—and deserves—encouragement. A woman marries a man, not his ministry. But all too often her husband's calling complicates their life together. What if ministry life isn't what she bargained for? What happens when her children make mistakes? How does she deal with church gossip, or even slander? As a pastor's wife of almost fifty years, Jani Ortlund addresses these questions, along with many others, as she offers encouragement and guidance to ministry wives. Jani reminds readers that God works out his delightfully good purposes in and through their sacrifices.




The Ministry for the Future


Book Description

ONE OF BARACK OBAMA’S FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE YEAR “The best science-fiction nonfiction novel I’ve ever read.” —Jonathan Lethem "If I could get policymakers, and citizens, everywhere to read just one book this year, it would be Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry for the Future." —Ezra Klein (Vox) The Ministry for the Future is a masterpiece of the imagination, using fictional eyewitness accounts to tell the story of how climate change will affect us all. Its setting is not a desolate, postapocalyptic world, but a future that is almost upon us. Chosen by Barack Obama as one of his favorite books of the year, this extraordinary novel from visionary science fiction writer Kim Stanley Robinson will change the way you think about the climate crisis. "One hopes that this book is read widely—that Robinson’s audience, already large, grows by an order of magnitude. Because the point of his books is to fire the imagination."―New York Review of Books "If there’s any book that hit me hard this year, it was Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry for the Future, a sweeping epic about climate change and humanity’s efforts to try and turn the tide before it’s too late." ―Polygon (Best of the Year) "Masterly." —New Yorker "[The Ministry for the Future] struck like a mallet hitting a gong, reverberating through the year ... it’s terrifying, unrelenting, but ultimately hopeful. Robinson is the SF writer of my lifetime, and this stands as some of his best work. It’s my book of the year." —Locus "Science-fiction visionary Kim Stanley Robinson makes the case for quantitative easing our way out of planetary doom." ―Bloomberg Green




Pastors in the Classics


Book Description

Throughout the history of English literature, church ministers have figured prominently in novels, plays, morality tales, and even poetry. Pastors in the Classics is a unique, unprecedented collection of relevant literary masterpieces in which the pastor's experience is a major part of the story. Part 1 is a reader's guide to twelve important classics written over four centuries and covering seven different nationalities. Each chapter not only describes and interprets the work in question, it also highlights a specific feature of pastoral ministry explored in the work. Part 2 is a handbook that defines the canon of literary masterpieces that deal with the pastor's experience, offering reading suggestions for both ministers and lovers of literature. From the familiar (The Canterbury Tales; Cry, the Beloved Country; and The Scarlet Letter) to the lesser-known (Silence, Witch Wood) to the surprising (A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man), this collection uncovers the good, the bad, and the ugly ways in which pastors have been presented to the reading public for the past half millennium.




Write His Answer


Book Description

The only Bible study available for the Christian writer. Now in a revised and expanded edition.