Dispirited


Book Description

Dave Webster’s book is a counter-blast against the culturally accepted norm that spirituality is a vital and important factor in human life. Rejecting the idea of human wellbeing as predicated on the spiritual, the book seeks to identify the toxic impact of spiritual discourses on our lives. Spirituality makes us confused, apolitical and miserable - whether that spirituality is from conventional religious roots, from a new-age buffet of beliefs, or from some re-imagined ancient system of belief. Looking beyond this dismissal, the book looks towards atheistic existentialism, Theravada Buddhism and political engagement as a means to imagine what a post-spiritual world view could look like. ,




Dispirited


Book Description

Cathy sees things that are invisible to everyone else. Her new stepbrother's bizarre behavior. A ghostly little boy. An abandoned house in the woods. But she doesn't see how they're all connected. And what she doesn't see might just kill her.




Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of Synonyms


Book Description

The ideal guide to choosing the right word. Entries go beyond the word lists of a thesaurus, explaining important differences between synonyms. Provides over 17,000 usage examples. Lists antonyms and related words.




Managing


Book Description

A half century ago Peter Drucker put management on the map. Leadership has since pushed it off. Henry Mintzberg aims to restore management to its proper place: front and center. “We should be seeing managers as leaders.” Mintzberg writes, “and leadership as management practiced well.” This landmark book draws on Mintzberg's observations of twenty-nine managers, in business, government, health care, and the social sector, working in settings ranging from a refugee camp to a symphony orchestra. What he saw—the pressures, the action, the nuances, the blending—compelled him to describe managing as a practice, not a science or a profession, learned primarily through experience and rooted in context. But context cannot be seen in the usual way. Factors such as national culture and level in hierarchy, even personal style, turn out to have less influence than we have traditionally thought. Mintzberg looks at how to deal with some of the inescapable conundrums of managing, such as, How can you get in deep when there is so much pressure to get things done? How can you manage it when you can't reliably measure it? This book is vintage Mintzberg: iconoclastic, irreverent, carefully researched, myth-breaking. Managing may be the most revealing book yet written about what managers do, how they do it, and how they can do it better.




Waiting for Gospel


Book Description

"Christianity, as faith centered in Jesus as the Christ came to be called, got a foothold in the world, and for a vital and vocal minority changed the world, because it proclaimed a message that awakened men and women to possibilities for human life that they had either lost or never entertained. That message the first Christian evangelists (and Jesus himself, according to the record) called euangellion--good news, gospel. For its first two or three hundred years, Christianity was largely dependent for its existence upon the new zest for life that was awakened in persons who heard and were, as they felt, transformed, by that gospel; and at various and sundry points in subsequent history the Christian movement has found itself revitalized by the spirit of that same 'good news' in ways that spoke to the specifics of their times and places. "The lesson of history is clear: the challenge to all serious Christians and Christian bodies today is not whether we can devise yet more novel and promotionally impressive means for the transmission of 'the Christian religion' (let alone this or that denomination); it is whether we are able to hear and to proclaim . . . gospel! We do not need statisticians and sociologists to inform us that religion--and specifically our religion, as the dominant expression of the spiritual impulse of homo sapiens in our geographic context--is in decline. We do not need the sages of the new atheism to announce in learned tomes (and on buses!) that 'God probably does not exist.' The 'sea of faith' has been ebbing for a very long time." --from the Introduction




The Haunted Tea-cosy


Book Description

In his Preface to "A Christmas Carol", Charles Dickens wrote that he tried "to raise the Ghost of an Idea" with readers and trusted that it would "haunt their house pleasantly". In December 1997, 154 Christmases later, the "New York Times Magazine" asked its own Edward Gorey to refurbish this enduring morality tale. The result is this "dispirited and distasteful diversion for Christmas". Illustrations.




Dispirited


Book Description

How spirituality makes us stupid, selfish and unhappy




This Upside Down in Reverse Conspired Creation in Breach of Original Law


Book Description

This book is about the original reason for life from the viewpoint of the author. The author could not agree with any of the reasons that have historically been given for life. He therefore made a decision to research what is written in this book as having been the original reason for life. It is the opinion of the author that everybody despite their conditioning has it within themselves to understand the original reason for life. Anybody can agree to disagree with the writings in this book. They can stay in the comfort of whatever is their own beliefs. They could also agree with the writings in this book.




A Heart for the City


Book Description

Jesus is still the answer for urban ministries, for ministries to the downtrodden, poor, and distressed in our cities. A Heart for the City is a rich compendium of valuable information on city ministries written by people who are currently ministering in the city, including pastors, Christian school administrators, and directors of homeless missions. It includes many illustrations and case studies that will prove valuable to any who work in the city or who want to understand how to more effectively help in the city. There are 29 chapters, divided into the following seven parts: - Context and History - Biblical and Philosophical Foundations - Education and Training - Local Church Models - Ethnic Communities - Disenfranchised Subcultures - Children and Youth A Heart For the City is a unique treasure of encouragement for those serving in or those with a heart for the inner city. You will surely be blessed!




From The Pastor's Pen (Letters on Living Christ and Being Christ's Body)


Book Description

How do you get new Christians who do not know one another to work at building and growing relationships in a new Church? This is essential in a new Church because the teaching and training of the core group of believers becomes the nucleus of the Body of Christ. This is the obstacle Pastor Baker faced in planting a church in Newark, NJ. Although the people came from the same urban neighborhood, it did not appear these new believers had much in common. So Pastor Baker decided to write a monthly Bible-based letter on living for Christ and how to be the Church and do its work. He planned to write From the Pastor's Pen for a year or so to teach biblical truth and to develop bridges to build lasting Christian relationships. But this short-term project grew as new believers added addresses to the mailing list. Soon twenty families were fifty and then over one hundred. Believers made copies and passed them out at work. These monthly letters became the teaching materials for small-group Bible studies, and were used by missionaries in the Dutch West Indies. So from November of 1984 until June of 2014, a monthly letter was written. Pastor Baker's short-term project became a long-term ministry. With the help of brothers and sisters in the Newark Church, the letters in this book were selected so you can live Christ and be Christ's Body. May you grow in Christ and effectively be and do the work of the Church.