Practical Religion

When building a children’s ministry at a church, there is so much to consider: Which curriculum should we use? How many volunteers do we need? How do we keep parents in the loop? And that’s before we run into stalled check-in computers, missing activity sheets, and floors that need to be vacuumed. Writing from personal ministry experience, Jared Kennedy shares a four-fold approach for gospel-centered, missional children’s ministry: hospitality, teaching, discipleship, and mission.

Jewish mysticism, also known as Kabbalah, is a set of esoteric beliefs and practices that originated in Judaism. It is based on the idea that there is a deeper, mystical dimension to the Torah (the Jewish holy scriptures) and that this dimension can be accessed through various techniques such as meditation and study.

Like a succession of failed diet regimens, the much-touted techniques that are supposed to bring us closer to God "in our hearts" can instead make us feel anxious, frustrated, and overwhelmed. Phillip Cary explains that discipleship is a gradual, long-term process that comes through the gospel experienced in Christian community, not a to-do list designed to help us live the Christian life "right." He covers ten things we don't have to do to be close to God, skillfully unpacking the riches of traditional Christian spirituality. The expanded edition includes a new afterword.

The word karma has made it into the mainstream. But not everyone knows what it really means or how to deal with it. This insightful audiobook will help you come to grips with karmic connections from past lives that have helped create the circumstances of your life today. You’ll discover how your actions in past lives - good and bad - affect which family you’re born into, who you’re attracted to, and why some people put you on edge. Most of all, you’ll find out how to turn your karmic encounters into grand opportunities to shape the future you want.

Praised by Newsweek as a "compelling read" and Library Journal as "accessible and down-to-earth", Dale McGowan’s Parenting Beyond Belief offered freethinking parents everywhere a compassionate introduction to raising caring, ethical children without religious guidance. Now, for the more than 40 million people in the United States who identify themselves as nonreligious, Raising Freethinkers offers solutions to the unique challenges secular parents face and provides specific answers to common questions, as well as over 100 activities for both parents and their children.

Green Magic: Harness the Ancient Witch Power of Nature for Spiritual and Physical Balance. Black magic, white magic—most people have heard of these at...

In How to Have Impossible Conversations, Peter Boghossian and James Lindsay guide you through the straightforward, practical, conversational techniques necessary for every successful conversation—whether the issue is climate change, religious faith, gender identity, race, poverty, immigration, or gun control. Boghossian and Lindsay teach the subtle art of instilling doubts and opening minds.

Transform is a practical guide for men to get unstuck and win in their lives. Anthony Fleming, lead pastor of Church Alive, guides men to realize their true potential as they grow into the best possible leaders they can be. Through his experience praying over the people in his church, Anthony realized there were four main areas where men got stuck: spiritually, relationally, physically, and financially. He set out to help men get unstuck in the big four areas of life by inspiring them to take action toward growth and lasting change.

Your church has the opportunity of a lifetime. The world has shifted, and a new, brighter tomorrow awaits. The Church Revitalization Checklist is a tool to help you start fresh, leverage your strengths, and discover hidden opportunities for church growth.

The sensitive, profound, and rare insights in Alchemy of the Heart help us gain entry into the most precious and misunderstood component of our being: the heart. They show us that while love can be compassionate and nurturing, it can also be powerful, dynamic, and practical, a catalyst for spiritual growth. Drawing on wisdom from the world’s great spiritual traditions, this inspiring guide explores how you can overcome hidden blocks to giving and receiving more love.

The Shobogenzo (The Treasury of the True Dharma Eye) is a revered 800-year-old Zen Buddhism classic written by the Japanese monk Eihei Dogen. Despite the timeless wisdom of his teachings, many consider the book difficult to understand. In Don't Be a Jerk, Zen priest and best-selling author Brad Warner, through accessible paraphrasing and incisive commentary, applies Dogen's teachings to modern times.

This audiobook is your guide to learning from the powerful stories of women in the Bible, showing you how they found courage, faith, and purpose even in the hardest times. Their stories can help you grow your own faith and feel stronger in your spiritual life.

Approaching our spiritual development as one would any experimental science, Bahram Elahi, MD, describes the nature of the human soul, or self, through a series of original diagrams and functional analogies to medicine, psychology, and physics. In so doing, he introduces a new medicine of the soul that not only establishes how to nourish and develop the soul through the practice of correct divine and ethical principles, but also how to diagnose and treat its various ailments.

Most of the world is lazy. Too many believers are idle. Few attain their God-given potential. The kingdom suffers because of the too many spectators who are said to be soldiers in the army of the Lord. The loss to God, to the kingdom of God, and to the lazy person that is caused by the sin of laziness is beyond measure. Must things continue that way? I do not think so. Laziness is a deadly sin. The one who commits this sin can be delivered. That is what this book is about. May the Lord bless you as you listen to it! Amen.

On an average day, people make countless decisions: Should I get out of bed or hit the snooze button? What should I have for breakfast? Where should we go for this year's vacation? While some decisions are easy to make, others can leave individuals paralyzed and full of anxiety. As Christians living in an increasingly individualistic society, what's the best strategy for making decisions that honor God while becoming more like him in the process? Writing from her own experience and pointing to biblical examples, Aimee Joseph offers a biblical and theological framework for decision-making.

How can Christian men and women live faithfully in a world confused over sexuality and gender? Surely we must be reminded of what Scripture teaches. Yet as God’s design for sexuality is being suppressed and denied in the modern world, we need to hear it articulated in a fresh and accessible way. God’s Good Design presents the historic, biblical view of sexuality in a manner that is appealing even to those who have been conditioned to believe it is scary or oppressive.

"It's a moral jungle out there," writes Peter Kreeft. In Making Choices, he describes why we find decision-making so difficult and living with our choices even harder. With penetrating wisdom, good humor, and common sense, Peter Kreeft draws a map through the everyday jungle of moral choices, one simple enough for the believer and convincing enough for the skeptic.

In Serving as Jesus Served: Practical Ways to Love Others, Michele Howe equips men and women to better understand their calling as God’s chosen ones to make a distinct and holy impact in the world. She begins by unpacking what it means to serve God and what this looks like in day-to-day life. Designed to be highly practical, Serving as Jesus Served offers listeners specific Bible passages that describe our responsibilities as servants and how to implement them in a world that pursues the opposite.

The human heart’s greatest longing is to see God as he is. And yet, many people simply want to escape hell’s pain, or even worse, they follow our disordered fallen nature in choosing sinful pleasures. Our Lord said the road to heaven is narrow, but the road to hell is wide (see Matt. 7:13). Is choosing the road to heaven merely wanting to avoid pain, or is it actively pursuing the greatest good beyond imagining?

If you have suffered spiritual abuse from a toxic church, toxic organization, or toxic leader, your trust has been broken. You entrusted your life to someone you thought would care for you: someone who initially inspired you to know God, only to reject you in the end. Now you are left wounded and disillusioned, wondering if you can ever trust others, yourself, or possibly even God, again.