A thorough and easy-to-use guide to all aspects of running a homegroup. Whether you are a homegroup leader or a church leader involved with homegroup ministry, this is for you. HOMEGROUPS: THE AUTHENTIC GUIDE is a straightforward guide which provides you with practical tips and guidelines on setting up and improving your own homegroup ministry. Throughout the book there are amusing and interesting stories to help illuminate the principles of leadership. This deals with everything from the problems of an over-amorous dog during the prayer time to how to be an effective listener.

Do you walk along the safe and shallow shoreline? Or do you want to be in the deep waters where Jesus calls you? Reading this book and following the Spirit's direction, launch out into the deep and let down your net for a breaking catch Jesus calls, equips, and empowers you to be His daily disciple in ways greater than you can imagine

An Award-Winning Challenge to Popular Ideas of the Kingdom According to Scot McKnight, "kingdom" is the biblical term most misused by Christians today. It has taken on meanings that are completely at odds with what the Bible says and has become a buzzword for both social justice and redemption. In Kingdom Conspiracy, McKnight offers a sizzling biblical corrective and a fiercely radical vision for the role of the local church in the kingdom of God. Now in paper. Praise for Kingdom Conspiracy 2015 Outreach Resources of the Year Award Winner One of Leadership Journal's Best Books for Church Leaders in 2014 "This is a must-read for church leaders today."--Publishers Weekly "A timely resource for the missional church to reexamine some basic assumptions that impact church practice in the everyday."--Outreach

Studies in neuroscience demonstrate that a focus on mindfulness meditation and contemplative spiritual practice has the capacity to increase our non-anxious awareness and significantly lower our stress. Not only is this finding of immediate importance for pastoral counselors and psychotherapists, it will even necessitate a paradigm shift in the way that pastoral and spiritual practitioners approach the general care of souls. The starting point for such a paradigm shift is an acknowledgement of the built-in negativity bias of the brain, and how certain beliefs and theological views may inadvertently reinforce the bias to the detriment of individuals and faith communities. Once necessary for human survival, the ingrained bias can often be excessive for today's world, resulting in negatively disproportionate assessments of life events and human relationships. To balance the neural predisposition toward negativity and anxious awareness, it is necessary for pastoral and spiritual caregivers, and those in their care, to cultivate a regular contemplative-meditational practice. The Power of Neuroplasticity for Pastoral and Spiritual Care focuses on the groundbreaking finding of contemporary neuroscience-that the brain is built for change across the entire lifespan. It is designed to make the research accessible to and relevant for those engaged in the work of pastoral and spiritual care in order to help clients and congregants effect lasting and transformative changes in the mind and brain. Through the regular practice of contemplative prayer and meditation, we can literally calm the stress region of the brain in order to live less anxiously and experience more fully the peace and joy of the present moment. The introduction of mindfulness- and acceptance-based counseling approaches will provide pastoral and spiritual practitioners with an important therapeutic framework to situate their work, from which they can make more informed and effective interventions geared toward using the mind to change the brain.

Marriages are in trouble today. That is clear. Effective mothods of combating this trend are less evident. Counselors, pastors and social workers need more than mere theories or mere moralizing. They need a practical and comprehensive model for understanding couples and their problems. They need a throughly Christian perspective that is biblical, compassionate and human. Everett Worthington provides this in an integrated, biblically based theory of marriage and marriage therapy with analysis at three levels: the individual, the couple and the family. The model he has constructed, with techniques drawn from the major psychological schools, is standard enough to guide counselors in actual interventions and powerful enough to produce change. A thoroughgoing overview of the assessment process includes practical, workable guidelines for: creating realistic, mutually-agreeable goals for counselor and clients; estimating the number of sessions needed to reach those goals; and planning the actual assessment, intervention and termination sessions. Next Worthington offers specific techniques for enhancing cooperative change, intimacy, communication, conflict resolution and forgiveness within the marriage. But keeping couples from slipping back into old patterns is one of the counselor's most difficult tasks. So Worthington concludes with suggestions for solidifying change and effectively concluding the counseling relationship. Here is a text that will be a standard for counselors, pastors and mental health professionals in the years to come.

This is an accessible resource for students and practitioners to become aware of the significance of self-knowledge for the provision of sensitive spiritual and pastoral care. The greatest asset which people in pastoral care offer to in a caring relationship is themselves or to be more precise the aspects of self which they have reflected upon. Offering oneself to other people in order to provide companionship along the road of life, especially when the particular stage on the journey is one of anticipated or actual loss, is an act which is both challenging and yet potentially life enhancing for a carer. The purpose of this book is to offer an aid to those who seek to understand themselves better with a view to enhancing the quality of spiritual and pastoral care they offer. Here the reference point for reflexivity is the caring relationship but as we are fundamentally the same beings in personal and professional relationships then perhaps readers may also find stimulus to reflect on what they bring to a variety of relationships including that with the Sacred and, indeed, themselves.

Bestselling, Easy-to-Use Spiritual Gifts Resource for Group Use This trusted spiritual gifts resources has been helping individuals and congregations learn about their unique giftings for generations. Your Spiritual Gifts Can Help Your Church Grow is the quintessential group resource. Comprehensive and easy to understand, this guide includes the questionnaire and will help you and your group identify the gifts God has given you. More than that, you will discover how each gift works so that you and your group or congregation can use your unique gifts to help your church and community flourish.

The blessing of this book, "Man Up No Excuses - Do the Work " is how it provides a means to empower and equip young boys into the responsibility of young manhood. Uniquely written by a father, mentor, football coach and a police officer, one who has labored over 20 years shaping and molding young men's lives, making this book an extraordinary practical guide for self development. - Rev. Dr. Lloyd T. McGriff "Man Up No Excuses - Do the Work " can truly be a guiding light for all adults who really want to help young men develop positive action plans for the serious journey of life. Demitri asks the right questions and gives the right answers on survival in an unjust world and does so from the perspectives of a concerned father. "Man Up No Excuses - Do the Work " challenges the young reader to understand the impact and consequences of what he says and does in life. This book is a "must read" for everyone - Cubie A. Bragg, Ph.D., LICW, LPC Demitri C. Kornegay is a lieutenant with the Montgomery County Police Department in Montgomery County, Maryland. This is the third book for the 25 year veteran who graduated from the University of Richmond in 1979. He has tutored at the Richmond Penitentiary and for the Washington Urban League's "Operation Rescue" programs. An ordained Baptist Deacon, he developed and has run, "Men Under Construction" since 1992. As a high school football coach since 2000, he helped guide Maryland's 2005 AAA varsity champions to their first ever undefeated season. His motto is - "No Excuses - Do the Work "