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.

In this concise version of God Shines Forth, Daniel Hames and Michael Reeves urge Christians to grow in their knowledge and enjoyment of God-as they know God more, they will be spurred on to authentic service through missions and evangelism.

Rediscovering the role God designed for the church in mission is a critical issue facing the missions movement today. That role is to glorify God by planting churches among every tongue, tribe, and nation. Planting churches amid unreached peoples is a complex process. It calls forth every ministry gift and the contribution of every believer. Imagine a businessman, a construction worker, a schoolteacher, and an engineer all working together to support the development of a local church amongst an unreached people group in another part of the world. Most Christians will not leave home and go elsewhere to minister. If they are to participate in God's global mission, they must be affirmed, developed and released right where they live, in the context of their local church. This book shows how churches can become centers of mission vision and implementation and so accomplish God's design for the local church.

The story begins when I was old enough to remember being a child in theParsonage. All PK's will identify we are the first to get to church, last to leave, and there at least 3 times a week (BTU) Baptist Training Union, Prayer Service/Bible Study, and Sunday Worship ...if this has been your experience.....yep, you'redefinitely a pastor's kid.Foremost and above all I am a (PK) a preacher's kid. I am the fourth of six children.This book is mostly about my adolescent years. As I have written the clinician inme came gushing forth. I did not want to only complain. Yet I want to share somesupporting data which is public information. Too many clergy families are beingdevastated by this thing called ministry. If the truth be told many of our pastors arein affairs outside of their marriage. The other woman is the Bride of Christ. We spendso much time with her we neglect our wives and family. I speak not from an abstractperspective. I have been up close and personal in this thing called ministry.Seton Hall UniversityNewark College of Engineerig (NJIT)Jesus the Liberator Seminary

The need to take the spiritual experience during illness into account is part of a broader trend in Western societies-a fascination with the practical uses of spirituality and its contribution to individual wellbeing, whether through a religious or a humanist tradition. This understanding of spirituality differs from traditional views embedded in religious traditions. This book takes a critical point of view at the biomedical representation of the function of spirituality in care. Medicine reorders notions such as life, death, health, sickness, and spirituality. This process is called here "sapientialization", i.e. the spiritual experience is expressed and understood under the auspices of and in terms of wisdom. This view tends to identify spirituality and ethics. I propose an alternate understanding of spirituality, grounded on its subversive power. Inspired by the work of the theologian John D. Caputo, it is critical of some problems that are associated with the sapientialization of spirituality in biomedicine, such as the medicalization of spiritual experiences or the instrumentalization of spirituality. It provides an understanding of spirituality that honours both the medical interest in it and its capacity to resist to instrumentalization.

As Christians, we are to love God with all of our being--heart, mind, soul and strength. But many of us tend to overemphasize one aspect or another, and as a result, our faith becomes imbalanced. Some of us have an intellectual faith but lack compassion or spiritual discipline. Others of us have a vibrant, heartfelt relationship with God but lack commitment to truth or doctrine. And many of us overlook translating our faith into service and ministry. In this book ethicist Dennis P. Hollinger presents a holistic, integrative vision for reuniting Christian thought, passion and action. He shows how individuals, churches and movements throughout history have focused on either the head, or the heart or the hands--often to the exclusion of other expressions. But by linking our intellect, emotions and actions, Hollinger points us toward a whole faith for the whole person, where each dimension feeds, nurtures and sustains the others.

This book stems from a concern to assist pastoral counsellors in developing a therapeutic alliance with African-American women. It focuses on the social construct of the African-American matriarch, which can easily misinform the counsellor and cause emotional jeopardy for African-American women who attempt to live up to its expectations.

Are you looking for a mentor? Do you want to become a mentor? Are you confused about exactly what mentoring is? Walter Wright is a firm believer in relational leadership. In this book, he shares his experiences both as a mentor and a mentoree. He provides useful analogies and stories about a mentoring relationship and points out some potential pitfalls. Choosing a mentor is an important decision, as is choosing to be a mentor. This book guides you through that choice, to forming a relationship and developing that relationship over the years. It shows you how the relationship can be mutually beneficial, with both mentor and mentoree growing in maturity and knowledge. Wright identifies some qualities that make a good mentor, what you should be looking for in a potential mentor, and what a mentor should be looking to develop in themselves. Reflecting on the character, heart, and hope of relational leadership, this book is useful for anyone considering becoming a mentor, whether in a church environment or in a business environment. It identifies some key questions that a mentor should ask of their mentoree and guides you through developing the mentoring relationship.

During the 1720s, John Wesley began his quest to understand biblical holiness theologically and to experience it personally. Over the following decades, he preached and wrote about sanctification, carefully refining his grasp of the subject. This long-term investigation led him to study Scripture, reason, experience, and the Christian tradition. Then, in 1766, he published A Plain Account of Christian Perfection. That book went through several revisions and expansions, and in 1777, he issued his final edition of this work. Wesley's Plain Account of Christian Perfection became a Christian classic that now stands in the company of such devotional works as Thomas a Kempis's Imitation of Christ, William Law's Serious Call to a Devout Holy Life, Richard Baxter's The Reformed Pastor, and Jeremy Taylor's Holy Living and Holy Dying. This edition of the Plain Account is a transcription provided by one of the leading Wesley scholars in the world.