A Modern Manual for Sharing a Relevant, Vibrant, Enduring Faith

In the face of mounting obstacles, parents and educators find themselves increasingly challenged by the task of leading people toward lives of faith. Now Thomas Groome, a world-renowned authority on religious education, has created a contemporary, holistic approach to teaching Christian beliefs and values that offers real, effective solutions for today's parents and teachers. His guide to religious education--which aims to "bring life to Faith and Faith to life"--is a hopeful road map for reenergizing the faith community and family from the bottom up.

Students arrive on campus with various boxes of belongings to unpack, some heavy, some tidy, some more valuable, some more private. For many students, two of these boxes could be labeled "My Faith" and "My Sexuality"-and these two can be among the most cumbersome to handle. How to balance the two without having to set one down? How to hold them both closely, both securely, but still move forward to settle in with new friends in a new environment? How to keep from dropping one or the other, spilling its embarrassing contents for all to see? Such can be the struggle for any student, but especially for any sexual minority who identifies or struggles with an LGB+ identity or same-sex attraction on a Christian college campus. For these students their faith and their sexuality often feel both tender and in acute tension. Who is God making them to be? What do they need to grow in to develop faithfully, and what might they need to leave behind? How can they truly flourish? The research team of Yarhouse, Dean, Stratton, and Lastoria draw on their decades of experience both in the psychology of sexual identity and in campus counseling to bring us the results of an original longitudinal study into what sexual minorities themselves experience, hope for, and benefit from. Rich with both quantitative and qualitative data, their book gives an unprecedented opportunity to listen to sexual minorities in their own words, as well as to observe patterns and often surprising revelations about life and personal development both on campus and after graduation. Listening to Sexual Minorities will be an indispensable resource not only for counselors and psychologists but also for faculty, student-development leaders, and administrators in higher education as well as leaders in the church and wider Christian community who want to create an intentional environment to hear from and contribute to the spiritual flourishing of all. Christian Association for Psychological Studies (CAPS) Books explore how Christianity relates to mental health and behavioral sciences including psychology, counseling, social work, and marriage and family therapy in order to equip Christian clinicians to support the well-being of their clients.

Outreach 2019 Recommended Resource of the Year (Youth and Children) Teens and emerging adults don't feel at home in the church because they are not fully included in the church body. How can congregations nurture young adults, welcome them as siblings into God's household, and empower them to become fully embedded contributors within and to their faith community? Integrating the latest research on adolescent faith and young adult ministry for the local church, this book presents a new way of thinking about youth ministry. Chap Clark offers today's youth leaders highly practical principles based on his extensive experience, showing how they can implement a sustainable youth ministry program in their local church. He presents the adoptive youth ministry model as a way to help congregations see youth ministry as a bridge to inclusion, participation, and contribution in the body of Christ. Clark's comprehensive plan for designing and implementing youth ministry shows churches how to intentionally welcome young people and create an environment where they belong.

A true catechism from which, throughout the history of the church, other catechisms have drawn and learned including the recent Catechism of the Catholic Church which quotes Augustine extensively. Within the context of the three theological virtues, faith, hope and love, Augustine masterfully covers the faith. He first works his way through the creed and then the Lords prayer as recorded by Matthew, ending with the sacraments.

Using Improv to Create Memorable Moments in Ministry The Skit Guys bring you more than 200 skits to use in your youth group. Indexed by topic and Scripture reference, you can illustrate just about any lesson you want. Plus, each skit is ready to go and will allow all your students to participate in the teaching, whether or not they can act. They ll laugh, they might cry, and in the end, they ll learn something important."

Your kids need you

You need look no further than the latest headlines to realize that parenting has become more difficult―and kids of every age still need engaged, involved parents. Now, more than ever, your children need you

In this best-selling book, Dr. Charles Stanley reminds parents that their stewardship role in raising their children requires a hands-on presence. Are you interested―and participating―in their activities, or are you too busy? Do you treat their childhood crises with the importance they deserve, or are these events trivialized? Are you communicating to them your unconditional love? To keep your children on your team, Dr. Stanley asserts, you must let them know that you are on theirs.

Dr. Stanley guides you as you learn to create and maintain loving, loyal parent-child relationships, using these four main themes:

• Children are a gift from God.
• You should treat them with love and respect.
• You should hand down to them your faith, instilling in them moral values.
• You should demonstrate your own accountability to God.

By focusing on these things, you can raise confident, happy, self-controlled kids who will hold fast to the values you've taught them.

" . . . and when he is grown, he will not depart from it."

Enriched by personal anecdotes from this internationally known author, "How to Keep Your Kids on Your Team" is a must-have for today's Christian parents and includes a study and discussion guide at the end.

A Different Kind of Christmas is a practical and inspirational study for the Advent season. Based on Mike Slaughter s popular book Christmas Is Not Your Birthday, this five-week study will empower your family and your church to reclaim the broader missional meaning of Jesus birth and experience a Christmas season with more peace and joy than any toy or gadget could ever bring. This comprehensive resource includes a 64-page Leader Guide containing everything needed to guide your group through the study. Inside you ll find five full session plans, discussion questions, and activities, as well as multiple format options and suggestions of ways to make the study a meaningful experience for any group. Sessions include: 1. Expect a Miracle 2. Giving Up on Perfect 3. Scandalous Love 4. Jesus Wish List 5. By a Different Road Help your church cast a vision for how Christians can experience the true joy of living and giving like Jesus beginning with the Christmas season and continuing as a lifestyle. Thisfive-week study helps participants see the traps and discontentment of consumerism and the call of God to live generously to fulfill God s mission in the world."

"I have seen and I testify . . ." (John 1:34) The idea of giving one's testimony often evokes summer church camps, evangelistic revivals, mission trips and baptisms. Like an eyewitness called to testify in a courtroom, sharing a testimony of faith is for specific people at special moments. But what if our view of testimony is all wrong? According to Amanda Drury, testimony is not merely about describing something that happened in the past. It is a practice that forms our present and future identity. Testimony changes us, and without it we risk having a stunted and stale faith. Drawing on work in sociology, psychology and theology, Drury develops an understanding of testimony as an essential practice for Christian spiritual formation, especially for adolescents who are in the process of developing their identity. Recent studies reveal a staggering inability for adolescents to articulate their religious beliefs. Now more than ever, churches need to recover the practice of testimony as an integral part of communal worship.

It takes tender strength to raise children of character and faith. What does it take to raise great kids? If you've read any books on parenting, conflicting opinions have probably left you feeling confused. Get tough! Show acceptance. Lay down the rules. Lighten up, already! There's got to be a balance between control and permissiveness. And there is. Drawing on the expert insights of counselors and award winning authors Henry Cloud and John Townsend and on the parenting wisdom of MOPS International (Mothers of Preschoolers), Raising Great Kids shows you how truth and grace go together. They are allies in your most challenging and rewarding task: raising children with character that can withstand life's rigors and make the most of its potential. Using principles described in Raising Great Kids, the Raising Great Kids Workbook for Parents of Preschoolers will guide you through those first, formative years in your child's life from infancy to age five. It's filled with sound Biblical information and expert advise. But most important, it supplies tools you can begin using today, from thought - provoking questions and self-assessments to an abundance of practical applications. Each chapter begins by introducing three or four key parenting principles, and ends with hands on exercise and a prayer that crystallize the concepts dealt with in that chapter. The Raising Kids Workbook for Parents of Preschoolers will help you start sowing the seeds of character early in your child's life for good fruit that lasts a lifetime.

Hollywood has become our culture s dominant storyteller. So turn Hollywood to your own purposes. With Videos That Teach you can use clips from 75 of the best recent movies on video--already collected an organized by topic and Bible reference, complete with start and stop times--to illustrate your lessons and launch provocative discussion among your students. Discussions that get kids talking about themselves and life, about God and the Bible. Browse the book to find the movie clip you like, or use one of the Quick Clip Locators (by topic or Bible reference) to quickly find the perfect reinforcement for your lesson. Or build your entire lesson from a clip--with each clip are summaries of the movie and the clip, start and stop times, Bible references, and discussion-starting questions. And given the breadth of movies in Videos That Teach, you re almost guaranteed to find what you want for a topic to teach or a discussion to lead--Forrest Gump, The Spitfire Grill, Michael, City Slickers, Romeo and Juliet (1996), Grand Canyon, Mrs. Doubtfire, Naked Gun, Fried Green Tomatoes, Mr. Holland s Opus. And lots more. Whether you re a youth worker, Bible study or small-group leader, or Sunday school teacher, with Videos That Teach you ll get your students thinking biblically instead of merely absorbing passively."

With dramatic artwork and colorful detail, "The Story of Jesus" tells the story of Jesus in a fresh, biblical way--from the angelic appearance to Zechariah through Joseph and Mary's escape to Egypt. Available in packs of 25, "The Story of Jesus" is ideal for church programs, community outreach, family devotions, and as an outreach tool for children or adults.

What is a good education? What is it for? To answer these questions, Stratford Caldecott shines a fresh light on the three arts of language, in a marvelous recasting of the Trivium whereby Grammar, Dialectic, and Rhetoric are explored as Remembering, Thinking, and Communicating. These are the foundational steps every student must take towards conversion of heart and mind, so that a Catholic Faith can be lived out in unabashed pursuit of the True, the Good, and the Beautiful. Beauty in the Word is a unique contribution to bringing these bountiful aspects of the Real back to the center of learning, where they rightfully belong. If your concern is for the true meaning of education for your children, here is the place to begin.

"Those responsible for new initiatives in Catholic schooling have a chance to recreate the inner spirit of education and not just its outer frame. They will not easily find a programme more inspirational than the one presented here." - Aidan Nichols

"Stratford Caldecott offers a rare combination of intelligence and profound vision, yet combines this with accessibility and luminous transparency." - Catherine Pickstock

Explore a new way of pastoral care that enables caregivers to develop relationships and provide meaningful pastoral care to the children and youth they encounter! The Pastoral Care of Children focuses on the need for pastoral caregivers, clergy and chaplains to develop relationships with youths and gives you suggestions to overcome the anxiety associated with caring for an acutely ill child through unique, playful, and child-centered approaches. Many pastoral caregivers have high anxiety when children are ill or hurt, are unsure how to have a substantive conversation with a nine-year old, or their fears of what could be said keep them from hearing what children have to say. The effective approaches in The Pastoral Care of Children are illustrated to assist you with serving the spiritual needs of children. You will explore actual pastoral care experiences that will help you gain confidence in handling situations such as a teenager's desire to be baptized out of fear of death when neither he nor his parents believe in Christ. Intelligent and heartfelt, this valuable book gives you a complete theological exploration of ministering to children who may ask you "Why me?", "Why do people have to die?" and "What happens to children if they die before they are baptized?" The Pastoral Care of Children helps you answer these questions with meaningful responses that are genuine and grounded with yourself, and reflect the parents'beliefs. Some of the help you will discover in The Pastoral Care of Children includes: understanding the similarities and differences of caring for children in comparison to adults, such as different vocabularies but similar emotions, and realizing that children are very perceptive using play as a tool, for example referring to a puppet's experience in reference to the child to eliminate the child's self-consciousness and help him or her open up confronting pastoral issues in acute care settings, such as fear, guilty feelings, and anger, from parents, family and the child helping children recover from mental health issues such as depression, eating disorders, and identity and self-esteem issues by using cognitive therapy conducting prayer and rituals with children such as baptism, naming ceremonies, anointings, and funerals to assist the child and family through this spiritual rite of passage Complete with child and family focused approaches for dealing with the questions surrounding death, The Pastoral Care of Children also provides you with several cited scriptures, and a list of questions you may be asked by a child who is facing death. You will learn from actual circumstances pastoral caregivers have encountered and discover how to approach topics, and answer questions on God and death. The Pastoral Care of Children, an extremely resourceful book that will assist you in overcoming anxiety and help you deliver thoughtful and uplifting pastoral care to children and youth.

How teachers teach is not necessarily how learners learn. Educators focus on content delivery, but much of the learning process involves affective and behavioral factors. Veteran educators Muriel and Duane Elmer provide a holistic model for how learning takes place. Their learning cycle moves beyond mere recall of information to helping learners value and apply learning in ways that are integrated into behavior and practice. With insights from neuroscience, educational psychology, and learning theory, they address how the brain can become more receptive, how emotional environments affect learning, and how learning tasks and experiential exercises can help foster the development of skills and habit formation. They do so in the context of a thoroughly Christian framework that emphasizes not just knowledge, but character, integrity, and wisdom. Learning can be accomplished in and beyond the classroom to move from content mastery to life experience. Here are sound avenues for helping your students become the lifelong learners God intends.

Have you tried all the new youth programs? Have you planned one too many wacky activities? Are you frustrated about the size of the youth group? Here's an approach to ministry that takes youth work seriously. Family-based youth ministry is about adults discipling teens one-on-one and in groups. It is about involving not just the nuclear family but the whole church family--from singles to older adults. More important, it's about incorporating youth into the life of your church. So stop worrying about the size of your youth group or your budget. Mark DeVries's refreshing approach to youth ministry will show you how your church can reach today's teens and how you can keep them involved in the life of the church. Whether you are a parent, a youth pastor or a church member who cares about teens, you will find in this book an entirely different approach to youth ministry that will build mature Christian believers.

This is an OCR edition without illustrations or index. It may have numerous typos or missing text. However, purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original rare book from GeneralBooksClub.com. You can also preview excerpts from the book there. Purchasers are also entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. Original Published by: The Luther press in 1908 in 169 pages; Subjects: Lutheran Church; Law / General; Law / Administrative Law & Regulatory Practice; Law / International; Literary Collections / Essays; Religion / Christianity / Lutheran; Travel / Essays & Travelogues;