Research on pilgrimage has traditionally fallen across a series of academic disciplines - anthropology, archaeology, art history, geography, history and theology. To date, relatively little work has been devoted to the issue of pilgrimage as writing and specifically as a form of travel-writing. The aim of the interdisciplinary essays gathered here is to examine the relations of Christian pilgrimage to the numerous narratives, which it generates and upon which it depends. Authors reveal not only the tensions between oral and written accounts but also the frequent ambiguities of journeys - the possibilities of shifts between secular and sacred forms and accounts of travel. Above all, the papers reveal the self-generating and multiple-authored characteristics of pilgrimage narrative: stories of past pilgrimage experience generate future stories and even future journeys.

Simon Coleman moved to Sussex University in 2004, having spent 11 years at Durham University as Lecturer and then Reader in Anthropology, and Deputy Dean for the Faculty of Social Sciences and Health.

John Elsner is Senior Research Fellow at Corpus Christi College, Oxford.

* Hopeful and uplifting in tone * Understands prayer as something which is actively 'lived' rather than as something 'set apart'

"A brilliant breakthrough in pilgrimage studies. An exemplary study that shows how to bring together different academic and institutional interests in a common cause - understanding the relationship between pilgrimage and English cathedrals over time. A publication that will, hopefully, inspire similar collaborative studies around the globe." - John Eade, Professor of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Roehampton, UK "People who oversee, minister, lead worship, guide, welcome, manage, market, promote and maintain cathedrals will find this book an indispensable treasure. It is aware of the awesome complexity inherent in cathedral life but it doesn't duck the issues: its clear-eyed focus is on the way people experience cathedrals and how these extraordinary holy places can speak and connect with all the diversity represented by the people who come to them. In a spiritually-hungry age, this book shows us how to recognise and meet that hunger. This book will be required reading for all us "insiders" trying to invite and signpost access to holy ground." - The Very Reverend Adrian Dorber, Dean of Lichfield, Chair of the Association of English Cathedrals This book looks at England's cathedrals and their relationship with pilgrimage throughout history and in the present day. The volume brings together historians, social scientists, and cathedral practitioners to provide groundbreaking work, comprising a historical overview of the topic, thematic studies, and individual views from prominent clergy discussing how they see pilgrimage as part of the contemporary cathedral experience.

Contemporary worship music shapes the way evangelical Christians understand worship itself. Author Monique M. Ingalls argues that participatory worship music performances have brought into being new religious social constellations, or "modes of congregating". Through exploration of five of these modes-concert, conference, church, public, and networked congregations-Singing the Congregation reinvigorates the analytic categories of "congregation" and "congregational music." Drawing from theoretical models in ethnomusicology and congregational studies, Singing the Congregation reconceives the congregation as a fluid, contingent social constellation that is actively performed into being through communal practice-in this case, the musically-structured participatory activity known as "worship." "Congregational music-making" is thereby recast as a practice capable of weaving together a religious community both inside and outside local institutional churches. Congregational music-making is not only a means of expressing local concerns and constituting the local religious community; it is also a powerful way to identify with far-flung individuals, institutions, and networks that comprise this global religious community. The interactions among the congregations reveal widespread conflicts over religious authority, carrying far-ranging implications for how evangelicals position themselves relative to other groups in North America and beyond.

At the end of your life, will you be able to say you squeezed out all the gusto and good you were created for?

Deep inside all of us is the relentless knowledge that we were created for greatness, yet years can pass, and all our efforts don't add up to what we envisioned life would bring.

Author, pastor, and evangelist Craig Walker challenges you to forget the mediocre and dream again. It's time to answer the high calling within you! It's time to unlock your potential as never before!

Craig witnessed nearly 800,000 decisions for Christ in 22 months by utilizing today's internet technology. Now he has set out to inspire you to discover and leave the huge footprint you were destined to place on planet Earth. Born in this generation by God's design, your destiny is tied to the technological context of your world. This is THE greatest time ever to be alive. You have more opportunities to change your world than any preceding generation.

In Born for the Extraordinary, Craig shares...

• How to tap into the greatness God placed within you
• How just one God-inspired idea can evolve into a plan that reaches the world
• Jaw-dropping, firsthand testimonies of miracles, healings, and even witchdoctor deliverances
• How to recognize God's voice, follow His instructions, and dream beyond your ability

In The Power of Prayer to Enrich Your Marriage, bestselling author Stormie Omartian teaches husbands and wives how to pray for protection against the most common marriage problems that can lead to serious distrust, dissatisfaction, and sometimes even divorce.

It’s Never Too Soon or Too Late to Pray for Your Marriage

Stormie Omartian’s bestselling books on prayer have changed the lives of millions. In The Power of Prayer to Enrich Your Marriage, Stormie shows husbands and wives how to pray with urgency and power for God’s protection against the 14 most common marital problems that can lead to distrust, dissatisfaction, and sometimes even divorce.

Whether you want guidance to help you avoid common pitfalls or you need healing and restoration from struggles you’ve already faced, you can partner with God to strengthen your relationship. This book will help you…

• prevent and pray through the challenges that may arise in your marriage
• lift your requests for good communication, forgiveness, wisdom, and much more to the Lord
• experience heartfelt peace knowing that no obstacle in your relationship is too great for God

Speak the words that make hell tremble!

There are timeless words, straight from the Scripture, that - when spoken and applied - paralyze the devil and cause accelerated supernatural shift. These words defeat demonic powers, heal disease, accelerate financial increase, overcome temptation, and demolish strongholds. These are the power words… and satan is absolutely intent on removing them from the believer’s vocabulary.

It’s time to open our mouths and release the thunder of Heaven!

Kevin Zadai, bestselling author of Praying from the Heavenly Realms and The Agenda of Angels, was taken behind the heavenly veil where the Lord revealed to him certain power words that can release the power of Heaven and bind the strategies of hell.

These powerful words include: The Blood - Repentance - New Covenant - Kingdom Dominion - The Fear of the Lord - Resurrection Power - Holy Fire - Visitation - Habitation - Divine Prosperity and many more!

Mystery of the Power Words will help you…

• Understand the pathways for walking out your destiny on Earth.
• Access the battle strategies of Heaven that reveal God’s intent for your life.
• Decode the veil of secrecy that surrounds the power words God wants you to understand and boldly speak.
• Clearly discern God’s will for you and your family.
• Identify and defeat the enemies of your advancement.
• Establish a link between praying in tongues and walking in Kingdom dominion.

You can have a tangible encounter with glory!

Have you been longing for an encounter with God’s glory, an experience where Heaven and earth collide, and your limited perspective is blown apart by the sheer awesomeness of God?

Hrvoje Sirovina believes that you were made for these kinds of glory experiences, and that every encounter with God’s glory propels you to live an increasingly extraordinary life in an ordinary world.

In 10 Levels of Glory, Hrvoje guides you through ten powerful encounters with God’s tangible presence.

Witness His glory in each of the ten levels…

• Creation
• Signs and Wonders
• Experiencing God
• Knowing God
• Seeing God
• The Fear of the Lord
• Walking with God
• The Face of God
• Unity with God
• The Unapproachable Light

This volume of the Jerusalem Talmud publishes the first two tractates of the Second Order, Sabbat and 'Eruvin. These tractates deal with discussion of all regulations regarding Shabbat, the weekly day of rest, including the activities prohibited on Shabbat. The tractate 'Eruvin covers questions of definition of what is allowed to do on Shabbat. The Second Order is the last one to be published in Heinrich W. Guggenheimer's edition of the Jerusalem Talmud.

The Sounds of Our Offerings is good news about the music of the church. It recounts what has been learned from studying nine congregations where music promotes the full, active, conscious participation of the worshipers and where it has done so consistently and coherently for many years. Pastors and musicians reflect on their work together and offer rich insights about what works and what does not. Lay musicians and members of the congregation also share their experiences with music in worship. Though no site was without its struggles, and at times difficult choices had to be made, for the most part, we see unremarkable, week to week, year to year, faithful rendering of music for prayer and praise. We see that sometimes the nature of the music took a slightly different turn, one that built upon the foundations of the past. The music choices in these churches are not restricted to one particular era or style, but rather reflect the broader church's music repertoire, including the best recently written music. These are the stories of churches with a reputation for their fine music programs, churches that, with their leaders and congregations, have worked out these programs in consistent, coherent ways. In most cases, the programs span multiple priests/pastors and musicians. The Sounds of Our Offerings is about excellent music and how it has found its way into the life and faith practices of these congregations.

This reference work incorporates the insights and expertise of leading liturgists and scholars of liturgy at work today, comprising 200 entries on important topics in the field, from vestments and offertories to ordination and divine unction. It is systematically organized and alphabetically arranged for ease of use. It also includes comprehensive bibliographies and reading lists, to bring the work fully up to date and to encourage further reading and research.

The essays collected in this volume provide a resource for thinking theologically about the practice of Christian prayer. In the first of four parts, the volume begins by reaching back to the biblical foundations of prayer. Then, each of the chapters in the second part investigates a classical Christian doctrine - including God, creation, Christology, pneumatology, providence and eschatology - from the perspective of prayer. The chapters in the third part explore the writings of some of the great theorizers of prayer in the history of the Christian tradition. The final part gathers a set of creative and critical conversations on prayer responding to a variety of contemporary issues. Overall, the T&T Clark Handbook of Christian Prayer articulates a theologically expansive account of prayer - one that is deeply biblical, energetically doctrinal, historically rooted, and relevant to a whole host of critical questions and concerns facing the world today.

Many churches have active worship committees or planning teams, and an abundance of books and resources guide pastors and laity. Encounters with the Holy offers a conversational model of worship planning that was developed to train practitioners to be more reflective in their planning of worship experiences. The model planning, ordering, worshiping, reflecting is a flexible, fluid pattern. It provides a more circular, spiraling practice of imaginative planning, preparing the leaders and the space, and reflecting theologically to understand more fully the experience of worship. It has been tested in congregations, seminaries, and campus ministries amid a wide range of denominational and cultural styles. An underlying theological assumption of this approach is that we are engaged in holy work when we plan and prepare for worship. Leaders study, preparation, and training are themselves an encounter with the Holy. Therefore, we are called to become more informed and better prepared liturgical leaders. The language and encouraging style of the book is accessible to student pastors, pastors, and lay people interested in learning to think more deeply about worship.

Works of liturgical theology tend to be produced by experts who draw from the sources and explain the meaning of the liturgy to the lay people. When such explanations are firmly grounded in the sources, the academy accepts and celebrates them as genuine works of liturgical theology. Liturgical theology requires an examination from a different perspective: the lay people's. How do the lay people explain their understanding of the liturgy in their own words? Drawing from the results of parish focus groups and a clergy survey, The People's Faith presents the liturgical theology of the lay people in the Orthodox Churches of America. The People's Faith presents original findings on how ordinary laity experience the Divine Liturgy, Holy Communion, Lent and Easter, liturgical change, and gender roles in the Liturgy. The author brings the laity's views into dialog with the prevailing liturgical theology in the Orthodox Church and identifies several topics worthy of theological reflection. The people's veneration for tradition tops a list of liturgical issues worthy of further research, including ecumenical aspects of the Eucharist, the relationship between liturgy and theological anthropology, and a desire to receive divine compassion during ritual celebration.

Passing the Plate shows that few American Christians donate generously to religious and charitable causes -- a parsimony that seriously undermines the work of churches and ministries. Far from the 10 percent of one's income that tithing requires, American Christians' financial giving typically amounts, by some measures, to less than one percent of annual earnings. And a startling one out of five self-identified Christians gives nothing at all.
This eye-opening book explores the reasons behind such ungenerous giving, the potential world-changing benefits of greater financial giving, and what can be done to improve matters. If American Christians gave more generously, say the authors, any number of worthy projects -- from the prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS to the promotion of inter-religious understanding to the upgrading of world missions -- could be funded at astounding levels. Analyzing a wide range of social surveys and government and denominational statistical datasets and drawing on in-depth interviews with Christian pastors and church members in seven different states, the book identifies a crucial set of factors that appear to depress religious financial support -- among them the powerful allure of a mass-consumerist culture and its impact on Americans' priorities, parishioners' suspicions of waste and abuse by nonprofit administrators, clergy's hesitations to boldly ask for money, and the lack of structure and routine in the way most American Christians give away money. In their conclusion, the authors suggest practical steps that clergy and lay leaders might take to counteract these tendencies and better educate their congregations about the transformative effects of generous giving.
By illuminating the social and psychological forces that shape charitable giving, Passing the Plate is sure to spark a much-needed debate on a critical issue that is of much interest to church-goers, religious leaders, philanthropists, and social scientists.