Make Prayer Your First Response How do you approach prayer? Do you worry you are not doing it "correctly"? Do you see it as an obligation to check off a to-do list? Do you think of it as a last resort-a kind of supernatural SOS when you need help? In this Pray First video Bible study, Pastor Chris Hodges shares proven ways to help you spend time in conversation with God-and enjoy every minute of it. You will gain tools to bring joy back into your time with God, explore prayers in the Bible, learn about fasting (an often overlooked discipline), and discover biblically grounded methods for making prayer a priority and not an afterthought. Pray First is a revolutionary study for anyone who wants to experience a dynamic, intimate prayer life with God. This study guide includes: Individual access to six streaming video sessions A guide to best practices for leading a group Video notes and a comprehensive structure for group discussion time Personal study section with questions and biblical passages for reflection between sessions Sessions and video run times: The Five P's of Prayer (21:00) The Lord's Prayer (20:00) The Prayer of Jabez (16:00) Praying the Names of God (18:30) My Prayer for You (17:00) Prayer and Fasting (21:00) This study guide has everything you need for a full Bible study experience, including: The study guide itself-with discussion and reflection questions, video notes, and a leader's guide. An individual access code to stream all video sessions online. And the physical DVD. Streaming video access code included. Access code subject to expiration after 12/31/2028. Code may be redeemed only by the recipient of this package. Code may not be transferred or sold separately from this package. Internet connection required. Void where prohibited, taxed, or restricted by law. Additional offer details inside.

Incredible stories and the inspiration behind the most popular Christmas songs, including Jingle Bells, Mary, Did You Know?, The First Noel, O Holy Night, Silver Bells, and White Christmas. Ringing along with the chimes in Silver Bells. Laughing along with Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Holding a candle while singing a chorus of Silent Night. The songs that you've sung since you were a child continue to bring Christmas to life each year. Now, you'll learn how your favorite Christmas songs came to be. Stories Behind the Best-Loved Songs of Christmas reveals the surprising and fascinating origins of secular and religious Christmas hits. Here are spiritual insights, heartwarming stories, and tales of the humble men and women of decades past who wrote what remain the most beloved Christmas songs today. Discover how: Iconic artists such as Judy Garland and Nat King Cole were influenced and inspired to record instant classics like Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas and The Christmas Song. God-inspired words given to an unlikely musician became Mary, Did You Know? One of the oldest Christmas songs still sung today, O Come, O Come, Emmanuel, changed from a hymn sung in Latin only in Catholic masses to a carol embraced by every Christian denomination in the world. The songs of Christmas reveal the true joy to be found in the celebration of Christ's birth and the spirit of the season that is anticipated each year all over the world. These stories will warm your heart and bring extra significance to the carols you sing each December.

Do you feel like invisible barriers are keeping you from the life you want? This may be the result of hidden, evil altars in the spirit-realm. An “altar” is not simply a physical object used for religious or occultic practice; it’s an invisible entry point that grants forces of darkness access to your life by partnering with the enemy.

In Dangerous Prayers from the Courts of Heaven that Destroy Evil Altars, Dr. Francis Myles teaches you to tear down these unholy altars, breaking free from many areas of sin and bondage. By praying through a framework of “dangerous prayers,” Dr. Myles teaches you to enter the Courts of Heaven and claim Jesus as your legal advocate in the spirit realm.

Discover how to:

• Operate in the Law of Dominion
• Be victorious in the Battle of Altars
• Appropriate the mystery of the Seven Drops of Jesus’ blood

Additionally, Dr. Myles has crafted more than 35 powerful, interactive Courts of Heaven activation prayers that will close the enemy’s gates over your life.

These Dangerous Prayers will help you destroy the altars of:

• Sexual perversion
• Infirmity and Sickness
• Familiar spirits
• Poverty
• Witchcraft
• Depression
• Premature death
• Barrenness
• Fear
• Trauma
• Failure
• Marriage Breakers
• Delay
• False Prophecies
• Freemasonry
• Demonic Spirits (including Jezebel, Leviathan, and Delilah)
• …and many others!

You don’t have to wait another day for someone else to lay hands on you. Take hold of your own deliverance and walk in freedom today!

Describing a great variety of funeral ritual from major world religions and from local traditions, this book shows how cultures not only cope with corpses but also create an added value for living through the encouragement of afterlife beliefs. The explosion of interest in death in recent years reflects the key theme of this book - the rhetoric of death - the way cultures use the most potent weapon of words to bring new power to life. This new edition is one third longer than the original with new material on the death of Jesus, the most theorized death ever which offers a useful case study for students. There is also empirical material from contemporary/recent events such as the death of Diana and an expanded section on theories of grief which will make the book more attractive to death counsellors.

Bringing together prominent scholars in the sociology of religion, this collection of essays offers a framework for understanding the transition from the essentially penitential purposes of the medieval pilgrimage, to the rise of the varied spiritualities of contemporary religious tourism. Covering over 1,500 years of religious travel, these essays explore the forms of expression and experience which we must engage reflectively to better understand the idea of pilgrimage and religious tourism as an important aspect of religious affirmation. This unique volume sheds light on the transformation of the traditional religious pilgrimage into a tourist activity and examines the influence of modern culture, technology, and secularization on spiritually motivated travel.

The editors conclude that a sharp distinction between pilgrimage and religious tourism is historically unjustified. While the purposes of such travel have changed over time, they remain a part of a larger religio-cultural context, offering avenues for religious encounter, just as pilgrimage in earlier eras permitted the development of various secular dimensions. Covering such diverse topics as Pagan pilgrimage and Postmodern Traditionalism, medieval pilgrimage and disaster site visitation, the authors provide an interesting look at an often misunderstood phenomenon.

"Pastoral Care in Worship" draws on Christian heritage and illuminating psychological research to deepen and enrich the pastoral dimension of Sunday worship. There is an urgent need today to deepen and enrich the pastoral dimension of Sunday worship. This book attempts to meet that need. The practical guidance that is offered has its foundation in rigorous and comprehensive theological reflection. This reflection draws not only on the riches of the Christian heritage, but also on some wonderfully illuminating psychological research. The conversation between the two disciplines yields some very interesting and important new ideas on worship as pastoral care. Each chapter consists of a theoretical base and a number of practical suggestions and resources. Most of the prayers, litanies, and rituals are original; there are also references to other useful worship resources. This book will revolutionize the way you think about worship as pastoral care.

The Philokalia is an important collection of writings by Fathers of the Eastern Church dating from the fourth to the fourteenth century. It exists in three versions: the Greek, complied in the eighteenth century; the Slavonic; and the Russian.

The Russian text, translated by Bishop Theophan the Recluse in the nineteenth century, and consisting of five volumes (with which a sixth is sometimes associated), is the most complete of all three versions. It is the Russian text that has been used in translating into English this selection, which presents a range of Philokalia writings concerning the Jesus Prayer.

In this final book written before his death, C. S. Lewis continue to challenge readers to revisit the power of prayer in our everyday lives. Within twenty-two letters between fictitious correspondents, Lewis shares his understanding of the role of prayer in our lives and the ways in which we might better imagine our relationship with God. As with all his bestselling works, C.S. Lewis once again communicates deep wisdom through profound story.

This exceptional book explores our understanding of the Psalter as a book of prayer in the Judeo-Christian tradition. It focuses in original and helpful ways on the genre of Lament as a text medium through which personal distress can be engaged with and processed in the action of prayer, and explores some of the psychodynamic shifts which can occur for people praying in this way, providing some actual case examples of the process at work. The author provides a thorough examination of the lament genre found in the Psalter from a theological perspective and also offers a practical working model which could be incorporated into work with people who are suffering from distress in a variety of forms.

The contributors to this volume address the key institutions of the first and second Church, considering the development of rituals and sacraments, and the development of Church leadership, and of the Church itself. The first part of the book looks at the offices of the Church - the Apostolate and the development of other religious authorities - as well as the notion of Apostolic Tradition. The second part looks at the sacraments, with in-depth consideration of the Eucharist, and of Baptismal texts from the early Church. The essays are of interest to scholars researching the development of the early Church and of Church rituals and practices.