Award-winning author and Benedictine oblate Paula Huston invites readers to de-clutter their minds, hearts, relationships, and souls in a book of daily Lenten practices woven from the gospels, the Desert Fathers, and the author's own wealth of spiritual experience. "What are you giving up for Lent this year?" It's the expected question amongst Christian friends each spring. In Simplifying the Soul: Lenten Practices to Renew Your Spirit, Huston asks her readers a deeper, alternative sort of question: "How will you rid your life of excess this Lent?" She encourages readers to see Lent as a time to seek out silence and free themselves of "stuff" and to acknowledge the connections between what they pray about and what they do. With honesty, vulnerability, and grace, Huston challenges readers to move outward and act, showing them how everyday actions like cleaning out a junk drawer, giving away something no longer used, or spending fifteen minutes in silence can be surprisingly powerful ways of experiencing a more meaningful Lent and a simpler life. Whether cutting up a credit card, visiting someone at the hospital, or forgiving someone with whom they are angry, readers experience, under Huston's gentle and expert care, how such practices lead to a more authentic Christian faith.

Ideal for individuals or groups seeking a deeper understanding of the Christmas story and its links with the Hebrew Bible, Pathway to the Stable offers a twenty-first century introduction to the people and places central to the story of the birth of Jesus, with reference to the promises of the Old Testament and its setting in the contemporary Jewish and Roman worlds. 'In this rich and rewarding series of studies, Ivor Rees has taken us deep into the biblical world in order to show us once more the glory of the coming of Our Lord, the nativity and childhood of Jesus Christ.' Revd. D. Densil Morgan, Professor of Theology, University of Wales Trinity Saint David

This is the third edition of this popular guide book to the biblical sites in both Israel and Jordan. It has been revised and rewritten, with new pictures, illustrations, maps, and plans. The Pilgrim Books team has conducted or accompanied more than forty pilgrimage groups to the Holy Land and have produced a book that is concise and informative. It contains a mine of practical information on both countries and is profusely illustrated, so that it becomes a colorful souvenir, the stimulant to a host of happy memories for years after your return.

Prayer remains a vital part of Christian discipleship. Following the success of the author's 80 Creative Prayer Ideas, this ready-to-use resource book contains 80 further ideas on setting up reflective and creative prayer stations or responses. Claire Daniel shows us how to pray with our whole being - our senses as well as our voice, our hearts as much as our minds. Tried and tested, these ideas will enhance the praying of small groups, churches and individuals.

This is a substantially expanded and completely revised verision of Bradshaw's classic account, first published in 1993. Traditional liturgical scholarship has generally been marked by an attempt to fit together the various pieces of evidence for the practice of early Christian worship in such a way as to suggest that a single, coherent line of evolution can be traced from the apostolic age to the fourth century. Bradshaw examines this methodology in the light of recent developments in Jewish liturgical scholarship, of current trends in New Testament studies, and of the nature of the source-documents themselves, and especially the ancient church orders. In its place he offers a guide to Christian liturgical origins which adopts a much more cautious approach, recognizing the limitations of what can truly be known, and takes seriously the clues pointing to the esssentially variegated character of ancient Christian worship.

Hundreds of pilgrims set out from Europe to the Holy Land between 385 and 1099 AD, but of these only eighteen wrote descriptions which have survived. They provide essential background material for the history of Christianity in the Holy Land, as well as for all archaeologists and geographers of the Byzantine and Early Arab period. In this companion volume to Wilkinson's Egeria's Travels , these texts are translated and wherever possible related to archaeological work. With maps and indexes, the reader is provided with a vivid picture of the physical conditions of travel and the development of Christian prayer in the Holy Places. This second edition is updated and expanded.

The Bible is meant to be read in the church, by the church, as the church. Although the practice of reading Scripture has often become separated from its ecclesial context, theologian Derek Taylor argues that it rightly belongs to the disciplines of the community of faith. He finds a leading example of this approach in the theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who regarded the reading of Scripture as an inherently communal exercise of discipleship. In conversation with other theologians, including John Webster, Robert Jenson, and Stanley Hauerwas, Taylor contends that Bonhoeffer's approach to Scripture can engender the practices and habits of a faithful hermeneutical community. Today, as in Bonhoeffer's time, the church is called to take up and read. Featuring new monographs with cutting-edge research, New Explorations in Theology provides a platform for constructive, creative work in the areas of systematic, historical, philosophical, biblical, and practical theology.

To mark the tenth anniversary of the publication of Conversations with God, Book 1, all three of the most essential books in Neale Donald Walsch's seminal trilogy are brought together in one beautiful volume just in time for the gift-giving season.
Conversations with God, Book 1 was the start of Neale Donald Walsch's ongoing dialogue with God. The trilogy contains the most essential truths and lessons for spiritual seekers, and these books are the bestselling of all the author's works. Featuring a new foreword by the author, printed throughout in two colors, and inserted in a fully enclosed full-color box, this remarkable book will be a Christmas gift to treasure.

William Law is best remembered today for his Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life. To those interested in his spirituality, however, other works have greater impact, in particular The Spirit of Prayer and The Spirit of Love, which are considered the finest and most appealing. In the years in which they were written, his vision had reached its fullest and most characteristic development, and his literary power was at its height. It is in these books that the profound influence of Jacob Boehme can be most clearly seen. His great synthesis of the mystical outpourings and orthodox Christian theology, provide an English spiritual classic. Law's understanding and interpretation of mysticism was more original than traditional, being dynamic and creative. He believed in the life of God working from within, and the flame of divine love being a link with and an understanding of God. He conceived that mysticism was a matter of life, that relied on willing rather than knowing, and that ultimately rested on trust in God. Despite holding no official position he was widely regarded in his own time and later as a spiritual guide, and his trilogy The Spirit of Prayer, The Spirit of Love and The Way to Divine Knowledge was the mature expression of his theology and religion.

There are many books available on the topic of worship today, but few provide a comprehensive, practical method for worship design. Constance M. Cherry, a worship professor and practitioner, provides worship leaders with credible blueprint plans for successfully designing worship services that foster meaningful conversation with God and the gathered community. Readers will learn how to create services that are faithful to Scripture, historically conscious, relevant to God, Christ-centered, and engaging for worshipers of all ages in the twenty-first century. The book sets forth basic principles concerning worship design and demonstrates how these principles are conducive to virtually any style of worship practiced today in a myriad of Christian communities. It will also work well as a guide for worship-planning teams in local churches and provide insight for worship students, pastors, and church leaders involved in congregational worship.

God cannot fill what's already filled with itself.

Are you struggling to hear God? Is it hard to find time in your busy day for more than
a few minutes of prayer? Maybe it's time for a different approach.

Maybe it's time to set aside real blocks of time to be quiet before the Lord.

In Quiet Prayer, Marie Chapian-a lifelong student of reflective prayer-examines the
benefits of meaningful meditation, both ancient and modern.

Did you know the passionate, early followers of Jesus regularly practiced meditation?
It was the building block and very basis of their faith. Many of them chose to live
apart from society, in cloistered cells and caves as hermits and recluses of the desert.

These men and women of God were called Abbas and Ammas-mothers and fathers of
the faith-and were looked up to as spiritual guides, mentors, healers, and deliverers
in their time. So, what can we learn from them?

You may not have the time or desire to live in the desert, but you can learn how to
cultivate a quiet place in your soul. A place where your faith will be grounded and
your mind can finally rest.

The Advent season is filled with rich themes that have fascinated poets. In Run, Shepherds, Run, Bill Countryman presents a poem a day for devotional reading during Advent and the twelve days of Christmas. Readers will find classic poets they know and love, including George Herbert, John Donne, Christina Rossetti, Emily Dickinson, and Alfred, Lord Tennyson, as well as contemporary poets, known and unknown. Run, Shepherds, Run includes helpful hints for reading poetry, for those who have less experience reading it than others, as well as useful annotations to help readers with older language that may not have easily apparent meanings for today's readers.

* Activities for celebrating secular and sacred seasons of the year * For use in churches, schools, camps, at home Many of our experiences in life happen when several generations are together- at church, at home, in our communities. Holidays and family events are times for celebration, learning, rituals, food, and fun. This edition of Faithful Celebrations focuses on the months of January and February, when secular holidays can become times to think about how we live out the gospel message in celebrating national holidays with more than a day off from school or sending a greeting card. Each event to be celebrated includes key ideas; a cluster of activities to experience the key ideas; a list of materials needed; full instructions for implementation; background history and information; music; art; recipes; and prayer resources to use in a small, intimate, or large multi-generational group. For children, youth, adults, or any combination of ages, any of these activities can take place in any setting. Faithful Celebrations: Making Time for God in Winter includes New Year's Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Super Bowl Sunday, Valentine's Day, and Snow days.

It takes courage to hope; to stand in our confusion and grief and still to believe that `God is not helpless among the ruins'. Guided by Habakkuk and his prophetic landmarks, this book is a reflective journey through the tangled landscape of bewildered faith, through places of wrestling and waiting, and on into the growth space of deepened trust and transformation. Read it and learn the value and practice of honest prayer, of surrender, of silence and listening, and of irresistible hoping.

These five profound lectures look at the cosmic forces behind the four great festivals of the year, providing a wealth of material for fruitful thought and meditation. Steiner presents great imaginative pictures that unite the heavens and the Earth through a portrayal of the activities of the archangels Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, and Uriel. In the course of the lectures, Rudolf Steiner offers spiritual insight into subjects that include the alchemical processes of sulfur, mercury, and salt in the cosmos; the realms of humankind and plants; spiritual combustion processes; crystals; clouds and meteors; the movements of elemental beings in nature; and the conflicting efforts of Lucifer and Ahriman the two great adversaries to divert Earth from its true purpose. The Four Seasons and the Archangels includes five color plates of Rudolf Steiner s blackboard drawings made during the lectures."