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Books > Religion & Spirituality > Christianity > Christian worship > General
Though frequently used in times of crisis or pain, the book of
Psalms is often misread or misunderstood, seeming like a
disorganized jumble of prayer, praise, and lament. To help readers
get more out of the Psalms, renowned Old Testament scholar Gordon
Wenham highlights its foundational place for all Christian worship
and spiritual formation. This compilation of eight lectures
delivered between 1997 and 2010 teaches the practices of singing,
reading, and praying the Psalms, paying special attention to the
Psalter's canonical structure, messianic focus, and ethical goal.
In drawing on his extensive academic and scholarly experience,
Wenham has crafted a guide for discovering afresh the manifold
wonders of this beautiful and surprisingly complex portion of the
Bible.
Each year thousands of men and women from more than sixty countries
journey by foot and bicycle across northern Spain, following the
medieval pilgrimage road known as the Camino de Santiago. Their
destination is Santiago de Compostela, where the remains of the
apostle James are said to be buried. These modern-day pilgrims and
the role of the pilgrimage in their lives are the subject of Nancy
Louise Frey's fascinating book. Unlike the religiously-oriented
pilgrims who visit Marian shrines such as Lourdes, the modern Road
of St. James attracts an ecumenical mix of largely well-educated,
urban middle-class participants. Eschewing comfortable methods of
travel, they choose physically demanding journeys, some as long as
four months, in order to experience nature, enjoy cultural and
historical patrimony, renew faith, or cope with personal trauma.
Frey's anthropological study focuses on the remarkable reanimation
of the Road that has gained momentum since the 1980s. Her intensive
fieldwork (including making the pilgrimage several times herself)
provides a colorful portrayal of the pilgrimage while revealing a
spectrum of hopes, discontents, and desires among its participants,
many of whom feel estranged from society. The Camino's physical and
mental journey offers them closer community, greater personal
knowledge, and links to the past and to nature. But what happens
when pilgrims return home? Exploring this crucial question Frey
finds that pilgrims often reflect deeply on their lives and some
make significant changes: an artistic voice is discovered, a
marriage is ended, meaningful work is found. Other pilgrims repeat
the pilgrimage or join a pilgrims' association to keep their
connection to the Camino alive. And some only remain pilgrims while
on the road. In all, "Pilgrim Stories" is an exceptional prism
through which to understand the desires and dissatisfactions of
contemporary Western life at the end of the millennium. 'Feet are
touched, discussed, massaged, [and] become signs of a journey well
traveled: 'I did it all on foot!' ...Pilgrims give feet a power and
importance not recognized in daily life, as a causeway and direct
channel to the road, the past, meaningful relations, nature, and
the self'.
What if you could grow closer to God and improve your health in
just 21 days? This companion workbook to the popular book "The
Daniel Fast" will help you do just that as it guides you through
the actual fasting experience. Susan Gregory, "The Daniel Fast
Blogger," is widely recognized as the expert on this 21-day fast
inspired by the book of Daniel, and she has helped thousands of
people discover a safe and healthy way to fast. Designed for
churches, small groups, or individuals, her 5-week study contains
an introduction, three sessions, and a conclusion (as well as bonus
leader's resources). The principles you learn from "The Daniel
Fast" will change the way you view food, your body, and your
relationship with the one who created you.
Praise is something we are, not something we do. Musician David
Crowder redefines our perspective of God and helps us develop a
habit of praising Him by reflecting on targeted psalms from The
Message//REMIX.Ideal for teens and those who love the beauty and
music of the Psalms.
"In a Different Place" offers a richly textured account of a
modern pilgrimage, combining ethnographic detail, theory, and
personal reflection. Visited by thousands of pilgrims yearly, the
Church of the Madonna of the Annunciation on the Aegean island of
Tinos is a site where different interests--sacred and secular,
local and national, personal and official--all come together.
Exploring the shrine and its surrounding town, Jill Dubisch shares
her insights into the intersection of social, religious, and
political life in Greece. Along the way she develops the idea of
pilgrimage-journeying away from home in search of the
miraculous--as a metaphor for anthropological fieldwork. This
highly readable work offers us the opportunity to share one
anthropologist's personal and professional journey and to see in a
"different place" the inadequacy of such conventional
anthropological categories as theory versus data, rationality
versus emotion, and the observer versus the observed.
Dubisch examines in detail the process of pilgrimage itself, its
relationship to Orthodox belief and practice, the motivations and
behavior of pilgrims, the relationship between religion and Greek
national identity, and the gendered nature of religious roles.
Seeking to evoke rather than simply describe, her book presents
readers with a sense of the emotion, color, and power of pilgrimage
at this Greek island shrine.
2020 Outreach Magazine Resource of the Year ("Also Recommended,"
Church) Is a church just something we create to serve our purposes
or to maintain old traditions? Or is it something more vital, more
meaningful, and more powerful? This can be hard to believe when we
look at what happens in any one congregation or denomination.
Certainly not all churches act like Jesus in the world, and many
individual churches in the West are dying. When it's so easy to be
confused, frustrated, or simply apathetic about the church, how
should we understand its purpose today? In this appealing
introduction to the nature of the local church, set in the context
of Christian history and global diversity, historian and missionary
Scott Sunquist shows us the church in motion. Why Church? clarifies
the two primary purposes of the church-worship and witness-and
unpacks what the church is (and ought to be) using five movements
of worship: come together stand to praise God kneel to confess sit
to listen to the Word of God go out into the world Packed with
stories and insights from experiences in churches around the world,
this book explores cultural contextualization, the meaning of
conversion, worship in both personal and communal aspects, and how
mission combines telling the good news with being good news as a
community. From Fuller Theological Seminary's renowned
church-planting program, this primer is well suited to leaders and
their core teams to read together and share with new attenders as
they catch the spirit of the dynamic gathering that is the local
church.
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