This examination of primary texts of the Lutheran Confessions gathers together pertinent references for the discussion of worship in the Lutheran Church.

Winner of a Christianity Today 2005 Book Award Baptism. The Lord's Supper. We recognize these church practices. But do we really grasp their meaning and place in Christian worship? Is our neglect of them hindering our communion with Christ? Are we missing the real drama of our salvation? Often the object of debate, the sacraments are likewise neglected and superficially understood. Leonard Vander Zee makes a compelling case that these problems can be overcome when we see the connection between Baptism and the Lord's Supper and the continuing ministry of Jesus Christ, the incarnate Word of God. Founding his discussion in biblical teaching reaching back to the creation narrative and forward to the teaching of Jesus and the apostle Paul, Vander Zee sees the Christ-centered celebration of these sacraments as essential to the renewal of the church. A reappropriation of Baptism and the Eucharist, especially in the evangelical church, holds great promise for healing the rift between the natural and the spiritual, the personal and social, the head and the heart, and between the body of believers and our Lord Jesus Christ who died for us and now lives to make intercessions for us. InChrist, Baptism and the Lord's Supper, Vander Zee not only opens up a Christ-centered approach to the sacraments but also provides guidance on the practical matters that face pastors and parishioners in the pursuit of a renewed and authentic Christian worship.

Underlying Exodus in its priestly redaction is a pilgrimage. Smith's new book starts by reviewing pilgrimage shrines, feasts and practices in ancient Israel. Next, it examines the two pilgrimage journeys in Exodus. In Exodus 1-15 Moses journeys to Mount Sinai, experiences God and receives his commission. In Exodus 16-40, Moses and the people together journey to Mount Sinai for the people's experience of God and their commission. Between lies Exodus 15, the fulcrum-point of the book: vv. 1-12 look back and vv. 13-18 look forward to Israel's journey to Sinai. Finally, the different meanings of torah in the book of Exodus are contrasted, and the book concludes with a consideration of Exodus's larger place in the Pentateuch.>

Faith and Place takes knowledge of place as a basis for thinking about the relationship between religious belief and our embodied life.
Recent epistemology of religion has appealed to various secular analogues for religious belief - especially analogues drawn from sense perception and scientific theory construction. These approaches tend to overlook the close connection between religious belief and our moral, aesthetic and otherwise engaged relationship to the material world. By taking knowledge of place as a starting point for religious epistemology, Mark Wynn aims to throw into clearer focus the embodied, action-orienting, perception-structuring, and affect-infused character of religious understanding.
This innovative study understands the religious significance of a site in terms of i. its capacity to stand for some encompassing truth about human life; ii. its conservation of historical meanings, where these meanings make a practical claim upon those located at the place at later times; and iii. its directing of the believer's attention to a sacred meaning, through enacted appropriation of the site.
Wynn proposes that the notion of 'God' functions like the notion of a 'genius loci', where the relevant locus is the sum of material reality. He argues that knowledge of God consists in part in a storied and sensuous appreciation of the significance of particular places.

In this compelling book, Mark Stibbe argues that God wants to use Christians to speak prophetically into the lives of unbelievers, waking them up to the fact that Jesus is alive and he knows their every thought, word and action. There are many biblical examples of God's people using prophecy in their witness to unbelievers. Jesus used prophecy in His ministry to seekers. After Pentecost, God gave the gift of prophecy to believers as one resource among many in their witness to the world. Furthermore, Christians today receive prophecies for those who don't know Christ, often with immediate and life-changing effects. This book contains many such testimonies.

The books in this series help preachers and students of preaching understand biblical texts in light of current scholarship. Each volume gives exegetical help, suggestions on how to preach important biblical texts, and sample sermons.

This comprehensive resource is the first lectionary-based collection of prayers for the communion table. Included are communion and post-communion prayers for each Sunday in the lectionary cycle and selected special days. The prayers can be used both by congregations that offer separate prayers for bread and cup and by those that use a single prayer. An index is included for congregations that do not use the lectionary.

Drama has power. It can awaken us. Make us curious. Reveal our inner desires and passions. Remind us of our foolishness. Drama has power in worship. It can snap us out of our Sunday morning (or Saturday night) trance. It can draw us into the story of Scripture. It can help us see our sin. It can motivate us to change. But drama can also be dull, predictable, guilt-inducing and just plain cheesy. How do we avoid the pitfalls and discover the power? Alison Siewert and her team of writers have some ideas about that. They offer in this handbook articles on every aspect of drama ministry--from why it's biblical to how to direct a performance, from warm-ups for actors to how to write your own sketches. You'll learn how to do drama that is simple and meaningful--without experienced actors. You'll learn how to craft drama with authenticity and excellence. Also included are cutting-edge sketches for the postmodern crowd that you can reproduce for your drama team and use in your ministry. Drama has power to change lives.Drama Team Handbook will show you how.

Decision making begins with a willingness to submit your intentions to God's perfect will and humbly follow His direction and understanding the impact of consequences in your decision making! The daily decisions that you make today will determine what kind of impact you will make tomorrow. The key to making better decisions is to educate yourself, make adjustments necessary, let your decisions be based on a solid foundation and take proper precaution. This book can help you understand decision making process and help you develop in moving forward in your journey of life and also makes the principles in the Bible relevant to everyday living.

Ritual has emerged as a major focus of academic interest. As a concept, the idea of ritual integrates the study of behavior both within and beyond the domain of religion. Ritual can be both secular and religious in character. There is renewed interest in questions such as: Why do rituals exist at all? What has been, and continues to be, their place in society? How do they change over time? Such questions exist against a backdrop of assumptions about development, modernization, and disenchantment of the world.Written with the specific needs of students of religious studies in mind, " Ritual: Key Concepts in Religion" surveys the field of ritual studies looking at it both historically within anthropology and in terms of its contemporary relevance to mass phenomena.

The classic of Russian spirituality now with facing-page
commentary that illuminates and explains the text.

"The Way of a Pilgrim" is the timeless account of an anonymous wanderer who set out on a journey across nineteenth-century Russia with nothing but a backpack, some bread, and a Bible, with a burning desire to learn the true meaning of the words of St. Paul: "Pray without ceasing." In this completely accessible new abridgment, all the terms and references are explained for you--with intriguing insights into aspects of the text that are often not available to the general reader.

The power of prayer is real. It can heal illness, win battles, and move personal mountains. Cultures and religions throughout the world use their own systems of divine communication for comfort, guidance, and more. Unfortunately, too few of us know how to tap into the power of prayer. How to Pray was written for everyone who wants to learn more about this universal practice. How to Pray begins by discussing the many benefits of prayer, including enhanced physical, mental, and spiritual health. You'll find that the power of prayer has not only been enjoyed by individuals and religious communities, but has also been validated in numerous scientific studies. Following this, the author explores the prayer and meditation practices of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism, in each case providing a clear explanation of that religion's or philosophy's approach, as well as true-life stories that show the significance of prayer in the lives of real people. If you want to learn more about the use of prayer all over the world--or if you simply long for the comfort of personal prayer--How to Pray will give you the knowledge, the guidance, and the inspiration that you seek.

'Vincent van Gogh's last words: La tristesse durea--the sadness will never go away. It will not go away. But it will change.' Sometimes grief can be overwhelming --especially over the holidays. The world is moving forward and celebrating life, but for grievers darkness pervades the holiday.This special gift book edition of bestseller A Decembered Grief is designed to guide you on a journey beyond that darkness and get out on the other side. You will learn that the holidays aren t about presents or cookies or church services-- they are about relationships. Harold Ivan Smith will teach you how to alter traditions instead of abandoning them, appreciate the grief styles of others, and befriend your grief instead of dread it. The holidays can be tough. This book can help.

The present volume, first published at the close of World War II, and based on a series of articles on initiation originally written between 1932 and 1938 for Le Voile d'Isis (later renamed Etudes Traditionnelles), is unique in giving a comprehensive account both of the conditions of initiation and of the characteristics of organizations qualified to transmit it. Guenon's distinction between the initiatic and the mystical paths-the first requiring a formal relationship with a master, a set of specific contemplative techniques, and a chain-of-transmission stretching back to the origin of the tradition in question, the second generally lacking these elements-led to some controversy between those who accept this distinction and others who believe that initiatory and mystical spirituality are one and the same. The book presents such central principles as the dangers and barrenness of syncretism, the often dire consequences of fostering 'psychic powers', and the superiority of sacerdotal initiation (into the Greater Mysteries) over 'royal' initiation (into the Lesser Mysteries), though both are necessary parts of the initiatic path. whose elevation of royal initiation over sacerdotal must be seen, according to Guenon's criteria, as a modern-day echo of the ancient revolt of the warrior caste against the priestly one. Whoever follows Guenon's argument will realize that a romantic warrior mysticism held no fascination for him, and is in fact explicitly contrary to his principles. But pre-eminently, Perspectives on Initiation provides indispensable points of reference for anyone attempting to distinguish between 'initiatic', 'pseudo-initiatic', and 'countert-initiatic' spiritualities in these profoundly uncertain times.