If the church fathers or Reformers showed up at your church, would they worship... or run?

The time has come for evangelicals to reclaim the forgotten faith. And this means doing something many are reluctant to do. It means reflecting on the past to rethink the present and inform the future. It means thinking not just biblically and theologically, but also historically.

RetroChristianity challenges us to think critically and constructively about those who have come before us and how that informs our current beliefs, values, and practices. This book will adjust our attitudes about evangelicalism, and will lead us along a time-tested path toward a brighter future.

Pascal's Pens es is a masterpiece, and a landmark in French literature. This is Pascal's most influential theological work in it he surveys several philosophical paradoxes: infinity and nothing, faith and reason, soul and matter, death and life, meaning and vanity-seemingly arriving at no definitive conclusions besides humility, ignorance, and grace.

"I do heartily encourage you to re-publish this unique work by James Bannerman on 'The Church of Christ.' Especially in our day of great ignorance about the subject of the authority of the Church, this volume is inestimable. It bears close study by elders, seminarians (and seminaries ), and by all others who sincerely desire to honor Christ, the only King and Head of the Church." - Pastor Bill Shishko, "James Bannerman's 'The Church of Christ' is the most extensive, standard, solid, Reformed treatment of the doctrine of the church that has ever been written. It is indisputably the classic in its field. Every minister and elder should own a copy, and church members would also be much better informed if they perused it carefully. How many church problems would be alleviated if churches used Bannerman as their primary textbook for their understanding of what the church is and for their modus operandi -Joel R. Beeke

Amid the ferment of dissent and the protests of heretics, the church developed most significantly. This guide introduces that history by looking at those periods.A variety of questions have preoccupied Christian communities throughout history. Christians have attempted to determine who Jesus is and whether his life and teaching have global significance. They've battled over the nature of salvation and the sources of authority for Christian belief and practice. They've argued about the nature and purpose of the Christian church and how is it to be organized. They've drawn swords over the relationship between church and state. And they've taken votes on who should be sainted and who should be expelled.Focusing on sources of unity and division within the church throughout its history, and some of the most and least savory characters in the history, this guide provides an overview of Christian responses to those and other formative questions, all with the trademark Homebrewed Christianity wit and wisdom.

Published early in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, of England, only five years after the death of the Roman Catholic Queen Mary, the work is an affirmation of the Protestant Reformation in England during the ongoing period of religious conflict between Catholics and Protestants. Since the English monarchs also asserted control over the Church in England, a change in rulers could change the legal status of religious practices. As a consequence, adherents of one religion risked judicial execution by the State depending on the attitudes of the rulers. During Mary's reign, common people of Christian faith were publicly burned at the stake in an attempt to eliminate dissension from Catholic doctrines. Foxe's account of Mary's reign and the martyrdoms that took place during it contributed very significantly to the belief in a distinction from the Roman Catholic Church and the Pope as a central aspect of English national identity. By compiling his record, Foxe intended to demonstrate a historical justification for the foundation of the Church of England as a contemporary embodiment of the true and faithful church, rather than as a newly established Christian denomination.

We need a bigger vision for the city. It's not enough to plant individual churches in isolation from each other. The spiritual need and opportunity of our cities is too big for any one church to meet alone. Pastors Neil Powell and John James contend that to truly transform a city, the gospel compels us to create localized, collaborative church planting movements. They share lessons learned and principles discovered from their experiences leading a successful citywide movement. The more willing we are to collaborate across denominations and networks, the more effectively we will reach our communities-whatever their size-for Jesus. Come discover what God can do in our cities when we work together.

Create a church unchurched people absolutely love to attend. Deep and Wide provides church leaders with an in-depth look into North Point Community Church and its strategy for creating churches unchurched people absolutely love to attend. In it, Andy Stanley explains: His strategy for preaching and programming to both mature believers and cynical unbelievers North Point's spiritual formation model: The Five Faith Catalysts Three essential ingredients for creating irresistible environments How to tackle the challenge of transitioning a local congregation If your team is more concerned with who you are reaching than who you are keeping, the expanded edition of Deep and Wide will be more than a book you read; it will be a resource you come back to over and over! New bonus content includes a study guide, church staff helps, and an interview with Andy on the most frequently asked questions about Deep and Wide.

Creative and challenging insights help readers and their churches avoid the spiritual obituaries. Hundreds of Bible verses are used as a sharp scalpel exposing potential killers of the contemporary church. (Christian)

The amazing life of the Armenian dairyman who founded the Full Gospel Business Men's Fellowship International, a unique ministry to men and women in the business world. It is a story to make you laugh, to make you cry and to build faith. Today, with several thousand chapters around the world, the Fellowship reaches more than a billion people a year with the life-changing message of Christ's love. This book brings the story of its founder and those around him into vivid colour and will inspire all those who read it.

Like a miniature billboard, the church sign offers an unparalleled opportunity to promote God's kingdom beyond the walls of the congregation. Thousands of cars pass each day with potential readers of its content, so the church sign has the potential to be a powerful pulpit from which silent words are loudly spoken, communicating brief but significant messages of God's love to a spiritually thirsty world. Silent Words Loudly Spoken provides a wealth of fresh and inspiring messages that will maximize the impact of your church sign. With more than 700 uplifting, thought-provoking statements conveniently formatted to easily fit most church signs, it contains enough material to last several years. A humorous but pithy "Ten Commandments for a Good Church Sign" offers plenty of specific nuts-and-bolts advice for making the most of this powerful but sometimes overlooked ministry tool: ? Phrases should be short enough and letters large enough for effortless drive-by reading. ? Messages should be changed regularly, especially date-specific ones. ? "In-house" announcements better suited for the church bulletin should not be wasted on a disinterested public. ? Give the gift of a positive, inspirational message; negative statements turn off those the church wants to attract. David J. Claassen has been the pastor of Mayfair-Plymouth Congregational Church in Toledo, Ohio, since 1975. He is a contributing editor for his denominational magazine (The Congregationalist), and writes a weekly inspirational newspaper column. He is also the author of Object Lessons for a Year (Baker). Claassen is a graduate of Central College and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School.

Giordano Bruno challenged everything in his pursuit of an all-embracing system of thought. This not only brought him patronage from powerful figures of the day but also put him in direct conflict with the Catholic Church. Arrested by the Inquisition and tried as a heretic, Bruno was imprisoned, tortured, and, after eight years, burned at the stake in 1600. The Vatican "regrets" the burning yet refuses to clear him of heresy.

But Bruno's philosophy spread: Galileo, Isaac Newton, Christiaan Huygens, and Gottfried Leibniz all built upon his ideas; his thought experiments predate the work of such twentieth-century luminaries as Karl Popper; his religious thinking inspired such radicals as Baruch Spinoza; and his work on the art of memory had a profound effect on William Shakespeare.

Chronicling a genius whose musings helped bring about the modern world, Michael White pieces together the final years -- the capture, trial, and the threat the Catholic Church felt -- that made Bruno a martyr of free thought.

As diverse as they are many, the works of John Owen range from theological topics to sociopolitical issues. Introduction to John Owen captures the vision of the Christian life that Owen wished for his readers to have.

In first-century Ephesus, life is not easy for women. A young wife meets her daily struggles with equanimity and courage. She holds poverty and hunger at bay, fights to keep her child healthy and strong, and navigates the unpredictability of her husband's temperament. But into the midst of her daily fears and worries, a new hope appears: a teaching that challenges her society's most basic assumption. What is this new teaching? And what will it demand of her? In this gripping novel, Holly Beers introduces us to the first-century setting where the apostle Paul first proclaimed the gospel. Illuminated by historical images and explanatory sidebars, this lively story not only shows us the rich tapestry of life in a thriving Greco-Roman city, it also foregrounds the interior life of one courageous woman-and the radical new freedom the gospel promised her.

A popular and respected trades unionist, Tom Chapman was elected a divisional organiser of the Amalgamated Engineering Union in 1958, beating his communist opponent by one vote. This pitched him into the bitter struggle between the moderates and the hard-left who, in many cases, were financed and directed from Moscow. Such conflict could be treated as an ugly memory best forgotten, but as the hard left gained control of more unions, Marxist economic philosophy, with its essentially divisive nature, pitting labour and capital against each other, is returning to bedevil industrial relations and damage the economy. To stand for moderation and fair play in such circumstances needs courage and resourcefulness, as Chapman discovered when he was subjected to harassment and obstruction in carrying out his official duties. Despite this, he remained scrupulously fair, even fighting for a hard-left activist and known troublemaker who had been wrongfully dismissed. Chapman's strength was his Christian faith, unfettered by humbug, and his "secret weapon" was an all-inclusive love, by no means sentimental, that always tried to build bridges between opposing factions. Applied to industrial relations, he saw clearly that: "There are always two sides to every conflict in negotiation, but it is also true that both sides have a common objective. This common objective is the continued success or prosperity of the company, the industry, or even the nation". After leaving union employment, he was appointed liaison officer to the Church of England's Board of Social Responsibility, where he sometimes acted as the Archbishop of Canterbury's envoy to resolve damaging and protracted strikes at Vickers, Pilkingtons and Linwood. Later he formed the European Christian Industrial Movement to continue his lifelong work of building bridges between people. When a boy of 12, Tom Chapman dedicated his life to Christian service. This book is an account of how he kept that promise and gives a glimpse of how another Battle of Britain was fought where "so much [was] owed by so many to so few".