Murphy Shepherd is a man with many secrets. He lives alone on an island, tending the grounds of a church with no parishioners, and he’s dedicated his life to rescuing those in peril. But as he mourns the loss of his mentor and friend, Murph himself may be more lost than he realizes.

When he pulls a beautiful woman named Summer out of Florida’s Intracoastal Waterway, Murph’s mission to lay his mentor to rest at the end of the world takes a dangerous turn. Drawn to Summer, and desperate to find her missing daughter, Murph is pulled deeper and deeper into the dark and dangerous world of modern-day slavery.

With help from some unexpected new friends, including a faithful Labrador he plucks from the ocean and an ex-convict named Clay, Murph must race against the clock to locate the girl before he is consumed by the secrets of his past—and the ghosts who tried to bury them.

With Charles Martin’s trademark lyricism and poignant prose, The Water Keeper is at once a tender love story, a heartrending search for freedom, and a reminder that the needs of the one outweigh those of the ninety-nine.

The Field Guide for Small Group Leaders provides basic training and support to help small group leaders succeed in the critical mission of leading others toward spiritual growth and transformation. The premise of serving as a small group leader sounds simple: Invite people to join you in studying the Bible. But the real-world implications of that role are incredibly complex. Today's small group leaders are asked to function as semi-experts in theology, psychology, evangelism, worship, apologetics, counseling, education, and nutrition--all in service to God and His church. Most of today's group leaders receive little or no training on how to carry out this important work. They are told to "Go and make disciples," then left to figure out the details on their own. Sam O'Neal (a small group leader himself), wrote The Field Guide for Small Group Leaders to help fellow leaders navigate this confusion and map out a plan for successful, transformational, and rewarding meetings. The Field Guide provides helpful information on: Curriculum and planning. Learning styles. Icebreakers and learning activities. Crafting discussion questions. Worship and prayer. What to do when things don't go as planned. And more. Whether you lead a small group, life group, or Sunday school class, this guide will give you confidence and practical tools for fostering meaningful connections, genuine community, and spiritual growth that so many are desperate for.

Combining heart-wrenching emotion with edge-of-your-seat tension, New York Times bestselling author Charles Martin explores the true power of sacrificial love. Murphy Shepherd has made a career of finding those no one else could-survivors of human trafficking. His life's mission is helping others find freedom . . . but then the nightmare strikes too close to home. When his new wife, her daughter, and two other teenage girls are stolen, Murphy is left questioning all he has thought to be true. With more dead ends than leads, he has no idea how to find his loved ones. After everything is stripped away, love is what remains. Hope feels lost, but Murphy is willing to expend his last breath trying to bring them home. Part of the Murphy Shepherd series: Book One: The Water Keeper Book Two: The Letter Keeper Book Three: Coming June 2022! Full-length novel Includes discussion questions for book clubs Also by Charles Martin: The Mountain Between Us, Send Down the Rain, Long Way Gone, When Crickets Cry

“Because you’re worth rescue.� The unrelenting third installment in the Murphy Shepherd series from New York Times bestselling author Charles Martin.  Murphy Shepherd’s last rescue mission very nearly cost him his life. He’d like nothing more than to stay close to his wife and daughters for a while. But Bones’s nemesis must be stopped, and there are so many who still need to know they are worth rescuing.  As the cat-and-mouse game moves into the open, Murphy is tested at every turn—both physically and mentally. Then the unthinkable happens: his beloved mentor and friend is taken. Gone without a trace.  Murphy lives by the mantra that love always shows up. But how can he rescue Bones when he has no leads?  With heart-stopping clarity, The Record Keeper explores the true cost of leaving the ninety-nine to find the one.  Part of the Murphy Shepherd series: Book One: The Water Keeper Book Two: The Letter Keeper Book Three: The Record Keeper Full-length novel Includes discussion questions for book clubs Also by Charles Martin: The Mountain Between Us, Chasing Fireflies, When Crickets Cry, Long Way Gone

Through forty slices of the story of Calvary, master storyteller and vivid Bible teacher Charles Martin, will walk you back to the cross to look up at it from a different angle each day and ask the Father to reveal to you:

• What exactly did he mean when the dying Jesus said, "It is finished"—what was finished at the cross?
• When did what Jesus finish at the cross even begin?
• What does this man's death 2,000 years ago have to do with me today?
• What is God offering at the cross that I so easily forget and take for granted?
• What do I not realize about myself that the Father God has never forgotten?

Whether it is your first, tenth, or ten thousandth time looking up at the cross of Christ, you can trust New York Times bestselling author Charles Martin, to wrap an arm around your shoulder, come alongside and walk with you as a fellow pilgrim headed in the same direction and answering the same question: "What will I do with this man, Jesus?"

Because before we can celebrate the resurrection, we need to backtrack to where Jesus has been, how He got there, and what His presence there accomplished. And while Satan can't change what happened on that Friday, he has been working ever since to hide what happened there. To obscure the work of the Cross. To avert our eyes. But on this 40-day pilgrimage your eyes will open wide and your heart will race as you discover the answer to the question that can change your life, Lord, why me? Why would you endure the cross and despise the shame, for me?

From the bestselling author of The Mountain Between Us comes the moving story of a man with a painful past, a little girl with a doubtful future, and a shared journey toward healing for both of their hearts. It begins on the shaded town square in a sleepy Southern town. A spirited seven-year-old has a brisk business at her lemonade stand. But the little girl's pretty yellow dress can't quite hide the ugly scar on her chest. Her latest customer, a bearded stranger, drains his cup and heads to his car, his mind on a boat he's restoring at a nearby lake. The stranger understands more about the scar than he wants to admit. And the beat-up bread truck careening around the corner with its radio blaring is about to change the trajectory of both their lives. Before it's over, they'll both know there are painful reasons why crickets cry . . . and that miracles lurk around unexpected corners. Praise for When Crickets Cry: "If you read any book this year, this is the one." -Coffee Time Romance "Charming characters and twists that keep the pages turning." -Southern Living A Southern Living Book of the Month selection Stand-alone contemporary Christian fiction (approx. 85,000 words) Also by Charles Martin: The Water Keeper, The Mountain Between Us, Send Down the Rain, and Chasing Fireflies

Winner of the 2004 Harold Morton Landon Translation Award from the Academy of American Poets, Charles Martin's blank-verse translation of the Metamorphoses is a "smoothly readable, accurate, charming, subtle yet clear" (Richard Wilbur) version that "highlights [the poem's] lightness and pervasive sense of universal mutability" (Michael Dirda).

When paramedics find a malnourished six-year-old boy near a burning car that holds a dead woman, they wonder who he is-and why he won't speak. From the New York Times bestselling author of The Mountain Between Us comes a story of self-discovery, healing, and hope. On a stifling summer day, an old Chevy Impala ignored the warning signals and was annihilated by the oncoming train. What no one realized until much later was that the driver had paused just before entering the tracks and kicked a small boy out of the car. A small boy with broken glasses who is clutching a notebook with all his might . . . but who never speaks. Chase Walker was one of the lucky ones. He was in foster care as a child, but he finally ended up with a family who loved him and cared for him. Now, as a journalist for the local paper, he's moved on and put the past behind him. But when he's assigned the story of this young boy, painful, haunting questions about his own childhood begin to rise to the surface. And as Chase Walker discovers, learning the truth about who you are can be as elusive-and as magical-as chasing fireflies on a summer night. Praise for Chasing Fireflies: "Colorful, memorable characters; Southern regional flavor that's drop-dead accurate; and lyrical, intelligent writing make Chasing Fireflies an exceptionally good read." -Aspiring Retail "Martin understands the power of story and he uses it to alter the souls and lives of both his characters and his readers . . ."-Patti Callahan Henry, New York Times bestselling author Full-length emotive Southern fiction Includes discussion questions for book clubs Also by Charles Martin: The Water Keeper, The Mountain Between Us, Send Down the Rain, and When Crickets Cry

In the aftermath of Jesus' resurrection, the testimonies of those who had followed him were so bold and powerful that they turned the world upside down. What would happen if we lived with that same kind of faith today? In the first century, believer didn't just mean someone who heard and agreed with Jesus; it meant someone who acted on that belief. And when the outside world saw the faith of these new believers, they declared "they turned the world upside down" (Acts 17:6). In this follow-up to What If It's True? Charles Martin, a New York Times bestselling novelist, blends storytelling and teaching to explore the lives of the disciples in the aftermath of the Resurrection and as they spread the message of the Gospel and "turn the world upside down", leading up to Paul's ministry in Thessalonica. In his beloved lyrical style, Martin illuminates key moments from Scripture and shares stories from his own life as a disciple. Learn to become a believer who: Understands how the truth of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection so powerfully reshaped history Uses the lives of the disciples as inspiration to be the light in a dark world Lives every moment with the disciples' same world-changing faith today Filled with supporting Scripture and beautiful examples of prayers to offer as supplications before the throne of grace, this book will show you what our world could look like if we lived as the disciples did: with an unwavering confidence in the power and presence of God.

An actress running from her past finds escape with a man hiding from his future. When someone wants to be lost, a home tucked among the Ten Thousand Islands off the Florida coast is a good place to live. A couple decent boats, and a deep knowledge of fishing and a man can get by without ever having to talk to another soul. It's a nice enough existence, until the one person who ties him to the world of the living, the reason he's still among them even if only on the fringes, asks him for help. Father Steady Capri knows quite a bit about helping others. But he is afraid Katie Quinn's problems may be beyond his abilities. Katie is a world-famous actress with an all too familiar story. Fame seems to have driven her to self-destruct. Steady knows the true cause of her desire to end her life is buried too deeply for him to reach. But there is one person who still may be able to save her from herself. He will show her an alternate escape, a way to write a new life. But Katie still must confront her past before she can find peace. Ultimately, he will need to leave his secluded home and sacrifice the serenity he's found to help her. From the Florida coast, they will travel to the French countryside where they will discover the unwritten story of both their pasts and their future.

Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.

From New York Times bestselling author Charles Martin comes a radical retelling of the prodigal son story. Cooper O'Connor thought he could make it big as a musician, but he promptly lost it all. Can he repair his relationship with the father who never stopped calling him home? At the age of eighteen, musician and songwriter Cooper O'Connor took everything his father held dear and drove 1,200 miles from home to Nashville, his life riding on a six-string guitar and the bold wager that he had talent. But his wager soon proved foolish. Five years after losing everything, he falls in love with Daley Cross, an angelic voice in need of a song. But just as he realizes his love for Daley, Cooper faces a tragedy that threatens his life as well as his career. With nowhere else to go, he returns home to the remote Colorado mountains, searching for answers about his father and his faith. When Daley shows up on his street corner twenty years later, he wonders if it's too late to tell her the truth about his past-and if he is ready to face it himself. Praise for Long Way Gone: "Cooper and Daley's story will make you believe that even broken instruments have songs to offer when they're in the right hands. Charles Martin never fails to ask and answer the questions that linger deep within all of us. In this beautifully told story of a prodigal coming home, readers will find the broken and mended pieces of their own hearts."-Lisa Wingate, New York Times bestselling author of Before We Were Yours Stand-alone novel USA TODAY bestseller and Christy Award Book of the Year 2017 Includes discussion questions for book clubs Also by Charles Martin: The Letter Keeper, The Mountain Between Us, Send Down the Rain, and When Crickets Cry

The latest dazzling collection of poems from Charles Martin, a modern poet working within the possibilities of traditional measures. To be modern is to live not in a single era, but in a churn of new technologies, deep history, myth, literary traditions, and contemporary cultural memes. In Future Perfect, Charles Martin's darkly comic new collection, the poet explores our time and the times that come before and after, which we inhabit and cultivate in memory and imagination. Through poems that play with form and challenge expectation, Martin examines the continuities that persist from time immemorial to the future perfect. Sensitive to the traces left behind by the lives of his characters, Martin follows their tracks, reflections, echoes, and shadows. In "From Certain Footprints Found at Laetoli," an ancient impression preserved in volcanic ash conjures up a family scene three million years past. In "The Last Resort of Mr. Kees" and "Mr. Kees Goes to a Party," Martin adopts the persona of the vanished poet Weldon Kees to reimagine his disappearance. "Letter from Komarovo, 1962" retells the tense real-life meeting between Anna Akhmatova and Robert Frost a year before their nations almost destroyed one another. And in the titular sonnet sequence that ends the book, Martin conjures a childhood in the Bronx under the shadow of the mushroom cloud of nuclear war as the perfected future supplanting the present. Introducing Buck Rogers to Randall Jarrell and combining new translations or reinterpretations of works by Ovid, G. G. Belli, Octavio Paz, and Euripides, Future Perfect further establishes Charles Martin as a master of invention.

Experience the Bible come to life before your eyes as New York Times bestselling author Charles Martin uses his storyteller's imagination to present the life of Jesus in a way that will engage your faith in new ways. This collection of more than twenty short stories, compiled from Martin's books What If It's True? and They Turned the World Upside Down, draws you into a deeper understanding and love for the Savior. Son of Man presents key moments from the life and ministry of Jesus Christ and explores the lives of His followers in descriptive, novelistic words. This unique collection: Fosters a stronger appreciation, love, and respect for Jesus Covers themes including rejection, service, unconditional love, and forgiveness Uses the lives of the disciples as inspiration to be the light in a dark world Shows how the disciples' same world-changing faith is still around today Son of Man is perfect for someone who loves Christian fiction. Known for his beloved lyrical style, in this paperback edition Martin illuminates key moments from Scripture with stories such as "Where the Father's Love Found Him," "Betrayed," and "The Borrowed Tomb." Martin's writing offers a way to see how Jesus' life and the lives of His disciples revealed an unwavering confidence in the power and presence of God.