Most Christians have experienced the "laundry list" phase of spiritual life, in which praying means giving God an agenda of needs to handle. But how do you move to having real conversation with God? How do you hear what God is saying back to you? How can you make your experience of God's presence part of everyday life? In this six-session LifeGuide(R) Bible Study, Jan Johnson covers the disciplines of prayer and of practicing God's presence. Going deeper in these areas will help you to draw closer to God in everything you do. For over three decades LifeGuide Bible Studies have provided solid biblical content and raised thought-provoking questions--making for a one-of-a-kind Bible study experience for individuals and groups. This series has more than 130 titles on Old and New Testament books, character studies, and topical studies.

Strong tradition and creativity flourish in the home of Emma Aileen Morgan, a young woman with three sisters who all come of age in the turbulent 1960s. When she moves away from home and becomes a professional dancer, Emma's physical strength and external confidence thrust her forward. But inside she is carrying emotional confusion rooted in childhood experiences she hasn't shared with her sisters.
An ill-destined marriage, betrayal, and unexpected losses cause Emma to question why her life has brought her so much adversity. The breaking down of her old life cuts a new path. Answers come through inner guidance when she starts remembering and documenting her nightly dreams.
Emma chooses to step into an alternative relationship and further changes her life direction by leaving the dance world to study the healing arts. Revelations and metaphysical experiences catapult her onto a conscious spiritual path that transforms the way she looks at the world. Her self-inquiry and change shake the foundations of her intimate partnership.
Jan Johnson sheds a light on the stories we tell, the beliefs we cling to, the power of dreams, and the process of spiritual awakening. In this account of her search for her own truth, Johnson offers tools that have the potential to help readers find their own higher understanding.

How can we hear and understand God's voice? For over thirty years, Dallas Willard's Hearing God has helped thousands of readers learn to develop a conversational relationship with God. Now Hearing God Bible Study guides you deeper into biblical texts and themes that are woven throughout Willard's beloved book. With these six easy-to-use studies, written by longtime spiritual formation author Jan Johnson, you will encounter what Scripture says about listening to God and what it means for you today. As companions to the IVP Signature Collection, IVP Signature Bible Studies help individuals and groups explore and apply biblical truths found in classic books. Each session features quotations from Hearing God matched with Scripture passages, reflection questions, and application ideas that will equip readers to connect the text to their own lives. A leader's guide is also included.

Jan Johnson offers an innovative Advent small-group study built around a careful contextual reading of scripture combined with the imaginative reading approach introduced by St. Ignatius. The title Taste and See hints at how readers are invited to experience the stories of the season with their senses. Drawing on that experience of scripture, participants then consider how these stories speak to their own lives.

Come and experience the Scriptures in a fresh and life-giving way. In this collaboration between Alabaster Co. and IVP, the full text of the Gospel of Matthew is presented alongside beautiful full-color photographs and fourteen guided meditations by Bible teacher, author, and spiritual director Jan Johnson. Carefully designed as a practical, study-focused version of Alabaster's other bible books, the Alabaster Guided Meditations invite readers into deeper reflection by incorporating the church's ancient lectio divina and visio divina traditions. Though the intersection of New Living Translation Bible passages, photography, thoughtfully designed layouts, and meditations, readers are invited to experience the Gospel of Matthew anew.

Which activities give you energy and connect you with God? Do you know what behaviors are life-draining for you, separating you from God? Simplicity is about choosing the engaging, relational life we were meant to live. It means shedding obligation and pretension. It means spending time energy money in ways that help us become clear-headed. It means being intentional about what we do and how we live. These choices allow God's power to move through us and bless others as we have space to do good. In each chapter Jan Johnson provides small experiments with simplicity as well as questions for discussion or reflection to get you started. Come and discover the unhurried rhythms of grace.

Come and experience the Scriptures in a fresh and life-giving way. "Having carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I also have decided to write an accurate account for you, most honorable Theophilus, so you can be certain of the truth of everything you were taught." -Luke 1:3-4 In this collaboration between Alabaster Co. and IVP, the full text of the Gospel of Luke is presented alongside beautiful full-color photographs and guided meditations by Bible teacher, author, and spiritual director Jan Johnson. Carefully designed as a practical, study-focused version of Alabaster's other bible books, the Alabaster Guided Meditations invite readers into deeper reflection by incorporating the church's ancient lectio divina and visio divina traditions. Though the intersection of New Living Translation Bible passages, photography, thoughtfully designed layouts, and meditations, readers are invited to experience the Gospel of Luke anew.

Come and experience the Scriptures in a fresh and life-giving way. In this collaboration between Alabaster Co. and IVP, the full text of the Gospel of John is presented alongside beautiful full-color photographs and fourteen guided meditations by Bible teacher, author, and spiritual director Jan Johnson. Carefully designed as a practical, study-focused version of Alabaster's other bible books, the Alabaster Guided Meditations invite readers into deeper reflection by incorporating the church's ancient lectio divina and visio divina traditions. Though the intersection of New Living Translation Bible passages, photography, thoughtfully designed layouts, and meditations, readers are invited to experience the Gospel of John anew.

Jan Johnson guides you through 61 carefully chosen selections from renowned author Dallas Willard's best selling book, Renovation of the Heart . With each selection, you'll progress through Dr. Willard's plan for renovating the complete person.
Each provocative reflection includes a thoughtful, meaty selection by Dallas Willard along with Jan's illuminating personal stories, plus suggestions for making the concepts come alive in your own experience.

Being close to God means communicating with him--telling him what is on our hearts in prayer and understanding what he is saying to us. The second half of this conversation is so important--and so difficult. How do we hear God? In these daily devotionals Dallas Willard helps us understand how we can know the voice of God and act on it. Now in a new format with an expanded introduction, this classic provides daily Scripture readings and suggestions for prayer, journaling and reflection to draw you into God's presence. You may be surprised--and even transformed--by what you discover.

Throughout the Bible, we see that God entrusts each of us with authority as his image bearers, even as we remain vulnerable to loss and pain. To truly flourish, Andy Crouch argues, we must follow the way of Jesus. He perfectly blended authority and vulnerability and used his power for the liberation of others. In these six easy-to-use studies written by spiritual formation author Jan Johnson, you will encounter what Scripture says about power, vulnerability, humble leadership, and flourishing communities. As companions to the IVP Signature Collection, IVP Signature Bible Studies help individuals and groups explore and apply biblical truths found in classic books. Each session features quotations from Strong and Weak matched with Scripture passages, reflection questions, and application ideas that will equip readers to connect the text to their own lives. A leader's guide and list of suggested resources are also included.

How do we practice real conversation with God? Instead of prayer becoming an agenda of our needs for God to handle, how can we experience his presence as part of our everyday life? How do we hear what he is saying back to us? As we explore the disciplines of prayer and listening through these six sessions, we will draw closer to God in everything that we do.

Strong tradition and creativity flourish in the home of Emma Aileen Morgan, a young woman with three sisters who all come of age in the turbulent 1960s. When she moves away from home and becomes a professional dancer, Emma's physical strength and external confidence thrust her forward. But inside she is carrying emotional confusion rooted in childhood experiences she hasn't shared with her sisters.
An ill-destined marriage, betrayal, and unexpected losses cause Emma to question why her life has brought her so much adversity. The breaking down of her old life cuts a new path. Answers come through inner guidance when she starts remembering and documenting her nightly dreams.
Emma chooses to step into an alternative relationship and further changes her life direction by leaving the dance world to study the healing arts. Revelations and metaphysical experiences catapult her onto a conscious spiritual path that transforms the way she looks at the world. Her self-inquiry and change shake the foundations of her intimate partnership.
Jan Johnson sheds a light on the stories we tell, the beliefs we cling to, the power of dreams, and the process of spiritual awakening. In this account of her search for her own truth, Johnson offers tools that have the potential to help readers find their own higher understanding.

Jan Johnson's second guide book begins where the first left off, with an ambitious goal of including all that was left out of the first in touring Galveston, Texas. Readers will travel the Island's streets from the port to the gulf, meandering in and out of the East End before walking two areas: one of the downtown "Arts and Entertainment" Post Office District and the Broadway Cemetery. Driving west to the airport through middle-class neighborhoods, the driving guide will lead you "Down the Island" to Jamaica Beach, then return you via a circuitous route to the very eastern tip of the Seawall. Along the way, happy wanderers will encounter the usual colorful and somewhat infamous characters who pepper the Island's past set among many vintage images.

Parents die. At any age, the loss of a parent marks a profound and often overlooked transition in life. When the parent leaves a young child to grow up without guidance, nurturing, goading, and love, the event becomes a landmark, a defining moment.
When authors Leslie Simon and Jan Johnson Drantell learned of their common experience of losing a parent at a young age, they set out to discover the experiences and effects that unite those who have lived through this same signal event. "Every tragedy has its before and after," they write. "One day a child's life feels normal, the next it feels as if the world has torn apart."
This is a rent that can never be repaired, a wound that despite the passage of time and the coming of age never truly heals. In "A Music I No Longer Heard, " Simon and Drantell have collected the voices of seventy men and women who share this poignant life's journey. "Even three or four years later," the noted filmmaker Ken Burns remembered, "my wish would be that my mother would come back. I think I just submerged the fact that she had died."
As life progresses, the authors point out, every new experience is filtered through the lens of loss. The dead parent remains a vibrant presence in these lives: "My relationship with my father doesn't seem finished, or sealed." Or in the words of another, "I feed myself with memories of my mother. I think about her and it is just a wonderful feeling."
Most of all, these children of loss experience adulthood differently, always compensating in some way when choosing a mate or a career, in developing the ability to trust and to love, and in the willingness to take risks and live life to the fullest. "Maybe my dad's death, in some small way," one woman wonders, "helped me to wake up and see what the world is, what the world could offer."
What emerges from these stories is a moving portrait of the many and various ways that the death of a parent shapes one's life. "A Music I No Longer Heard" will be therapeutic for those who have lost a parent and will enable those who have not to understand the complex emotions that surround this all too common experience.

Walking Historic Galveston: A Guide to its Neighborhoods is the city's

first practical, comprehensive walking guide of the Island's most concentrated

historic areas with interesting anecdotes about the people

of their past. Written in a very readable voice, the book is designed

for the "Everyman" who wanders the city streets and wonders about

the inside human stories of those who lived, loved, and worked in the

unusual buildings that survived them. Fifth generation Galvestonian

JAN JOHNSON has been seriously

studying the Island's rich history as

a Tour Guide since 1982. Based on

her driving tours, Walking Historic

Galveston: A Guide to Its Neighborhoods

offers walker-friendly routes of

portions of nine distinct districts recognized

as historical on the Island.

Spiritual disciplines connect us to the God who wants to transform our souls. We discover these time-tested practices in the Bible as we look at the everyday ways Jesus related to God. These companion studies and exercises will help you to explore sixteen core practices. Three segments on each practice (a total of forty-eight sessions) allow space to go beyond superficial understanding and to begin to live in a new way. Jan Johnson, a seasoned writer in both the areas of spiritual formation and Bible study, has created a unique mix of inductive Bible study, guided meditation and transformational exercises spanning all the styles of learning and offering something for everyone. You can use this book effectively on your own or with a group. Discover what it means to live in the grace and light of God's transforming presence. Also available: The Spiritual Disciplines Bible Studies series of eight titles offers these studies in six-week guides with notes for leaders included. Explore silence service secrecy prayer listening Bible study Scripture meditation community submission reflection confession fasting simplicity worship celebration

JEANNE GUYON is Christianity's best-known and most influential woman in church history. Her autobiography has moved the hearts of believers for three centuries. Even today, she is one of the greatest figures of French history.

Guyon is revered by both Protestants and Catholics as one of the greatest sources of help in a deeper walk with God. Few Christians have experienced the depths of prayer as profoundly as Jeanne-Marie Guyon (1648-1717), a beautiful, wealthy French woman whose prolific writings have remained a treasured legacy of the church.

Guyon's influence reached the court of Louis XIV. Jealousy ensued, and she was imprisoned in the infamous Bastille. Indeed, for most of her life she suffered persecution and endured imprisonment at the hands of the church, primarily because she believed all Christians could have a rich life of prayer. Perhaps John Wesley summed it up best: "Guyon is the greatest Christian to rise since the first century."