bl results for nw:[0 TO 180]

Escape from Capitalism

Mattei, Clara E. — Sat, 31 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

For fans of Bernie Sanders and Thomas Piketty, an urgent intervention against capitalism revealing how economic models serve the extremely wealthy and powerful at the expense of ordinary people—and how we can reclaim our power to make choices about our economic lives.
Capitalism isn't inevitable, scientific, or natural—it's a relatively young system that can be replaced. In this radical rethinking of economics, Clara Mattei argues that enduring problems such as poverty, unemployment, and inflation are not bugs in the economy but core features. They are justified with pseudoscientific models, fabrications built to support a capitalist economy that unfairly rewards people with the most resources.

The tools of economic experts—budget cuts, interest rate hikes, and regressive taxes—are sold as apolitical but disguise a bleak reality: they maintain our capitalist system, reinforcing inequality. Central bankers raise interest rates knowing this will cause a recession and pain to working families. Governments slash tax collection jobs in the name of balanced budgets, which actually shields the wealthy from tax enforcement and creates budget shortfalls used to justify cuts in social services. Textbooks teach that unemployment must rise to fix inflation. But this model creates conditions that force people to accept crummy jobs and low pay.

In the wake of World War I, when the world's economy was in turmoil, economics was elevated to a scientific discipline, legitimized through mathematical formulas and new economic institutions considered too sophisticated for the average person to understand. Today's economic institutions, from the Fed to the IMF, wield immense power over monetary policy yet are shielded from democratic scrutiny. Why should we accept a system that delegates crucial decisions that impact our lives to institutions in which we have no say?

All the major problems today—from a healthcare system that prioritizes profits over well-being to the rise of ultranationalism—are rooted in an economic system that fails to serve the common good. In this revelatory manifesto, Mattei sets out a revolutionary vision that may one day allow us to achieve true economic freedom and finally escape from capitalism.

My Life With Wolves

McIntyre, Rick — Sat, 31 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

America's beloved wolf historian and longtime Yellowstone park ranger shares his long-awaited biography—a story filled with true grit, laughter, and love for America's National Parks.
"There is literally no one else who could tell these stories." NBC
"The chief historian of the most famous wolf population in the world." Washington Post
"Like Darwin, McIntyre is an inclusionist and is thus able to enter the hearts and minds of wolves." Mountain Journal
"Rick McIntyre is the ultimate guru of wolf behavior." Jane Goodall
In this entertaining memoir, Rick McIntyre recounts his life spent amongst wild nature while working in the National Parks Service as a park ranger and shares the wisdom he has gained from spending nearly every day of his adult life in the presence of wolves.
McIntyre has calculated whether to outpace a grizzly or stand and face it. He has narrowly missed a charge by a moose. He has watched alpha wolves come up against each other in battles for territory—only to be surprised by their benevolent actions.
Throughout his career, McIntyre has used his experience in the great outdoors and through watching apex predators in the sights of his telescope to de-escalate fights between humans—even once helping to apprehend an armed man inside Yellowstone National Park by simply inviting him to his wolf talk later that evening.
This book chronicles Rick's journey, explains his values, and brings readers up to date on the latest dramas of the Junction Butte pack in Yellowstone. Along the way, this tale is threaded through with Rick's calm assertiveness in the face of conflict, his wise dealings with humans and animals alike, and his gentle sense of humor—like the time a woman excitedly thought she saw a grizzly bear through his telescope and Rick had to break it to her that what she saw was really an ... Arctic ground squirrel.

Korean Messiah

Cheng, Jonathan — Sat, 31 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

A landmark history of North Korea, told through the rise of the Kim dynasty and its surprising ties to American Christianity—a spectacular, penetrating account of the Hermit Kingdom • A Foreign Policy Most Anticipated Book of 2026
“How do personality cults take hold? What happens when leaders mix politics and faith to demand immense sacrifices? Jonathan Cheng’s magnificent tale poses questions about the world far beyond North Korea. This utterly eye-opening history deciphers a defining pattern of global politics in the 21st century.” —Evan Osnos, National Book Award-winning author of Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China
For nearly eight decades, North Korea has marched defiantly to its own beat, shaking off its Soviet and Chinese sponsors to emerge as the world’s most enigmatic nation—a nuclear-armed state ruled by a dictatorial dynasty. Underpinning the state is a personality cult more soaked in religiosity than those constructed by Stalin or Mao—one that traces its roots back to the Christian fervor of post–Civil War America.
Jonathan Cheng, the Wall Street Journal’s China bureau chief and former Korea bureau chief, takes us deep inside Pyongyang, a city once so dominated by Christianity that it was known as the “Jerusalem of the East.” Cheng introduces us to Samuel Moffett, a Presbyterian missionary from Madison, Indiana, who would venture into Pyongyang at the end of the nineteenth century and build a remarkable following—one that would include the Kim family that today presides over one of the world’s harshest persecutors of the Christian faith.
At the center of this story is North Korea’s founder, Kim Il Sung, son of two fervent Christians and progenitor of an ideology known as Kimilsungism, an exercise in idolatry that has elevated him, and his successor son and grandson, to Christlike status, from the humble manger where he was born to the subway seat on which the venerated leader once placed his posterior, cordoned off as if it were a religious relic.
Drawing on letters, diaries, and never-before-unearthed archival material that temper and often contradict the glorious historical record promoted by Kim Il Sung’s legions of hagiographers, Korean Messiah tells the true story of a country shrouded in fictions.

Surviving Rome

Bowes, Kim — Fri, 31 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMT

A radical revision—and worker's-eye view—of everything we thought we knew about the ancient Roman economy
The story of ancient Rome is predominantly one of great men with great fortunes. Surviving Rome unearths another history, one of ordinary Romans, who worked with their hands and survived through a combination of grit and grinding labor.
Focusing on the working majority, Kim Bowes tells the stories of people like the tenant farmer Epimachus, Faustilla the moneylender, and the pimp Philokles. She reveals how the economic changes of the period created a set of bitter challenges and opportunistic hustles for everyone from farmers and craftspeople to day laborers and slaves. She finds working people producing a consumer revolution, making and buying all manner of goods from fine pottery to children's toys. Many of the poorest working people probably pieced together a living from multiple sources of income, including wages. And she suggests that Romans' most daunting challenge was the struggle to save. Like many modern people, saving enough to buy land or start a business was a slow, precarious slog. Bowes shows how these economies of survival were shared by a wide swath of the populace, blurring the lines between genders, ages, and legal status.
Drawing on new archaeological and textual evidence, Surviving Rome presents a radical new perspective on the economy of ancient Rome while speaking to the challenges of today's laborers and gig workers surviving in an unforgiving global world.

Bible Translations Comparison

Rose Publishing — Mon, 31 Jan 2022 00:00:00 GMT

This 2nd Edition contains the new NIV 2011 and the new Common English Bible translations. Compare 20 Bible translations in a single glance. Discover what the translations have in common, how they differ, and which one is best for you. It's all found in the bestselling Bible Translations Comparison pamphlet that offers an easy-to-use format, full color design, and glossy finish. The comparison chart displays: the name of the translation, the method of translation, sponsors, textual basis, purpose, sample verses to show the difference in wording, the year published, and much more. Some of the translations include: New Revised Standard, Amplified Bible, King James Version, The Message, among others. The pamphlet version is 8.5"x 5.5" and unfolds to 33" long. It fits inside most Bible covers. Scholars have been translating the Bible for 2000 years and over the centuries, three primary methods of translation have evolved. The Bible Translations Comparison chart helps pastors, teachers, and students of the Word understand the approach to 20 Bible translations by providing the following information: - Translation method & reading level - Year it was published - Number of translators who worked on the project - Sponsor of the translation version - Textual basis - Purpose - Noteworthy facts - Sample verses This Bible Translations Comparison fold-out chart also provides a brief glossary of key words regarding translations, as well as a diagram that explains the three most popular Greek texts used for Bible translation. The Bible Translations Comparison pamphlet compares the following Bible translations: - American Standard Version(ASV) - Amplified Bible (AMP) - New American Standard Bible (NASB) - Revised Standard Version (RSV) - New Revised Standard Version (NSRV) - English Standard Version (ESV) - King James Version (KJV) - New King James Version (NKJV) - Revised New Jerusalem Bible (RNJB) - New American Bible, Revised Edition (NABRE) - NEW! New International Version 2011 (NIV) - NEW! Common English Bible (CEB) - Today"s New International Version (TNIV) - God's Word (GW) - Christian Standard Bible (CSB) - New Century Version (NCV) - New Living Translation (NLT) - New International Readers Version (NIrV) - Good News Translation (GNT) - Contemporary English Version (CEV) - The Message The pamphlet's introductory information explains why new translations continue to appear. Also provided is a brief overview of the three primary methods of translation as well as a fourth translation treatment that has evolved over the centuries. The side-by-side translations are color coded to reference the four translation treatments shown below: - Word-for-Word - Balance—a process that mediates between word-for-word and thought-for-thought - Thought-for-thought - Paraphrase—a restatement of a translation The Bible Translations Comparison pamphlet provides a list of 13 "Important Words to Know" such as: - Apocrypha - Biblia Hebraica - Dead Sea Scrolls - Masoretic Text - Septuagint And the major groups of Greek manuscripts or text types: - Western - Lucianic - Byzantine - Alexandrian

Between the Listening and the Telling

Yaconelli, Mark — Mon, 31 Jan 2022 00:00:00 GMT

"Now more than ever, we need a teacher and a book such as this."—Anne Lamott, from the foreword

Stories tether us to what matters most: our families, our friends, our hearts, our planet, the wondrous mystery of life itself. Yet the stories we've been telling ourselves as a civilization are killing us: Fear is wisdom. Vanity is virtuous. Violence is peace. In the pages of Between the Listening and the Telling, storyteller, author, and activist Mark Yaconelli leads readers into an enchanting meditation on the power of storytelling in our individual and collective lives. We tell stories to remember who we are. We tell stories to savor the pleasure of living. Stories can be medicine, and they can transform entire communities.

Through his work with The Hearth nonprofit, Yaconelli has spent thousands of hours listening to people as they grieve loss, deepen friendships, strengthen families, shed light on injustice, and recover hope. In this moving exploration he shows us how individuals and communities can recover the practice of storytelling to address the despair of climate change, the trauma of school shootings, the tragedy of undocumented immigration, and the daily struggle for meaning.

Between the Listening and the Telling offers an alloy of story, commentary, and meditation. In an era of runaway loneliness, alienation, global crisis, and despair, sharing stories helps us make a home within ourselves and one another. This book offers a hope for unity that we had nearly given up on.

Shapes of Truth

Allen, Neal — Sun, 31 Jan 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Hidden in your body is a set of thirty-five divine objects that represent aspects of God. They can grant immediate and sustained relief from everyday suffering. Shapes of Truth unveils this remarkable discovery and provides step-by-step instructions for encountering them yourself. With parallels in Platonist philosophy and Sufi mysticism, these eternal body-forms were discovered forty years ago and are only now being shared broadly with the world.

The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism

Weber, Max — Thu, 31 Jan 2002 00:00:00 GMT

In The Protestant Ethic, Max Weber opposes the Marxist concept of dialectical materialism and relates the rise of the capitalist economy to the Calvinist belief in the moral value of hard work and the fulfillment of one's worldly duties.
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Moon for Sale

Price, Richard — Tue, 31 Jan 2017 00:00:00 GMT

Price's most "live" or "performative" work to date, the poems in Moon for Sale are sensual and shapeshifting and unfold like a series of haunting dreams. The collection begins with a poem about the artist David Bomberg and his ground-breaking book Russian Ballet in which poetry, art, and live performance are all reimagined for a contemporary audience. This is key to the whole collection, where the borderlines between the lyric, art, and life are hypnotically blurred. Highlights include the ambitious poem "The Price" in which the lyric tradition itself is satirized in striking image after image with self-lacerating glee, and "A Quiet River," at the other end of the spectrum in tone, where an intricate lyric about the peace and danger of rivers offers the complex solace of solitude. It is a poem that, within days of appearing in the Times Literary Supplement, inspired an artist – completely unbidden – to make the text into a large-scale ceramic artwork (the artist Liz Mathews). Questions and evocations of physical love and power in relationships surface in many of the poems, where play and remorse are locked in a tragi-comic mud wrestle. Moon for Sale is best compared not with contemporary poetry but with modern film – Terrence Malick's Tree of Life, the subtle films of Margaret Tait or the carefully braided documentary films of Slovakian auteur Viera Cakanyova, who recently made a film about Price and his work. Key images recur – the moon, leaves, tattoos on the skin, – changing in their meaning as they do so. Gradually, cumulatively, and then overwhelmingly there is the sense in this collection of a crisis being much more than personal: against a backdrop of the failure and brutality of Western authority, these are poems which are trying to remember the best of the world while there is time at least to remember.

Re-Solving The Economic Puzzle

Rybeck, Walter — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Pinpointing a flaw in prevailing economic practices that explains why so many families in the richest nation on earth are mired in poverty, homelessness, joblessness, and hunger, this study suggests that a reform is available to correct this flaw that is corroding the enterprise system. This flaw is widely accepted and enshrined in law; certain taxation and land policies enable a powerful few to skim off a large share of the wealth created by the mass of citizens. How this injustice plays a major role in generating destructive boom and bust cycles is important, but the overprivileged who benefit from "legalized theft" are not vilified. Rather, the book calls for correcting the public policies that make slum ownership, land speculation, and other forms of parasitic and exploitive behavior more profitable than honest labor and productive enterprise. Accounts of places in the United States and elsewhere that are applying the proposed reform are presented, proving that it is politically feasible, and offers an ethical cleansing of the economy so that all people can enjoy all the fruits of their efforts.

The Magnificent Story

James Bryan Smith — Tue, 31 Jan 2017 00:00:00 GMT

We are story-making people. We love reading stories―and we love hearing the personal stories of others. We need stories, or narratives, to make sense of our world. And those stories shape our lives. What is the story you have been told about the gospel? About God? About the Christian life? About Jesus? About the cross? About yourself? About heaven? Your answers to these questions will form a story that will determine how your life will go. The answers reveal your ability to trust, to love, to hope―and even your capacity for joy. Any story worth giving the power to shape our lives must pass a simple test: is it beautiful, good, and true? If it is, then it is a Magnificent Story―and that is where transformation takes place. From James Bryan Smith, author of the bestselling book Good and Beautiful God, comes this spiritual formation resource meant to help both individuals and groups understand the Magnificent Story of Christ in their lives. Soon to be followed by The Magnificent Journey: Living Deep in the Kingdom (Fall 2018) and The Magnificent Mission: Called and Sent by the Storyteller (Fall 2019), the field-tested material within includes spiritual practices at the end of each chapter and a group discussion guide. Uncover the true story of beauty, goodness, and truth that will satisfy the ultimate longings of your heart.

Slow Church Study Guide

Smith, C. Christopher, Pattison, John — Sun, 31 Jan 2016 00:00:00 GMT

High-speed internet. Rapid rewards. Quick thinking. Fast food. Fast . . . church? Slow Church by Chris Smith and John Pattison has been eagerly received by a people who are ready to be invited out of franchise faith and back into the kingdom of God. This eleven-session study guide provides an opportunity to reflect on the message of this groundbreaking book both individually and in community. Each session features a guide to lectio divina, suggested videos that can be watched online, a series of in-depth questions expanded from what is currently in the book, a quote for reflection. Here is an opportunity to begin to develop a deeper and richer community where people know each other well and love one another as Christ loved the church.

Becoming a Christian

John R. W. Stott — Sun, 31 Jan 2016 00:00:00 GMT

Written by John R. W. Stott, a Christian leader known worldwide for addressing the hearts and minds of contemporary men and women, this updated booklet describes the fundamental human problem, outlines the Christian answer to it and shows readers how to respond to God's truth.

Mapping Your Academic Career

Burge, Gary M. — Sat, 31 Jan 2015 00:00:00 GMT

Mapping Your Academic Career

Apostolic Church Planting

Payne, J. D. — Sat, 31 Jan 2015 00:00:00 GMT

Church planting is not just about gathering new communities of people who are already Christians. In the book of Acts, church plants begin with sharing the gospel. Planting churches flows naturally out of making disciples. Pastor J. D. Payne explains the process and stages of church planting, with biblical foundations and practical steps for planting teams. He provides a pathway for the multiplication of disciples, leaders and churches. Here are church planting strategies and activities that are simple, highly reproducible and can be implemented by ordinary team members, not just by charismatic leaders. This guide can be used for planting in contexts among any given people group, domestically or internationally. It is an ideal resource for teams to work through together as they follow God's call in their community.

The Song of Songs

Duguid, Iain M. — Sat, 31 Jan 2015 00:00:00 GMT

This Old Testament book, the best of songs, has fascinated and perplexed interpreters for centuries. We hear the passionate melody of romantic love, and are confronted by erotic imagery but whose love is described? Is it a couple's love for each other, Gods love for his people, or a poem that speaks to love in all its dimensions? Iain Duguid's commentary explains how the Song is designed to show us an idealized picture of married love, in the context of a fallen and broken world. It also convicts us of how far short of this perfection we fall, both as humans and as lovers, and drives us repeatedly into the arms of our true heavenly husband, Jesus Christ. The Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries have long been a trusted resource for Bible study. Written by some of the world's most distinguished evangelical scholars, these twenty-eight volumes offer clear, reliable and relevant explanations of every book in the Old Testament, aiming to get at the true meaning of the Bible and to make its message plain to readers today.

Pocket History of the Church

Bingham, D. Jeffrey — Fri, 31 Jan 2014 00:00:00 GMT

The story of Christianity is a fascinating tale. Here we find drama, vision and expansion along with failure, setbacks and tragedy. Yet during the past two thousand years the power of Jesus is felt throughout the interplay of human actors and the forces of world events. How can you grasp the story played out on such a gigantic stage? This book is an ideal place to start. D. Jeffrey Bingham has skillfully selected the key people and episodes to tell a grand and humbling story. From Roman persecution to the early creeds, from the monastic movement to the Reformation, from the rise of liberalism to missionary expansion, he chronicles the ups and downs of a people and a faith. This pocket history has been crafted for students, pastors and other busy people who want an informed, clear and concise presentation that feeds the mind and moves the heart. It is an account that nurtures the Christian virtues of faith, hope and love. For Bingham aims not only to uncover the treasures of the church's past but also to show how history aids your own spiritual journey today.

Life Together in Christ

Ruth Haley Barton — Fri, 31 Jan 2014 00:00:00 GMT

Have you joined a church or small group in hopes of experiencing real life change, only to be disappointed? Have you sat through inspiring sermons about what is possible when Christians gather together in mutually edifying relationships, only to recognize how cynical you have become after many failed attempts? Community may be one of the most over-promised, under-delivered aspects of the Christian life today. Individuals remain selfish and stuck in their ways. Communities become spiritually lifeless or even fall apart because we don't know how to experience transformation together. Transforming community does not come primarily from listening to inspiring preaching or adding another church program. It emerges as we embrace a shared commitment to the attitudes, practices and behaviors that open us to Christ in our midst. And that's where Life Together in Christ comes in. Reflecting on the story of the two disciples who meet Christ on the Emmaus Road, Ruth Haley Barton offers this interactive guide for small groups of spiritual companions who are ready to encounter Christ in transforming ways―right where they are on the road of real life.

Church for the Fatherless

Strong, Mark E. — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Fatherlessness has reached epidemic levels. Forty percent of children in the U.S. will go to bed tonight in a home without a father. Studies show that people without fathers are at much higher risk for low educational performance, drug abuse, crime and poverty. Fatherlessness is rampant in our churches as well. When planting his church, Mark Strong realized that fifteen of twenty core leaders, whether they were in their twenties or sixties, white or black, had grown up without an active father figure in their lives. And he determined to make a difference in the lives of the next generation. The church is uniquely positioned to minister to the fatherless, both within its own community and in society at large. Strong shows how we can make our churches places of refuge for our nation's fatherless. Churches can reveal a true picture of God as loving Father through mentoring both children and dads, meeting the practical needs of children, and much more. By embedding key values into your congregational culture, your church can become a church for the fatherless. Be part of the solution. Are you ready to make a difference?

Excellence in Preaching

Vibert, Simon — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Preaching is a dangerously high calling in which mere mortals dare to speak on behalf of God. All too often, well-intentioned preachers preach poorly. But what do good preachers do well? And what can we learn from them? Simon Vibert has studied the work of today's leading preachers with an eye for discerning the dynamics of effective preaching. Each chapter profiles a contemporary preacher and lifts out practical principles for sermons that are biblical, motivational and transformational. World-renowned preachers like Tim Keller, John Piper and Nicky Gumbel display excellence in preaching by • being aware of cultural and philosophical challenges to the gospel • inspiring a passion for the glory of God • letting the Bible speak with simplicity and freshness • teaching with directness, challenge and relevance • exposing all of God's Word to all of God's people • and much more. Learn from the best. And become the best preacher that you can be.

The Path of Celtic Prayer

Miller, Calvin — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Discover an ancient way of prayer that leads us to new union with God. "Long ago," Calvin Miller writes, "when the Celts built their own rustic kingdom of God in what would later be the British Isles, their fervor in prayer washed their world in a vital revival." In uncertain and dangerous days of high infant-mortality rates, leprosy and plagues, the Celts breathed candid prayers out of the reality of their lives: Desperate prayers for protection. Praise for the God who was king over all creation. Honest prayers of confession. In these pages, Miller introduces us to six types of Celtic prayer that can connect us to God more deeply by helping us pray out of the circumstances and uncertainties of our own life. "This book proposes a kind of prayer that can end our amputated feelings of separateness from God," says Miller. What was true for the Celts is still true for us: "Hunger for Christ keeps us talking to God till our separation is swallowed up in our unending togetherness with him." As rich as the faith they describe, these pages lead us on an ancient path that gives guidance for present and future prayers, until the day the Celts longed for, when all separation is gone and we live forever in the presence of God.

Discovering Our Spiritual Identity

Hudson, Trevor — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Each chapter in this workbook by Trevor Hudson is peppered with "holy experiments," simple practices that bring us into God's presence and help us experience life as his beloved. At the end of each chapter is a set of questions, which are ideal for discussion with one or two spiritual friends or a small group. This practical and winsome book covers topics such as hearing and speaking with God growing in spiritual friendship practicing stewardship of our work and play learning discernment approaching our death and the world beyond living now in the kingdom of God Wherever you may find yourself along the Way, a real and vital spirituality awaits you in these pages

Invitations from God

Adele Ahlberg Calhoun — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Some invitations we desperately want: "Will you marry me?" "Would you consider a promotion?" Other invitations we never want to receive but must respond to all the same: "What treatment do you want for your tumor?" Invitations pound away at the coastlines of the soul with a transforming force. God is also sending invitations. Sometimes they seem less compelling than anything on my to-do list. Why would I want to say yes to the invitation to rest when I'm already so far behind? Why follow when I could lead? Why accept invitations to weep or to admit I am wrong or to wait? Saying yes might slow me down, sabotage my agenda and even undo who I think I am. Adele Calhoun, author of the popular Spiritual Disciplines Handbook, offers a book about invitations like these―divine invitations we miss or ignore because we've said yes to going with the cultural flow. While these invitations from God can sometimes be difficult to accept, they can heal and restore even as they shape where we go, what we do and who we become. What we say yes to, what we say no to forms the terrain of our future. Included in this book are reflection questions and exercises as well as overview charts with recommended disciplines to guide you through each theme. As you attend to the often hidden, quiet voice of the Great Inviter, you will find yourself as God created you to be.

Whole Life Transformation

Meyer, Keith — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Ministry to others and growing the church were the center of Keith Meyer's life. And yet he was arguing with his wife about how many nights a week he was spending in meetings. His temper was short, and he was exhausted. Keith writes: "I can see that I was pursuing a twisted idea of 'success'--not in the secular forms I regularly preached against, but in the sanctified activism and workaholism sometimes called 'professional ministry.' A growing church, defined mostly by higher attendance at church services, more and more programs, and bigger budgets and buildings were the marks of a successful ministry in the clergy circles I ran with at that time." In the midst of his pain Keith discovered a new way of living--one that truly depended on Christ to redeem and reform his character. And then as he was transformed, he discovered that the change in him was changing the way that he was pastoring and leading others. Drawing from the riches of church history and the experience of contemporary ministry, Keith Meyer writes with the voice of a prophet and the heart of a pastor. If you're ready to stop trying to follow Christ and start training to be a Christ follower, this is the book for you.

The Good and Beautiful Life

James Bryan Smith — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 00:00:00 GMT

"I have never met a person whose goal was to ruin his or her life. We all want to be happy, and we want it all of the time." So begins James Bryan Smith in The Good and Beautiful Life. The problem is, he tells us, we have bought into false notions of happiness and success. These self-centered decisions lead us further into the vices that cause ruin: anger, lust, lying, worry and judging. Eventually we find ourselves living a beautifully packaged life of self-destruction. Following the Sermon on the Mount, this follow-up to The Good and Beautiful God guides us to look behind these character flaws and to replace our false beliefs with Jesus' narratives about life in the kingdom of God.