Pastoral Helps
Showing 1–12 of 2504 results
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Drink Called Joy
$11.99Add to cartUsing the language and stories of former drug addicts and alcoholics transformed by Jesus Christ, Don Wilkerson makes a contrast between the drinking “high” of drugs and the experience with the Most High God.
Don Writes, “Using Apostle Paul’s admonition to not be drunk with wine wherein is “excess” but be “filled with the Spirit” (Ephesians 5:18) I make a similar contrast between joy in the Lord and the false euphoria of the life of the addict on drugs. There is also possible scientific evidence that if the brain waves of someone on cocaine were compared with someone joyful in the Lord the latter would show a “peace that passes all understanding.”
Wilkerson shares 12 chapters based on the real-life experiences of addicts finding supernatural answers to their addiction; these stories are sometimes humorous but nevertheless real. It is hopeful you will finding the reading of this book a joyful experience. There is an important message in this book for those needing freedom from addiction as well an encouragement for those in recovery. Read this then share with some else and spread joy where needed.
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Gospel Of John Bible Study Book With Video Access (Student/Study Guide)
$30.75Add to cartLife. It seems to move at a break-neck pace. Days are filled with noise, screens, and appointments. Sometimes worry and fear are constant companions. The chaos can leave you looking for a place to be still, but that resting spot always seems to be an elusive destination. Jesus offers a different kind of life. He offers peace. He is peace.
In this 7-session study on the Gospel of John, Melissa Spoelstra will encourage you to slow down and linger with the living Word. You’ll appreciate the pace of the Savior who never hurried but completed all that the Father called Him to accomplish. As you turn the pages of John’s Gospel, you’ll be challenged to take on the posture of a learner-understanding that the peace Jesus offers is not an ease of circumstances, but a stillness of the soul. As a result, you’ll grow in intimacy with Him and learn to live, serve, and rest in His peace.
Video Sessions:
*Session One: Introduction (23:01)-Melissa begins the video teaching on the Gospel of John by setting the context for the study. She shares about who John was writing to and his purpose for writing the Gospel. She also gives an overview of the six remaining video sessions, noting the themes and memory verses.
*Session Two: Peace in the Plan of Jesus (25:59)-The video teaching for Session 2 centers on savoring peace in the plan of Jesus. Melissa focuses on John 1-3 to show us how God was the orchestrator of the salvation plan set before the beginning of time. This plan was accomplished by His power, evidenced His great love for us, and displayed His glory.
*Session Three: Peace in the Power of Jesus (25:28)-John 4-6 is the focal point of the teaching in Session 3 video as Melissa talks about savoring peace in the power of Jesus. She discusses three of the seven signs (miracles) found in John’s Gospel and points out three important truths for us to remember. She challenges us to rest in the truth that God is powerfully able and willing to help us in our time of need.
*Session Four: Peace in the Patience of Jesus (24:46)-In the Session 4 video teaching, Melissa focuses on savoring peace in the patience of Jesus. She’ll discuss portions of John 7-9 to reveal the big idea that when we look beneath the surface of our longings, we will find Jesus as our only source of satisfaction.
*Session Five: Peace in the Purposes of Jesus (31:11)-Savoring peace in the purposes of Jesus is the theme of the Session 5 video teaching. Melissa looks at portions of John 10-1
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Beyond The Clinical Hour
$28.00Add to cartThe global mental health crisis is growing faster than our existing mental health care system can address. To meet the scope of human need, we need new models of care. The good news is that there is an institution uniquely positioned with the resources and the heart to help: the church.
Psychologists James Sells and Amy Trout and journalist Heather Sells know firsthand the urgency of the situation-but they have also witnessed creative partnerships between churches and mental health professionals springing up across the United States. In this book, they call clinicians, students, and educators to collaborate with churches and lay leaders to envision and then create innovative solutions in their own communities.
Challenging the dominance of the traditional “clinical hour” as a one-size-has-to-fit-all model, Sells, Trout, and Sells give concrete guidance on how mental health professionals can work with churches to provide consultation, train lay leaders, and develop and evaluate programs to expand a continuum of care. They also explore the skills, theological foundations, and research-based knowledge that both Christian counselors and church leaders need to integrate their spheres of expertise.
Both a call to action and an encouraging roadmap, this book charts the way forward for combining the science of the mental health discipline with the service of Christian ministry.
Christian Association for Psychological Studies (CAPS) Books explore how Christianity relates to mental health and behavioral sciences including psychology, counseling, social work, and marriage and family therapy in order to equip Christian clinicians to support the well-being of their clients.
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Deconstruction Of Christianity Study Guide (Student/Study Guide)
$12.99Add to cartA Study Guide that Helps You Respond Wisely to the Deconstruction Trend
Alisa and Tim will help you respond, both with arguments and with love and sensitivity. This is a timely book! — Carl Trueman, author of The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self
A movement called ‘deconstruction’ is sweeping through our churches and it is affecting our loved ones. It has disrupted, dismantled, and destroyed the faith of so many, and this study guide can help you not only understand what’s happening but also stand your ground and respond with clarity and confidence.
*Maybe you have a loved one who is deconstructing their faith, and you are struggling to know how to respond;
*Maybe you are trying to understand the radical spiritual makeover your friend or family member is going through;
*Maybe your relationship with a loved one has been strained or even cut off because of your “toxic” Christian beliefs and you don’t know what to do
*Maybe you’re experiencing doubt yourself and facing hard questions about God, truth, theology, and the gospel
This study guide is designed to be used alongside the book The Deconstruction of Christianity, written by Alisa Childers, bestselling author of Another Gospel?, and Tim Barnett, host of Red Pen Logic. This guide will help you understand what deconstruction is, the roots of the movement, why it is compelling to some, and how it disrupts the lives of so many. In this study, you will be able to think through all of the issues around this trend and explore wise and loving ways to respond from a biblical worldview.
Includes six sessions:
Session 1: What Is Deconstructionism?
Session 2: How Did We Get Here?
Session 3: Why Deconstruction?
Session 4: What Is Deconstructed?
Session 5: Who Are the Deconstructors?
Session 6: Where Do We Go from Here -
No Address An Interactive Study Guide (Student/Study Guide)
$17.99Add to cartA four-session interactive Bible study, based on the documentary Americans with No Address, that examines the biblical response to people experiencing homelessness.
Homelessness is not an “issue”; it’s an opportunity for the church to love our neighbors. In this four-session interactive Bible study, we examine what Scripture has to say on the topic. A companion to the documentary Americans with No Address and the full-length theatrical movie No Address (starring Ashanti, William Baldwin, Beverly D’Angelo, and Xander Berkeley), this study teaches participants:
*The root causes of different types of homelessness.
*How to engage rather than enable.
*The importance of collaboration among existing agencies.
*How to mobilize their church to follow Jesus’ call to serve.Each session includes:
*Facts, true stories, and background about the people who experience homelessness in America.
*QR code for quick link to online videos.
*Discussion questions for churches and small groups.
*Perspective from the Bible.
*”Go and Do” action steps.
*Ideas for further resources.
*Prayer prompts and reflection questions.
The government can’t solve homelessness alone. The nonprofit sector can’t solve it alone. But neighbors loving neighbors, working together, can make a difference for the people who are experiencing homelessness in America. No Address equips Christians to lead the way.
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Attentive Church Leadership
$25.00Add to cartThe world has changed, and we minister in places we have never been in before. As the world screams for our focus, it’s essential to become attentive to God, our congregation, and our community. Kevin Ford and Jim Singleton call for attentive churches with attentive leaders to discern cultural and organizational change and pivot accordingly.
The world has changed. The changes around us present daunting challenges to the church, and we minister in places we have never been in before. But there are no one-size-fits-all solutions because every church needs to attend to its specific situation and calling. We need to listen for not only what to do but also what not to do. In a world screaming in a thousand directions for our focus, it’s essential for us to become attentive to God, our congregation, and our community.
Kevin Ford and Jim Singleton call for attentive churches with attentive leaders who can discern cultural and organizational change and pivot accordingly. Healthy transformation starts with a posture of attention. We need to see what God is already doing in our midst: in our own soul, in our people, and in the communities and culture around us. Chapters explore key questions that attentive leaders ask and offer case studies of attentive churches that have navigated the issues and transitions facing them. As we practice habits of attention, God leads us through the highs and lows of change into the exciting adventure of being on mission with him.
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Smallbatch Disciplemaking : A Rhythm For Training The Few To Reach The Many
$17.99Add to cartRecover Jesus’ strategy of training the few to reach the many.
What if rather than funneling people through church programs, you invested in their growth? Would this kind of intentional investment help you discover a new kind of Christian purpose and spiritual legacy? And, what if you already have what it takes to develop your spiritual growth as a disciple while apprenticing others?
As Christians, we should all participate in spiritual leadership by seeking to make spiritual investment in the lives closest to us. It’s time for us to move away from institutionalized, Sunday morning faith and toward a more relationally driven, culturally friendly, and doable approach to disciple-making. What you will discover is how discipleship is not about learning more but learning to give away what you already have in Christ.
Small-Batch Disciplemaking by David Sunde is a compelling field guide for Christians looking to make a difference in the world by sharing their faith. With practical and empowering strategies for navigating the intimidating Biblical mandate of making disciples, this book equips and empowers readers to:
*Grow in faith in order to give faith away
*Learn intentional spiritual practices like hospitality, compassion, and gratitude
*Confidently go out and make a difference in the worldGet ready for a deeply pragmatic, culturally informed disciple-making faith.
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Doing Justice Together
$17.99Add to cartTransform your church with grace. Doing Justice Together introduces a process using Scripture as a souce of inspiration and instruction for pastors and church people to move through together, to re-envision and reorient themselves away from old, harmful habits. Beck and Hand show pastors how they can, over time, lead the congregation to become a place where racial harmony, justice, and liberation are intrinsic to the structure and life of the church. The authors lay out four pathways for discerning and correcting the unjust patterns that often sneak into church life unnoticed. They also share other leaders’ stories from a variety of settings where this process has led to healing, revival, and hope. Following the pathways, pastors and congregants will be equipped to thoughtfully transform their church. They’ll make changes with grace and care, honoring and including longtime members. And they’ll begin new ministries–perhaps reaching people they could never have imagined reaching before–becoming a fresh expression of church in their community.
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Redeeming Power : Exercising The Gift As God Intended – 12 Lessons For Cath
$17.95Add to cartCatholic theologian Ann M. Garrido-author of the bestselling and award-winning book Redeeming Administration-continues her work on Christian leadership by examining power not as a manipulative force in short supply but as Jesus understood it: an abundant good meant to be shared and put to use for the sake of harmony and holiness.
In Redeeming Power, Garrido helps you develop a spirituality of power by considering the skills and personal qualities that will enable a healthy and holy use of power in your role as one who leads. Garrido explores key passages from the creation stories of Genesis where we find the roots of how Jesus understood power. She shows how God shares divine power with all humans and calls leaders to specific ways of exercising power that will benefit the people and institutions they serve.
Joining these biblical lessons to her personal experience, and with help from nearly forty interviews of leaders in nonprofit organizations, business, and the Church, Garrido offers insight and guidance into many of the challenges contemporary leaders face, including how to:
*set-and adapt as needed-healthy boundaries for yourself and within the institution or community you serve,
*honor confidentiality while seeking to be transparent,
*share power with others,
*use one’s power on behalf of justice,
*stay rooted in the everyday, hands-on work of those you serve, and
*discern why and organize how you spend time and energy in order to bring balance to your life and work.
Garrido provides you with holy companions for your leadership journey, including Maria Montessori, Nicholas Black Elk, Benedict of Nursia, Kaloli Lwanga, Thea Bowman, Hildegard of Bingen, Mark Ji Tianxiang, Margaret of Scotland, and Jean Baptiste de La Salle.
Questions for self-reflection or group study are included at the end of each chapter and a companion discussion guide is available to download for free at avemariapress.com.
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Improvising Church : Scripture As The Source Of Harmony, Rhythm, And Soul
$28.00Add to cartPlenty of books diagnose our post-Christian malaise. Here’s a dynamic solution.
The post-Christian cultural turn is creating the conditions for a crisis of confidence in the church and in pastoral ministry. While such changes can be disruptive and disconcerting, our new cultural reality makes the present moment a uniquely exciting time to reimagine churches that bear witness to Christ. How do we move beyond cookie-cutter approaches (which may have worked in the past) to building the creative, compassionate, and incarnational churches we long for?
Biblical scholar and accomplished jazz pianist Mark Glanville plays with a metaphor of improvisation to chart twelve themes as the key “notes” on which Christian communities play as they bear witness to God in the world today. Building on these two dynamic traditions-jazz music and Christian community-Improvising Church unfolds a biblical, practical, and inventive vision for churches seeking to receive and extend the healing of Christ.
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Church For Everyone
$18.00Add to cartDiversity is a high value for younger generations-but too often, they’re not finding it in the church.
Emerging generations in the West are more diverse than ever-ethnically, socioeconomically, educationally, and politically. And as church attendance among younger generations declines rapidly, research shows that one of their primary sticking points is the lack of diversity in most churches.
In Church for Everyone, pastors Dan Kreiss and Efrem Smith address this phenomenon head-on. In this research-based, theologically informed, and practical book, they explore the younger generations’ expectations and disappointments with church and hold out a vision for true diversity taken from the pages of Scripture. As experienced church leaders themselves, Kreiss and Smith share a wealth of practical experience and stories from the trenches of multiethnic ministry.
The good news is that God has already called the church to diversity. As we seek to live out this calling in our own local contexts, we can become the demonstration of God’s love for all humanity that he has designed the church to be-and that the younger generation is so desperately looking for.
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Untangle Your Emotions Bible Study Guide Plus Streaming Video (Student/Study Gui
$24.99Add to cartWhat does the Bible tell us about our emotions?
Does the Bible really tell us that our emotions are untrustworthy? God made us to feel our emotions, to examine and share them–not manage or suppress them. We can learn what it means to live emotionally-healthy lives from studying Jesus’ life and how He cared for and responded to the people around Him.
Join Jennie Allen for the Untangle Your Emotions Bible Study as she helps you discover that emotions that are submitted to God and used for the purposes God intends connect us to each other and to Him.
This six-session study will equip you to:
*Be encouraged through the examples of emotion in Scripture by God the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit.
*Identify the unhealthy ways you might be coping with emotions.
*Learn a biblical step-by-step method to help you process, name, and notice what you are feeling.
*Move from apathetic to articulate when it comes to sharing what you feel.
This study guide includes:
*Individual access to six streaming video sessions
*Personal study between sessions
*Leader’s Guide