Church Age

Since its publication, Quidditch Through the Ages has been one of the most popular books in the Hogwarts library. Read by Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, and many more, it is the essential guide to the wizarding world's favourite game.

As a pastor in Silicon Valley, Jay Kim has experienced the digital church in all its splendor. In Analog Church, he grapples with the ramifications of a digital church, from our worship and experience of Christian community to the way we engage Scripture and sacrament. Could it be that in our efforts to stay relevant in our digital age, we've begun to give away the very thing that our age most desperately needs: transcendence? Could it be that the best way to reach new generations is in fact found in a more timeless path?

"In my first seminary class, we were asked to introduce ourselves and say why we enrolled. I'll never forget what one student said: 'My denomination wants me to have an M.Div., but once they see I can grow a big church, I don't think they'll make me finish the program.'" The priorities of this future pastor were startling, but he's not alone in them. In the years since that class, author and minister Skye Jethani has seen more and more pastors swallowed by the celebrity syndrome. Immeasurable will help ministers recognize the forces shaping their view of the calling.

Gordon Smith is passionate about the need for capable, mature leaders to navigate and respond to a changing society. In this book, he draws on his extensive experience as a university president, pastor, and international speaker to open a multidisciplinary conversation about the competencies and capacities essential for today's leaders.

Fresh Expressions is a canary in the coal mine, alerting congregations to reevaluate what the Church is, where and when it can happen, and who can lead it. Church as we know it is inaccessible to most people. A fundamental premise of the movement is that Church can become accessible again by emerging in every nook and cranny where life already happens. Fresh Expressions is based in simplification, returning to basic scriptural principles, and a recovery of a "priesthood of all believers" - in the three places where people live and relate to others.

The Fitzgeralds are buttressed by wealth and privilege, but they are also buffeted by crisis after crisis, many of their own creation. Even so, they live large, in love and in strife, wielding power, combating adversaries and each other.

Christians are often thought of as defending only their own religious interests in the public square. They are viewed as worrying exclusively about the erosion of their freedom to assemble and to follow their convictions, while not seeming as concerned about publicly defending the rights of Muslims, Hindus, Jews, and atheists to do the same. Andrew T. Walker, an emerging Southern Baptist public theologian, argues for a robust Christian ethic of religious liberty that helps the church defend religious freedom for everyone in a pluralistic society.

When 11-year-old Tino isn't sitting quietly in school, he's either visiting his dying mother in the hospital or making sure his UFO-obsessed father eats dinner. A loner among his peers, Tino is surprised when Omar, the strongest boy in school, befriends him out of the blue. Will Tino's intrigue outweigh his self-imposed isolation?

Is there a new reformation happening in the church? It depends on who you ask. The New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) is a popular and fast-growing new movement of Christians who emphasize signs and wonders, and teach that God is giving new revelation through new apostles and prophets. But is this biblical Christianity? In Counterfeit Kingdom, apologists and NAR experts Holly Pivec and Douglas Geivett show how the NAR’s key tenets distort the gospel, twist the Scriptures, are influenced by New Age practices, and lead faithful Christians to shipwreck their faith.

Congregations often seek to combat the crisis of decline by using innovation to produce new resources. But leading practical theologian Andrew Root shows that the church's crisis is not in the loss of resources; it's in the loss of life—and that life can only return when we remain open to God's encountering presence. This new book, related to Root's critically acclaimed Ministry in a Secular Age project, addresses the practical form the church must take in a secular age.

You are invited to witness the enormous power of the early church when it connected to the ultimate power. Then you are invited to request and experience it for yourself. You will again witness the enormous power of the early church as you listen to The Acts of the Apostles, a remarkable commentary on the book of Acts. Then you are invited to request it and experience it for yourself and your church.

Sometimes it can seem as if friends are more work and pain than they're worth, with friendship challenges that we have to endure and struggle through. Life gets in the way of our well-intentioned efforts to connect. Conflicts and differences over serious issues divide us and make us think that we could never be close to a person ever again. How can we build real relationships that are life giving and pass the test of time? Bryan Loritts mines one of the Bible's least-known books for insights into how friendships can flourish even in the midst of sin and brokenness.

Post-Christian life and society do not eliminate a desire for the transcendent; rather, they create an environment for new and divergent spiritual communities and practices to flourish. We are flooded with spiritualities that appeal to human desires for nonreligious personal transformation. But many fail to deliver because they fall into the trap of the self. In the last book of the Ministry in a Secular Age series, leading practical theologian Andrew Root shows the differences between these spiritualities and authentic Christian transformation.

The loss or disaffiliation of young adults is a much-discussed topic in churches today. Many faith-formation programs focus on keeping the young, believing the youthful spirit will save the church. But do these programs have more to do with an obsession with youthfulness than with helping young people encounter the living God?

Despite its many crises, especially in Western Europe, there are still 1.2 billion Catholics in the world and the Church remains a powerful, controversial and defiantly archaic institution. After the French Revolution and the democratic rebellions of 1848, the Church retreated, especially under Pius IX, into a fortress of unreason, denouncing almost every aspect of modern life, including liberalism and socialism. In Losing a Kingdom, Gaining the World, Dr. Ambrogio A. Caiani narrates the epic, fascinating, entertaining and horrifying history of the Roman Catholic Church.

Churches and their leaders have innovation fever. Innovation seems exciting—a way to enliven tired institutions, embrace creativity, and be proactive—and is a superstar of the business world. But this focus on innovation may be caused by an obsession with contemporary relevance, creativity, and entrepreneurship that inflates the self, lacks theological depth, and promises burnout. In this follow-up to Churches and the Crisis of Decline, leading practical theologian Andrew Root delves into the problems of innovation.

Four books. Four months. Nine Realms. Exiled and hunted, Cerulia, Princess of Weirandale, knows she has one destiny. Her enemies failed to kill her, and no one harboring her is safe. Raised in obscurity, she has no resources, no army, nothing that can help her against her enemies. Except their gods.

The audio guide tells the story, describes the architecture and reports interesting facts about the church. In 1072 Norman Dukes conquered Palermo and, in Sicily, began an era in which the Byzantine culture, the knowledge of the Arabs and the expressiveness of the Normans fused, creating an extraordinary unity. The symbol of this synthesis is the church of Santa Maria dell'Amiraglio, better known as "la Martorana". It was built in 1143.

In the long, hot summer of 1995, 22-year-old Alice Lang rents a caravan on a holiday park on the outskirts of the lively holiday resort of Severn Sands. She befriends Marnie, a shy, damaged little girl whose father is the park's caretaker and whose mother died a few months earlier. Will, whose mother runs the bar, falls in love with Alice and is unbearably jealous of anyone else she sees. Tensions rise until one evening Alice disappears from her caravan. She's never seen again, and only her scarlet dress is found washed up on the shore.

Sixteen-year-old Amina Conteh has always believed in using her tongue as her weapon—even when it gets her into trouble. After cursing at a classmate, her father forces her to volunteer at their church with Pastor Johnson. But Pastor Johnson isn’t the holy man everyone thinks he is. The same voice Amina uses to fight falls quiet the night she is sexually assaulted by Pastor Johnson. After that, her life starts to unravel: her father is frustrated that her grades are slipping, and her best friend and boyfriend don’t understand why the once loud and proud girl is now quiet and distant.