Category: Pastoral Helps
Pastoral Helps
Showing 1–12 of 1049 results
Seek First The Kingdom Bible Study Book (Student/Study Guide)
$22.25Add to cartAs Christians, we live busy and harried lives, most often because we are eager and earnest to join with God in His work in the world.
In the confusion and sheer volume of opportunities and ideas vying for our attention, we must constantly return to the words of Jesus to find our focus and purpose, for the truths He spoke, when believed and applied, lead to our flourishing. Using parables and stories, Jesus spoke most often of the kingdom of God as what matters-the ways of the kingdom, the values of the kingdom, and the cultivation of the kingdom here on earth in light of its fulfillment in heaven. In other words, the kingdom of God defines who we are and what we do as Christians.
Many Christians don’t have a working knowledge of the kingdom and their true citizenship in a way that affects their daily lives and decisions. Seek First the Kingdom cuts through the clutter of life with the words of Jesus, urging readers to stop, think, take notice, and reorient themselves solidly around the kingdom. Continue Reading Seek First The Kingdom Bible Study Book (Student/Study Guide)
From Research To Teaching
$20.00Add to cartIt’s a long way from the research carrel to the classroom.
No matter your personality, your prior experience, or the specifics of your situation, the transition from graduate studies to teaching involves a set of challenges for which no one is ever fully prepared. In this practical guide Michael Kibbe, author of From Topic to Thesis, provides a helpful companion for the journey. With plenty of personal examples and tested advice, Kibbe covers preparation for teaching, best practices in the classroom, self-evaluation, and the discovery of your mission and method. He also reflects on the spiritual lives of professors, including social media practices, Sabbath, and relationships. From Research to Teaching is the concise, accessible resource every new and aspiring professor needs. Continue Reading From Research To Teaching
Sensible Shoes Leaders Guide (Teacher’s Guide)
$15.00Add to cartSensible Shoes is an unusual novel, blending a fictional story with nonfiction teaching elements.
Some readers view it only as a story of four characters on a journey. Others say yes to a deeper level of reading, embracing the opportunity to take a sacred journey along with the characters, by opening themselves to the Spirit’s work and attending to God’s invitations. The Sensible Shoes Leader’s Guide offers two ways to invite readers into a deeper journey: first, there are resources here for a twelve-week small group experience through the Sensible Shoes Study Guide. Each week you’ll be provided with a few prayer prompts for your work as a leader, tips for facilitating the group, and behind-the-scenes information about the characters and their journeys that can be used as opening materials for your sessions. The second set of resources in this guide relates to leading a retreat based on Sensible Shoes. After years of creating and speaking at Sensible Shoes Retreats, spiritual director Sharon Brown offers here additional content to help you design the ideal space for your context as you gather people in longer sessions to experience this material. In addition to one-day, weekend, and online schedules, there are many creative ideas from leaders of groups who have used Sensible Shoes for retreats over the years. Sensible Shoes was written for the purpose of bringing God’s healing and spiritual transformation into the lives of readers traveling in community. Is there an invitation here for you to bring this message to your community? Also available: Sensible Shoes Leader Kit and Sensible Shoes Participant Kit, with everything you need for a small group or retreat experience. Continue Reading Sensible Shoes Leaders Guide (Teacher’s Guide)
Starfish And The Spirit
$24.99Add to cartLeveraging the metaphor Ori popularized in his NYT best-selling book, The Starfish and the Spider, Ori Brafman shows why the distributed structures of starfish organizations are uniquely fit to the church. They can function without a rigid central authority, and their regenerative abilities make them nimbler in reacting to external forces. Seeding starfish networks inside todays churches will prepare the church of tomorrow to be agile while still maintaining the necessary accountability to be effective.
Rather than advocating the adoption of a starfish structure in place of the hierarchy of the spider, Brafman, along with pastors Lance Ford and Rob Wegner, emphasize the advantages of adapting the structure and order inherent in a spider organization toward a hybrid model–either a Spiderfish approach (leaning toward centralization) or a Starder approach (leaning toward decentralization).
The Starfish and the Spirit is about creating a culture where church leaders view themselves as curators of a community on mission, not the source of certainty for every question and project. It is about creating a team of humble leaders in the middle of the church, not at the top–leaders who naturally reproduce multiple generations of leaders, from the middle out on mission. Imagine a church led by a team whose gifts and talents are completely unleashed, enabling everyone to show up and step up with all they really are. The joy and vigor coming from the collective strength, intelligence, and skill in the community of leaders not only brings greater potency but better yields for your ministry as well. What would it be like to see this kind of healthy leadership reproduced into the second, third, and fourth generation, on multiple strands? Continue Reading Starfish And The Spirit
Positive Psychology In Christian Perspective
$45.00Add to cartOriginally the field of psychology had a threefold mission: to cure mental illness, yes, but also to find ways to make life fulfilling for all and to maximize talent. Over the last century, a focus on mental illness has often been prioritized over studies of health, to the point that many people assume psychologist is just another way of saying psychotherapist. This book is about one attempt to restore the discipline’s larger mission.
Positive psychology attends to what philosophers call the good life. It is about fostering strength and living well–about how to do a good job at being human. Some of that will involve cheerful emotions, and some of it will not. There are vital roles to be played by archetypal challenges such as those involving self-control, guilt, and grit, and even the terror of death enters into positive psychology’s vision of human flourishing. Charles Hackney connects this still-new movement to foundational concepts in philosophy and Christian theology. He then explores topics such as subjective states, cognitive processes, and the roles of personality, relationships, and environment, also considering relevant practices in spheres from the workplace to the church and even the martial arts dojo. Hackney takes seriously the range of critiques positive psychology has faced as he frames a constructive future for Christian contributions to the field. Continue Reading Positive Psychology In Christian Perspective
Wild At Heart Study Guide With DVD Updated Edition (Student/Study Guide)
$42.99Add to cartIn this updated edition of the bestselling classic, author John Eldredge reminds men they need adventure in their lives . . . in their work, in their love, and their spiritual lives. He reveals how God designed men to be dangerous. Simply look at the dreams and desires written in the heart of every boy: to be a hero, to be a warrior, and to live a life of adventure and risk. Sadly, most men today have abandoned these dreams and desires-aided by a Christianity that feels like nothing more than pressure to be a nice guy. It is no wonder that many men avoid church, and those who go are often passive and bored to death.
In this provocative six-session video study, John Eldredge explains how God wants to heal these deep wounds from earlier years that take away a man’s confidence and-in some cases-his masculinity. He shows that deep within the heart of every man is a longing for a battle to fight, an adventure to live, and a beauty to rescue-because that is how God created him. It is time for the church to reclaim these wounded warriors. It is time to give men permission to be what God designed them to be-dangerous, passionate, alive, and free!
Sessions include:
1. The Heart of a Man
2. The Wound
3. A Battle to Fight
4. An Adventure to Live
5. A Beauty to Rescue
6. A Band of BrothersThis pack contains one study guide and one DVD. Continue Reading Wild At Heart Study Guide With DVD Updated Edition (Student/Study Guide)
Wild At Heart Study Guide Updated Edition (Student/Study Guide)
$13.99Add to cartIn this updated edition of the bestselling classic, author John Eldredge reminds men they need adventure in their lives . . . in their work, in their love, and their spiritual lives. He reveals how God designed men to be dangerous. Simply look at the dreams and desires written in the heart of every boy: to be a hero, to be a warrior, and to live a life of adventure and risk. Sadly, most men today have abandoned these dreams and desires-aided by a Christianity that feels like nothing more than pressure to be a nice guy. It is no wonder that many men avoid church, and those who go are often passive and bored to death.
In this provocative six-session video study (DVD/digital video downloads sold separately), John Eldredge explains how God wants to heal these deep wounds from earlier years that take away a man’s confidence and-in some cases-his masculinity. He shows that deep within the heart of every man is a longing for a battle to fight, an adventure to live, and a beauty to rescue-because that is how God created him. It is time for the church to reclaim these wounded warriors. It is time to give men permission to be what God designed them to be-dangerous, passionate, alive, and free!
Sessions include:
1. The Heart of a Man
2. The Wound
3. A Battle to Fight
4. An Adventure to Live
5. A Beauty to Rescue
6. A Band of BrothersDesigned for use with the Wild at Heart Video Study (sold separately). Continue Reading Wild At Heart Study Guide Updated Edition (Student/Study Guide)
Captivating Study Guide With DVD Updated Edition (Student/Study Guide)
$44.99Add to cartEvery woman was once a little girl. And every little girl holds in her heart her most precious dreams. She longs to be swept up into a romance, to play an irreplaceable role in a great adventure, to be the beauty of the story. Those desires are far more than child’s play. They are the secret to the feminine heart.
And yet, how many women ever find that life? As the years pass by, the heart of a woman gets pushed aside, wounded, buried. She finds no romance except in novels, no adventure except on television, and she doubts very much that she will ever be the Beauty in any tale.
Most women think they have to settle for a life of efficiency and duty, striving to be the women they ought to be, but often feeling they have failed. Sadly, too many messages for Christian women add to the pressure. Do these ten things, and you will be a godly woman. The effect has not been good on the feminine soul. But her heart is still there. Sometimes when she watches a movie, sometimes in the wee hours of the night, her heart begins to speak again. A thirst rises within her to find the life she was meant to live, the life she dreamed of as a little girl.
In this video Bible study, the message of Captivating is that your heart matters more than anything else in all creation. The desires you had as a little girl and the longings you still feel are telling you of the life God created you to live. He offers to come now, as the Hero of your story-to rescue your heart and release you to live as a fully alive and feminine woman. A woman who is truly captivating.
Sessions include:
1. The Heart of a Woman
2. The Wound
3. Healing the Wound
4. Beauty to Unveil
5. Loving a Man
6. Warrior PrincessThis pack contains one study guide and one DVD. Continue Reading Captivating Study Guide With DVD Updated Edition (Student/Study Guide)
Hebrews For You
$17.99Add to cartApplied expository guide to Hebrews-a book that shows us how and why Jesus is better than anything else.
We are all tempted to drift away from Jesus, but in the book of Hebrews God gives us an anchor: a detailed understanding of how and why Jesus is better than anything else.
Seminary professor Michael J. Kruger unpacks this rich book verse by verse. He explains the Old Testament background, gives plenty of application for our lives today, and shows us how Jesus is the fulfilment of all God’s work on earth. He encourages us to live by faith in Jesus-the only anchor for our souls.
This expository guide can be read as a book; used as a devotional; and utilized in teaching and preaching. Continue Reading Hebrews For You
Plurality Principle : How To Build And Maintain A Thriving Church Leadershi
$17.99Add to cartBuilding and Sustaining a Thriving Leadership Culture
Foundational to a healthy church is a biblical model of church leadership. In the New Testament, church leadership is rarely a one-person endeavor-it is built around a plurality of elders working together, each bringing their own unique skills and gifts to the cause of shepherding the flock God has entrusted to them. There are many benefits to this model of leadership: being part of a team helps a church leader know his role, submit to authority, learn humility, and think about his gifts and position through the lens of what serves the church rather than his personal agenda. This argument in favor of elder plurality focuses both on how churches can build a healthy elder plurality and thrive as congregations once plurality is established. Continue Reading Plurality Principle : How To Build And Maintain A Thriving Church Leadershi
Flooded Study Guide (Student/Study Guide)
$13.99Add to cartPlease, God, no more hard things.
Most of us know what it’s like to whisper those words to God. Hard circumstances often stir something so destructive in a soul: doubt.
Through this six-session study guide, Nicki Koziarz will lead you through the biblical account of Noah and help you uncover the five best decisions to make when life is hard and doubt is rising.
This study guide is designed to accompany the book Flooded as well as the video teaching downloads. The guide may be used in group or individual study.
Study guide and video teaching benefits include:
*Gain a deeper understanding of the biblical account of Noah by studying the Scriptures in-depth.
*Learn to memorize Scriptures to help deflect doubt in your life.
*Answer reflection questions that will bring insight and wisdom to your own doubt-struggle.
*Develop a daily Bible study habit that will help you walk with godly confidence into hard situations.
It’s time to quiet the fear that God won’t come through by understanding the difference between biblical hope and wishful thinking. Flooded Study Guide and teaching videos will get you there one session at a time. Continue Reading Flooded Study Guide (Student/Study Guide)
Captivating Study Guide Updated Edition (Student/Study Guide)
$15.99Add to cartEvery woman was once a little girl. And every little girl holds in her heart her most precious dreams. She longs to be swept up into a romance, to play an irreplaceable role in a great adventure, to be the beauty of the story. Those desires are far more than child’s play. They are the secret to the feminine heart.
And yet, how many women ever find that life? As the years pass by, the heart of a woman gets pushed aside, wounded, buried. She finds no romance except in novels, no adventure except on television, and she doubts very much that she will ever be the Beauty in any tale.
Most women think they have to settle for a life of efficiency and duty, striving to be the women they ought to be, but often feeling they have failed. Sadly, too many messages for Christian women add to the pressure. Do these ten things, and you will be a godly woman. The effect has not been good on the feminine soul. But her heart is still there. Sometimes when she watches a movie, sometimes in the wee hours of the night, her heart begins to speak again. A thirst rises within her to find the life she was meant to live, the life she dreamed of as a little girl.
In this video Bible study (DVD/digital video downloads sold separately), the message of Captivating is that your heart matters more than anything else in all creation. The desires you had as a little girl and the longings you still feel are telling you of the life God created you to live. He offers to come now, as the Hero of your story-to rescue your heart and release you to live as a fully alive and feminine woman. A woman who is truly captivating.
Sessions include:
1. The Heart of a Woman
2. The Wound
3. Healing the Wound
4. Beauty to Unveil
5. Loving a Man
6. Warrior PrincessDesigned for use with the Captivating Video Study (sold separately). Continue Reading Captivating Study Guide Updated Edition (Student/Study Guide)