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Making All Things New: An invitation To Spiritual Life
by Henri NouwenNouwen writes: During the past few years, various friends have asked me, "What do you mean when you speak about the spiritual life?" Every time this question has come up, I have wished I had a small and simple book which could offer the beginning of a response. Although there are many excellent books about the spiritual life, I still felt that there was a place for a text which could be read within a few hours and could not only explain what the spiritual life is but also create a desire to live it. This feeling caused me to write this book. Many of the ideas have been expressed before by others as well as by myself, but I hope and pray that the way they are brought together here will be of help to those who feel "filled but unfulfilled." Other books by Nouwen are available from Bookshare.
Making All Things New: God's Dream for Global Justice
by R. York MooreOften this world seems like a nightmare. Human trafficking, young girls trapped in brothels, child soldiers forced to become killers, unchecked plagues and diseases, economic injustice and the oppression of the poor. Millions around the world are trapped in this nightmare, and we may feel helpless to do anything about it. But God has a dream. York Moore paints a vivid picture of how the dream of God is breaking into history to make all things new. Through the death and resurrection of Jesus, God is bringing an end to the world's nightmare of sin and death. Scripture's vision of Jesus' end-time work shows how the wrongs will be made right, and God's just judgment is good news for the world. Unpacking how the Bible describes the last things, Moore shows how we can partner with God as he brings his dream to reality. Every time a well is dug for a community, food is provided for the hungry or sex traffickers are brought to justice, the dream begins to take hold. This is no mere wishful thinking. The dream of God is more real than your dreams could ever imagine. It is what we were created for. So wake up from the nightmare and join in what God is doing in the world. And flourish as your own dreams are transformed by God's dream for all creation.
Making Believe: Questions About Mennonites and Art
by Magdalene RedekopMaking Believe responds to a remarkable flowering of art by Mennonites in Canada. After the publication of his first novel in 1962, Rudy Wiebe was the only identifiable Mennonite literary writer in the country. Beginning in the 1970s, the numbers grew rapidly and now include writers Patrick Friesen, Sandra Birdsell, Di Brandt, Sarah Klassen, Armin Wiebe, David Bergen, Miriam Toews, Carrie Snyder, Casey Plett, and many more. A similar renaissance is evident in the visual arts (including artists Gathie Falk, Wanda Koop, and Aganetha Dyck) and in music (including composers Randolph Peters, Carol Ann Weaver, and Stephanie Martin). Confronted with an embarrassment of riches that resist survey, Magdalene Redekop opts for the use of case studies to raise questions about Mennonites and art. Part criticism, part memoir, Making Believe argues that there is no such thing as Mennonite art. At the same time, her close engagement with individual works of art paradoxically leads Redekop to identify a Mennonite sensibility at play in the space where artists from many cultures interact. Constant questioning and commitment to community are part of the Mennonite dissenting tradition. Although these values come up against the legacy of radical Anabaptist hostility to art, Redekop argues that the Early Modern roots of a contemporary crisis of representation are shared by all artists. Making Believe posits a Spielraum or play space in which all artists are dissembling tricksters, but differences in how we play are inflected by where we come from. The close readings in this book insist on respect for difference at the same time as they invite readers to find common ground while making believe across cultures.
Making Bodies Kosher: The Politics of Reproduction among Haredi Jews in England (Fertility, Reproduction and Sexuality: Social and Cultural Perspectives #42)
by Ben KasstanFor Haredi Jews, reproduction is entangled with issues of health, bodily governance and identity. This is an analysis of the ways in which Haredi Jews negotiate healthcare services using theoretical perspectives in political philosophy. This is the first archival and ethnographic study of Haredi Jews in the UK and sits at the intersection of medical anthropology, social history and Jewish studies. It will allow readers to understand how reproductive care issues affect this growing minority population.
Making Catholic America: Religious Nationalism in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era
by William S. CossenIn Making Catholic America, William S. Cossen shows how Catholic men and women worked to prove themselves to be model American citizens in the decades between the Civil War and the Great Depression. Far from being outsiders in American history, Catholics took command of public life in the early twentieth century, claiming leadership in the growing American nation. They produced their own version of American history and claimed the power to remake the nation in their own image, arguing that they were the country's most faithful supporters of freedom and liberty and that their church had birthed American independence. Making Catholic America offers a new interpretation of American life in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, demonstrating the surprising success of an often-embattled religious group in securing for itself a place in the national community and in profoundly altering what it meant to be an American in the modern world.
Making Chaplaincy Work: Practical Approaches
by Laurel A BurtonWith compassion and commitment, practicing chaplains draw on a wide range of professional experiences and discuss principles, themes, and guidelines that have enhanced their ministries. These practical and successful approaches are aimed at helping others face the daily professional challenges of health care chaplaincy. The issues and responsibilities of chaplaincy work with a variety of patient populations--AIDS sufferers, long-term care patients, stroke victims, and the terminally ill--are thoroughly explored. Contributors provide creative and innovative methods of meeting the needs of hospital patients and their families as well as health care personnel, such as implementing a volunteer clergy program and establishing a surgical reporting plan.
Making Chastity Sexy: The Rhetoric of Evangelical Abstinence Campaigns
by Christine J. GardnerEven though they are immersed in sex-saturated society, millions of teens are pledging to remain virgins until their wedding night. How are evangelical Christians persuading young people to wait until marriage? Christine J. Gardner looks closely at the language of the chastity movement and discovers a savvy campaign that uses sex to "sell" abstinence. Drawing from interviews with evangelical leaders and teenagers, she examines the strategy to shift from a negative "just say no" approach to a positive one: "just say yes" to great sex within marriage. Making Chastity Sexy sheds new light on an abstinence campaign that has successfully recast a traditionally feminist idea--"my body, my choice"--into a powerful message, but one that Gardner suggests may ultimately reduce evangelicalism's transformative power. Focusing on the United States, her study also includes a comparative dimension by examining the export of this evangelical agenda to sub-Saharan Africa.
Making Children Mind Without Losing Yours
by Kevin LemanTeaches how to bring up your children with good manners and etiquette, the right attitudes and ways to face the challenges in life without compromising the basic principles of life.
Making Christ Present in China: Actor-Network Theory and the Anthropology of Christianity
by Michel ChambonAn anthropological theorization of the unity and diversity of Christianity, this book focuses on Christian communities in Nanping, a small city in China. It applies methodological insights from Actor-Network Theory to investigate how the Christian God is made part of local social networks. The study examines how Christians interact with and re-define material objects, such as buildings, pews, offerings, and blood, in order to identify the kind of networks and non-human actors that they collectively design. By comparing local Christian traditions with other practices informing the Nanping religious landscape, the study points out potential cohesion via the centralizing presence of the Christian God, the governing nature of the pastoral clergy, and the semi-transcendent being of the Church.
Making Christian History: Eusebius of Caesarea and His Readers (Christianity in Late Antiquity #11)
by Michael HollerichKnown as the "Father of Church History," Eusebius was bishop of Caesarea in Palestine and the leading Christian scholar of his day. His Ecclesiastical History is an irreplaceable chronicle of Christianity’s early development, from its origin in Judaism, through two and a half centuries of illegality and occasional persecution, to a new era of tolerance and favor under the Emperor Constantine. In this book, Michael J. Hollerich recovers the reception of this text across time. As he shows, Eusebius adapted classical historical writing for a new "nation," the Christians, with a distinctive theo-political vision. Eusebius’s text left its mark on Christian historical writing from late antiquity to the early modern period—across linguistic, cultural, political, and religious boundaries—until its encounter with modern historicism and postmodernism. Making Christian History demonstrates Eusebius’s vast influence throughout history, not simply in shaping Christian culture but also when falling under scrutiny as that culture has been reevaluated, reformed, and resisted over the past 1,700 years.
Making Christians: Clement of Alexandria and the Rhetoric of Legitimacy
by Denise Kimber BuellHow did second-century Christians vie with each other in seeking to produce an authoritative discourse of Christian identity? In this innovative book, Denise Buell argues that many early Christians deployed the metaphors of procreation and kinship in the struggle over claims to represent the truth of Christian interpretation, practice, and doctrine. In particular, she examines the intriguing works of the influential theologian Clement of Alexandria (ca. 150-210 c.e.), for whom cultural assumptions about procreation and kinship played an important role in defining which Christians have the proper authority to teach, and which kinds of knowledge are authentic. Buell argues that metaphors of procreation and kinship can serve to make power differentials appear natural. She shows that early Christian authors recognized this and often turned to such metaphors to mark their own positions as legitimate and marginalize others as false. Attention to the functions of this language offers a way out of the trap of reconstructing the development of early Christianity along the axes of "heresy" and "orthodoxy," while not denying that early Christians employed this binary. Ultimately, Buell argues, strategic use of kinship language encouraged conformity over diversity and had a long lasting effect both on Christian thought and on the historiography of early Christianity. Aperceptive and closely argued contribution to early Christian studies, Making Christians also branches out to the areas of kinship studies and the social construction of gender.
Making Christmas Count
by R. W. Alley Ted O'NealKids don't need to be told that Christmas "counts." They are generally tuned in to the excitement and anticipation! And yet, children can be among the first to forget what it is about the season that really counts. Much of this may have to do with what our culture--and we ourselves--teach and practice. This little illustrated book communicates a message about making Christmas count in all its facets and flavors; it is a book about recognizing the deepest "reasons for the season."
Making Congregational Music Local in Christian Communities Worldwide (Congregational Music Studies Series)
by Zoe C. Sherinian Monique M. Ingalls Muriel Swijghuisen ReigersbergWhat does it mean for music to be considered local in contemporary Christian communities, and who shapes this meaning? Through what musical processes have religious beliefs and practices once ‘foreign’ become ‘indigenous’? How does using indigenous musical practices aid in the growth of local Christian religious practices and beliefs? How are musical constructions of the local intertwined with regional, national or transnational religious influences and cosmopolitanisms? Making Congregational Music Local in Christian Communities Worldwide explores the ways that congregational music-making is integral to how communities around the world understand what it means to be ‘local’ and ‘Christian’. Showing how locality is produced, negotiated, and performed through music-making, this book draws on case studies from every continent that integrate insights from anthropology, ethnomusicology, cultural geography, mission studies, and practical theology. Four sections explore a central aspect of the production of locality through congregational music-making, addressing the role of historical trends, cultural and political power, diverging values, and translocal influences in defining what it means to be ‘local’ and ‘Christian’. This book contends that examining musical processes of localization can lead scholars to new understandings of the meaning and power of Christian belief and practice.
Making Disciples Across Cultures: Missional Principles for a Diverse World
by Charles A. DavisCulture affects how we make disciples. We often unconsciously bring our own cultural assumptions into ministry and mission, not realizing that how we think and operate is not necessarily the best or only way to do things. In today's global environment, disciplemaking requires the cultural humility and flexibility to adapt between different cultural approaches. Charles Davis, former director of TEAM, provides a framework for missional disciplemaking across diverse cultural contexts. He shows how we can recalibrate our ministry efforts, like adjusting sound levels on a mixer board, to accommodate different cultural assumptions. With on-the-ground stories from a lifetime of mission experience, Davis navigates such tensions as knowledge and behavior, individualism and collectivism, and truth and works to help Christian workers minister more effectively. Ministry teams, church planters, pastors and missionaries working interculturally at home or overseas can be part of God's movement of making disciples. Discover how the body of Christ grows in the unity and diversity of the global church.
Making Disciples, Making Leaders Leader Guide: A Manual For Presbyterian Church Leader Development
by Steven P. Eason E. Von ClemansThe second edition of the widely-used Making Disciples, Making Leaders is a comprehensive guide for creating effective spiritual leaders in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A). With almost two decades of combined experience in training church leaders, Eason and Clemans have designed resources that can be customized to fit your church's unique needs. The book introduces biblical principles for leadership before describing the important task of the nominating committee. Pastors then receive a step-by-step curriculum for a four-session leadership training course. <P><P>With updates for the revised Form of Government, Making Disciples, Making Leaders--Leader Guide is the ultimate resource for PC(USA) leadership training. A participant workbook to the second edition, which includes worship aids, handouts, worksheets, quizzes, and study guides, is also available.
Making Disciples, Making Leaders Participant Workbook: A Manual For Presbyterian Church Leader Development
by Steven P. Eason E. Von ClemansThe second edition of the widely-used Making Disciples, Making Leaders is a comprehensive guide for creating effective spiritual leaders in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A). With almost two decades of combined experience in training church leaders, Eason and Clemans have designed resources that can be customized to fit your church's unique needs. The book introduces biblical principles for leadership before describing the important task of the nominating committee. Pastors then receive a step-by-step curriculum for a four-session leadership training course. <P><P>With updates for the revised Form of Government, Making Disciples, Making Leaders--Participant Workbook includes worship aids, handouts, worksheets, quizzes, and study guides.
Making Disciples: Coordinator's Guide
by William H. WillimonMaking Disciples is a 13-session mentor-based confirmation program that pairs confirmands with adult mentors and guides them through a variety of learning experiences that will strengthen the student's understanding of the faith while connecting him or her with the community of believers in a personal way. It can be used as a stand-alone program, or in conjunction with your current curriculum as a special experiential unit. This is a confirmation program that is more like a process and less like a reading assignment, more engaging and congruent with the nature of the Christian faith than existing programs. Using an "apprenticeship" approach to confirmation Will Willimon produced a series of learning experiences where adult mentors and confirmands are both teachers and learners at the same time.This time-tested approach has been extensively revised and updated for usage in today’s churches that take seriously Christ’s command to be engaged in disciple making The Coordinator’s Guide can be used by the pastor, if that is how your congregation chooses to oversee and support the process of confirmation. However, it’s good to involve as many laypersons as possible in mentoring and guiding. This Coordinator’s Guide is designed to be easily used by a lay coordinator to support the mentors as they guide their confirmands through the journey toward confirmation.Topics explore the basics of Christian faith: •God •Jesus •the Holy Spirit •worship •the Bible •gifts •ministry •baptism •spiritual life •death and resurrection •the church
Making Disciples: Mentor Guide
by William H. WillimonMaking Disciples is a 13-session mentor-based confirmation program that pairs confirmands with adult mentors and guides them through a variety of learning experiences that will strengthen the student's understanding of the faith while connecting him or her with the community of believers in a personal way. It can be used as a stand-alone program, or in conjunction with your current curriculum as a special experiential unit. This is a confirmation program that is more like a process and less like a reading assignment, more engaging and congruent with the nature of the Christian faith than existing programs. Using an "apprenticeship" approach to confirmation Will Willimon produced a series of learning experiences where adult mentors and confirmands are both teachers and learners at the same time.This time-tested approach has been extensively revised and updated for usage in today’s churches that take seriously Christ’s command to be engaged in disciple making The bulk of the Mentor Guide is exactly the same as the Confirmand's Journal. You are encouraged to work through the activities right along with the confirmands and to complete the activities and writing assignments just as he or she does. By working along with your confirmand you will demonstrate the need to keep learning and growing.Topics explore the basics of Christian faith: •God •Jesus •the Holy Spirit •worship •the Bible •gifts •ministry •baptism •spiritual life •death and resurrection •the church
Making Early Medieval Societies
by Kate Cooper Conrad Leyser Cooper, Kate and Leyser, ConradMaking Early Medieval Societies explores a fundamental question: what held the small- and large-scale communities of the late Roman and early medieval West together, at a time when the world seemed to be falling apart? Historians and anthropologists have traditionally asked parallel questions about the rise and fall of empires and how societies create a sense of belonging and social order in the absence of strong governmental institutions. This book draws on classic and more recent anthropologists' work to consider dispute settlement and conflict management during and after the end of the Roman Empire. Contributions range across the internecine rivalries of late Roman bishops, the marital disputes of warrior kings, and the tension between religious leaders and the unruly crowds in western Europe after the first millennium - all considering the mechanisms through which conflict could be harnessed as a force for social stability or an engine for social change.
Making European Muslims: Religious Socialization Among Young Muslims in Scandinavia and Western Europe (Routledge Studies in Religion)
by Mark SedgwickMaking European Muslims provides an in-depth examination of what it means to be a young Muslim in Europe today, where the assumptions, values and behavior of the family and those of the majority society do not always coincide. Focusing on the religious socialization of Muslim children at home, in semi-private Islamic spaces such as mosques and Quran schools, and in public schools, the original contributions to this volume focus largely on countries in northern Europe, with a special emphasis on the Nordic region, primarily Denmark. Case studies demonstrate the ways that family life, public education, and government policy intersect in the lives of young Muslims and inform their developing religious beliefs and practices. Mark Sedgwick’s introduction provides a framework for theorizing Muslimness in the European context, arguing that Muslim children must navigate different and sometimes contradictory expectations and demands on their way to negotiating a European Muslim identity.
Making Evangelical History: Faith, Scholarship and the Evangelical Past (Routledge Studies in Evangelicalism)
by Andrew Atherstone David Ceri JonesThis volume makes a significant contribution to the ‘history of ecclesiastical histories’, with a fresh analysis of historians of evangelicalism from the eighteenth century to the present. It explores the ways in which their scholarly methods and theological agendas shaped their writings. Each chapter presents a case study in evangelical historiography. Some of the historians and biographers examined here were ministers and missionaries, while others were university scholars. They are drawn from Anglican, Baptist, Congregationalist, Methodist, Presbyterian, Fundamentalist and Pentecostal denominations. Their histories cover not only transatlantic evangelicalism, but also the spread of the movement across China, Africa, and indeed the whole globe. Some wrote for a popular Christian readership, emphasising edification and evangelical hagiography; others have produced weighty monographs for the academy. These case studies shed light on the way the discipline has developed, and also the heated controversies over whether one approach to evangelical history is more legitimate than the rest. As a result, this book will be of considerable interest to historians of religion.
Making Friends with Death: A Buddhist Guide to Encountering Mortality
by Judith L. LiefIn Making Friends with Death, Buddhist teacher Judith Lief, who's drawn her inspiration from the Tibetan Book of the Dead, shows us that through the powerful combination of contemplation of death and mindfulness practice, we can change how we relate to death, enhance our appreciation of everyday life, and use our developing acceptance of our own vulnerability as a basis for opening to others. She also offers a series of guidelines to help us reconnect with dying persons, whether they are friends or family, clients or patients.Lief highlights the value of relating to the immediacy of death as an ongoing aspect of everyday life by offering readers a variety of practical methods that they can apply to their lives and work. These methods include:Simple mindfulness exercises for deepening awareness of moment-by-moment changePractices for cultivating loving-kindnessHelpful slogans and guidelines for caregivers to useMaking Friends with Death will enlighten anyone interested in coming to terms with their own mortality. More specifically, the contemplative approach presented here offers health professionals, students of death and dying, and people who are helping a dying friend or relative useful guidance and inspiration. It will show them how to ground their actions in awareness and compassion, so that the steps they take in dealing with pain and suffering will be more effective.
Making Friends with the Present Moment
by Sylvia BoorsteinTaken from Sylvia Boorstein's influential contribution to Solid Ground , Boorstein invites readers to see things exactly the way they are, no matter how difficult.
Making God Part of Your Family: The Family Bible Study Book
by Michael GradyIf your family thinks the Bible is boring, it&’s probably because they don&’t know the full story! Veteran Bible teacher Michael Grady has compiled the Old Testament stories into concise, thought provoking doses intended to stimulate family discussions. The Old Testament is a history of God&’s family and you just might be surprised to learn who&’s in your family tree! These stories provide a unique combination: they are both simple enough for your children to understand and deep enough for parents to grow in the knowledge and wisdom of God&’s Word. This vibrant, carefully researched volume will bring your family closer together and help you clearly establish your family&’s identity as children of God and brothers and sisters of Jesus. Making God Part of Your Family is not just a book of Bible stories. It is a study book. Whether your goal is to spend 10–15 minutes on a dinner-time devotional or bedtime reading with your children, or spend more in-depth study time together once a week, this flexible resource will make it easier to carve out time amidst hectic schedules to study the Bible together, and help you to: Develop a better and deeper relationship with God our Father, and his son, JesusLearn how we are part of God&’s familyLearn how God expects us to live amidst the joys and sorrows of lifeApply practical lessons and eternal truths to the situations you face today