The Imitation of Christ
How Jesus Wants Us to Live
by Thomas à'Kempis

The Imitation of Christ is the work of at least three men: Gerard Groote, Florent Radewijns, and Thomas a Kempis. The first two were founders of the Brethren of the Common Life, a lay religious society that flourished in the Netherlands from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century. Working on their manuscripts, first as a compiler and editor and then as a coauthor, was Kempis.

So successful were Kempis's efforts that the work became the golden treasury not only of their community but also of the contemporary spirituality movement known as the Modern Devotion. Its prescriptions might very well be known as the Perennial Devotion for its continual appeal through the centuries.

In its fifteenth century Latin original the Imitation was not a silken cord of consecutive prose. Rather it was a series of scratchings, the sort that a spiritual director would note down in preparation for sermons and addresses. What wasn't always in the original was exactly how Kempis developed each topic sentence or wisdom quotation as he delivered it.

In this new rendition William Griffin recovers the original experience of listening to Kempis as he taught and preached to his spiritual charges. Using a variety of literary and historical means, Griffin enhances the original, making the insights of this seminal exposition of Christian life more accessible.

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Restless
Because You Were Made for More
by Jennie Allen

Do you live for something? Or do you feel like you're just waiting to find your purpose?

Many of us feel restless, but that might not be a bad thing. When our restlessness awakens our longing to be woven into God's story, it can launch us into living the life of purpose God designed for us.

In Restless, Bible study teacher and bestselling author Jennie Allen will help you discover a practical plan to identify the loose threads of your life and how to weave them together for God's glory and purpose.

Jennie uses the story of Joseph in the book of Genesis to explain how his suffering, gifts, story, and relationships fit into the greater tapestry of God's narrative—and how our story can do the same. In this book you will:

• Explore practical ways to identify the threads of your life.
• Learn how to intentionally weave those threads together.
• Discover how your gifts, passions, places, and relationships are deliberate and meaningful, not random.
• Speak the truth about your suffering: it's possible it has produced the very thing you want to give back to the world.

What would happen if you spent the rest of your life running without reservation after His purposes for you?

To dive deeper into the Restless message and further explore Threads, look for the Restless Study Guide and Video Study from Harper Christian Resources.

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Your Faith
Memorial, Memory, or Miracle
by David John Bena

Bishop Bena sees today's spiritual issues of "reality" and "reverence" from a fresh perspective. He wrestles with and moves through many of the problems and opportunities described in these pages in real life. And now this searcher for truth and the reality of God brings his honest approach to those who have wondered why their lives or their churches seems stagnant and gray.

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Meditations on the Cross
by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The cross and the resurrection were central themes for Bonhoeffer's theology. These excerpts from sermons and letters contain his personal and faithful words about the crucifixion and the power of the cross for all Christians. Meditations on the Cross is ideal for devotional reading and personal reference.

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The Spirit Searches Everything
Keeping Life's Questions
by Borsch, Frederick

"The Spirit Searches Everything: Keeping Life's Questions" is a 2005 book by former bishop Frederick Borsch that explores life's big questions from a theological perspective. The book uses the biblical concept of the Holy Spirit searching all things to engage in topics such as awareness, good and evil, the nature of creation, and the search for meaning. It encourages readers to reflect on these questions in their own lives, drawing from Borsch's experiences as a husband, parent, teacher, and bishop. 

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Tattoos on the Heart
The Power of Boundless Compassion
by Gregory Boyle

For twenty years, Gregory Boyle has run Homeboy Industries, a gang-intervention program located in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles, the gang capital of the world. In Tattoos on the Heart, he distills his experience working in the ghetto into a breathtaking series of parables inspired by faith.

Arranged by theme and filled with sparkling humor and glowing generosity, these essays offer a stirring look at how full our lives could be if we could find the joy in loving others and in being loved unconditionally. From giant, tattooed Cesar, shopping at JCPenney fresh out of prison, we learn how to feel worthy of God's love. From ten-year-old Lula we learn the importance of being known and acknowledged. From Pedro we understand the kind of patience necessary to rescue someone from the darkness. In each chapter we benefit from Boyle’s gentle, hard-earned wisdom.

These essays about universal kinship and redemption are moving examples of the power of unconditional love and the importance of fighting despair. Gorgeous and uplifting, Tattoos on the Heart reminds us that no life is less valuable than another.

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Faith Enough to Finish
by Jill Briscoe

Using the example of the prophet Jeremiah, Jill Briscoe examines what it takes to keep faith strong in spite of life's trials and distractions. In the race of life, it's not how we begin that counts, but whether or not we have faith enough to finish.

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Why I Believe in a Personal God
The Credibility of Faith in a Doubting Culture
by George Carey

Is the Universe on our side?

"My own investigations over a period of many years have given me a quiet assurance that there is a God who has given us sufficient clues in life, nature, human thought, beauty and art to satisfy the genuine inquirer that he exists, and that he has expressed himself most meaningfully in Jesus Christ.  However, you may come to a different conclusion at the end of this book and that is your right as a thinking responsible person.  All I can do is to invite you to join me in looking at the arguments again..."

Writing in a popular style but with careful reasoning, George Carey explains the traditional message of Christianity in its stark confrontation with modern unbelief and indifference.  Here is a brief, aggressive, but always warm and generous appeal to faith for modern readers.

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Christ & Culture Revisited
by D.A. Carson

Called to live in the world, but not to be of it, Christians must maintain a balancing act that becomes more precarious the further our culture departs from its Judeo-Christian roots. How should members of the church interact with such a culture, especially as deeply enmeshed as most of us have become?

D. A. Carson applies his masterful touch to this problem. He begins by exploring the classic typology of H. Richard Niebuhr with its five Christ-culture options. Carson proposes that these disparate options are in reality one still larger vision. Using the Bible's own story line and the categories of biblical theology, he clearly lays out that unifying vision. Carson acknowledges the helpfulness of Niebuhr's grid and similar matrices but warns against giving them canonical force.

More than just theoretical, Christ and Culture Revisited is also designed practically to help Christians untangle current messy debates on living in the world. Carson emphasizes that the relation between Christ and culture is not limited to an either/or cultural paradigm -- Christ against culture or Christ transforming culture. Instead Carson offers his own paradigm in which all the categories of biblical theology must be kept in mind simultaneously to inform the Christian worldview.

While many other books on culture interact with Niebuhr, none of them takes anything like the biblical-theological approach adopted here. Groundbreaking and challenging, Christ and Culture Revisited is a tour de force.

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Our Ultimate Refuge
by Oswald Chambers

Pain and suffering can bring a new understanding of God's majesty, goodness, and plan for us. While few will ever suffer to the extreme that Job did, his character and his dealings with God can bring light to our own pain and to the suffering of others. This thoughtful study of the book of Job explains the positive effects pain can produce in our lives. It also show us how not to deal with those who are suffering. With characteristic insight, Chambers discusses and reveals the inadequacy of our myths of self-sufficiency and eternal optimism.

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My Utmost for His Highest
by Oswald Chambers

For nearly seventy-five years, countless millions of Christians the world over have trusted the spiritual companionship of Oswald Chambers’s daily devotional, My Utmost for His Highest. These brief scripture-based readings—by turns comforting and challenging—will draw you into God’s presence and form you as a disciple of the Risen Lord. You’ll treasure their insight, still fresh and vital. And you’ll discover what it means to offer God your very best for His greatest purpose—to truly offer Him your utmost for His highest. This edition includes Chambers’s text, updated by editor James Reimann, along with helpful subject and scripture indexes.

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The Love of God
An Intimate Look at the Father-Heart of God
by Oswald Chambers

Drink deep and full of the love of God and you will not demand the impossible from earth’s loves; then the love of wife and child, of husband and friend, will grow holier and healthier and simpler and grander. —Oswald Chambers If you need to be spiritually refreshed and renewed in your walk with the Lord, this book is for you! In personal and practical terms, Oswald Chambers,  one of the world’s most beloved Christian authors, encourages you to step back and think about your commitment to the Lord. He plumbs the depths of God’s Word to discover spiritual treasures that can help every believer “run with endurance the race that is set before us.”

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Crazy Love
Overwhelmed by a Relentless God
by Francis Chan

Have you ever wondered if we're missing it? It's crazy, if you think about it. The God of the universe—the Creator of nitrogen and pine needles, galaxies and E-minor—loves us with a radical, unconditional, self-sacrificing love. And what is our typical response? We go to church, sing songs, and try not to cuss. Whether you've verbalized it yet or not, we all know something's wrong.
 
Does something deep inside your heart long to break free from the status quo? Are you hungry for an authentic faith that addresses the problems of our world with tangible, even radical, solutions?  God is calling you to a passionate love relationship with Himself. Because the answer to religious complacency isn't working harder at a list of do's and don'ts—it's falling in love with God. And once you encounter His love, as Francis describes it, you will never be the same. Because when you're wildly in love with someone, it changes everything.  For individual or small-group study, check out Living Crazy Love, a ten-week interactive workbook that serves as a companion to Crazy Love. You can learn more about Crazy Love at www.crazylovebook.com.

This interactive study guide includes a free QR code and URL to access all ten videos, plus additional content for engaging study as a group or on your own. To aid you in your planning, following are the session titles and video run times:

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Own Your Life
Living with Deep Intention, Bold Faith and Generous Love
by Sally Clarkson

Do you ever long for days full of joy and energy―days that bring out the best version of you rather than leave you exhausted? Do you sometimes catch yourself wishing life was more impactful and fulfilling? In a world that’s moving so fast, it’s easy to lose your sense of purpose. So now is the time to make each moment of your ordinary, everyday, beautiful existence count. It’s time to own your life.

Sally Clarkson’s Own Your Life is a breath of fresh air into the life and soul of a busy woman. Like a faithful friend, Sally journeys with you to explore what it means to live meaningfully, follow God truly, and bring much-needed order to your chaos. Each page offers deeply personal, authentic, and practical guidance to help you build an intentional life. Discover what it means to own your life, and dare to trust God’s hands as He richly shapes your character, family, work, and soul.

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Fresh Faith
What Happens When Real Faith Ignites God's People
by Jim Cymbala

Pastor Jim Cymbala calls us back to a fiery, passionate preoccupation with God that will restore what the enemy has stolen from us: our first love for Jesus, our zeal, our troubled children, our wounded marriages, our broken and divided churches.

Born out of the heart and soul of The Brooklyn Tabernacle, the message of Fresh Faith is illustrated by true stories of men and women whose lives have been changed through the power of faith.

"Real faith is produced when our hearts draw near to God himself and receive his promises deep within," Cymbala writes. That kind of faith can transform your life—starting today, if you choose.

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Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire
What Happens When God's Spirit Invades the Hearts of His People
by Jim Cymbala

The Times Are UrgentGod Is on the MoveNow Is the Moment to …ask God to ignite his fire in your soul! Pastor Jim Cymbala believes that Jesus wants to renew his people―to call us back from spiritual dead ends, apathy, and lukewarm religion.Cymbala knows the difference firsthand. Thirty-five years ago his own church, the Brooklyn Tabernacle, was a struggling congregation of twenty. Then they began to pray … God began to move … street-hardened lives by the hundreds were changed by the love of Christ … and today they are more than ten thousand strong.The story of what happened to this broken-down church in one of America’s toughest neighborhoods points the way to new spiritual vitality in the church and in your own life. Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire shows what the Holy Spirit can do when believers get serious about prayer and the gospel. As this compelling book reveals, God moves in life-changing ways when we set aside our own agendas, take him at his word, and listen for his voice.

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The Life God Blesses
The Secret of Enjoying God's Favor
by Jim Cymbala

God Is Searching for People to Bless Jim Cymbala believes that God plays "favorites"--that certain people experience his blessings more abundantly than others. Have these people learned a formula or a simple technique that will guarantee his blessing? Or is there something more profound at work in their lives? In The Life God Blesses, Jim Cymbala points out that God is constantly searching for people to bless. He's not looking for men and women with special talents or unusual intelligence or great strength but for those who possess a certain kind of heart. Find out how to have a heart that God cannot resist and you will become a channel of his blessing for your family, your church, and your world.

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Abandonment to Divine Providence
by Jean-Pierre de Caussade

"Let go and let God." This popular phrase captures the essence of Father Jean-Pierre de Caussade's 18th century treatise on trust, Abandonment to Divine Providence.

Do you doubt? Do you suffer? Are you anxious about the trials of life?

Father de Caussade offers the one sure solution to any spiritual difficulty: abandon yourself entirely to God by embracing the duties of your station in life. With wisdom and gentleness he teaches how to practice complete submission to the will of God in every situation, whether we are beginners or seasoned travelers on the way of perfection. True abandonment, he explains, is a trusting, peaceful, and childlike surrender to the guidance of grace.

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Wrestling with God
How Can I Love a God I'm Not Sure I Trust?
by James Denison

Most people, even devout Christians, struggle with issues about God. We sit in the pew every Sunday and affirm the essentials of Christianity in theory, but when it comes to trusting God with our daily lives, we share a secret, painful fear that God isn't really looking out for us. And how can we love him if he can't be trusted? James Denison has a passion for tackling questions like these, the “big issues” that keep people from intimate faith with God. In Wrestling with God, he acknowledges the often unspoken doubts and questions that both believers and nonbelievers share—and invites us to join him in wrestling with God and Scripture for the answers.

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Wild at Heart
Discovering the Secret of a Man's Soul
by John Eldredge

God designed men to be dangerous, says John Eldredge. Simply look at the dreams and desires written in the heart of every boy: To be a hero, to be a warrior, to live a life of adventure and risk. Sadly, most men abandon those 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 book, Eldredge gives women a look inside the true heart of a man and gives men permission to be what God designed them to be-dangerous, passionate, alive, and free!

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Gifts of the Dark Wood
Seven Blessings for Soulful Skeptics (and Other Wanderers)
by Eric Elnes

A guidebook for spirituality in an uncertain world. Though commonly understood as a place to be feared and avoided, the Dark Wood is the surest place to meet God, writes Dr. Eric Elnes (author of The Phoenix Affirmations and Asphalt Jesus). It is a place where you may feel uncertain, empty, lost, tempted, and alone. Yet these feelings - these gifts of the Dark Wood - can be your greatest assets on your journey. According to the ancients, you don't need to be a saint or spiritual master to experience profound awakening. You don't even have to be "above average." All you really need to be is struggling.

In clear and lucid prose that combines the heart of a mystic, the soul of a poet, and the mind of a biblical scholar, Dr. Eric Elnes demystifies the seven gifts bestowed in the Dark Wood: the gifts of uncertainty, emptiness, being thunderstruck, getting lost, temptation, disappearing, and the gift of misfits.

This is a book for anyone who feels awkward in their search for God, who seeks to find holiness amid their holy mess, who prefers practicality to piety when it comes to finding their place in this world.

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The Mustard Seed Book
Understanding and Using Effective Faith
by Mike Flynn

Understanding and using effective faith. 

Some hard questions about faith:
+ How do I know, on a grain-of-mustard-seed scale, how much faith I have?
+ Why had no one ever been able to move a mountain?
+ Why does faith come more easily for some while others wrestle it?
+ How do I move to heart faith from mere intellectual affirmation?

These are some of the crucial questions addressed in this surprising how-to primer on faith for Christians. Mike Flynn will help you understand that faith is not just a wispy notion but a life-changing commodity. But to exercise this potent spiritual stuff, you man need to revise your understanding of what faith is and how it works - and how it doesn't work. Flynn points out the essentials needed for growing that mustard seed in your backyard, including:

+ Scripture
+ Obedience
+ Imagination
+ Testing
+ Resting

Rev. Mike Flynn, an Episcopal priest and Vineyard pastor, is Director of FreshWind Ministries, based in California. FreshWind's vision is teaching, modeling, and imparting responsiveness to the Holy Spirit for life and ministry.

FreshWind has led over 500 conferences in North America, Pacific Rim countries, Africa, and South America. Over 2800 team members have traveled at their own expense in support of this ministry. The knowledge and skills we teach, model, and impart to clients include: Healing, Leadership and Lay Ministry Development, Power Ministry, Spiritual Health, Collaboration with the Holy Spirit, A Course on Healing, Congregational Development, Hearing God, Recapturing the Supernatural, Worship, Ministry to the Poor, Intimacy with God and the like. All teachings proceed out of Biblical study and experience.

FreshWind Ministries has been engaged by Episcopalians, Methodists, Presbyterians, Vineyards, Adventists, Bible Schools, Seminaries, The Order of Saint Luke (Healing Ministry), Anglican, Foursquare, and Independent Churches.

For more information, or to explore the possibility of an event, contact us at: mkfln@aol.com or log on to www.freshwindministries.org, or call direct: 805-383-1269

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How to Be Good Without Really Trying
Letting Jesus Live His Life in You
by Mike Flynn

The primary way to honor God is to obey "Why do you call me, 'Lord, Lord' and do not do what I say?" This book looks at Jesus' top 7 commands and encourages us to follow them. Many stories of real occasions told with profound honesty. There will be 3 basic positions in that of the damned, of the just saved, and of the rewarded. Encouragement to be among the rewarded.

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Holy Vulnerability
The Risks and Rewards of Opening Up to God
by Mike Flynn

Subtitled The Risks and Rewards of Opening Up to Go, each chapter in this book challenges and encourages the reader to explore vulnerability to God with reference to Scripture, Discomfort, Jesus' Worldview, Jesus' Headship, Oneself, Spiritual Warfare, Guidance, Communality, Authority, and the Presence of Jesus. The lives of many leaders in the church have been impacted by this book.

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The Attentive Life
Discerning God's Presence in All Things
by Leighton Ford

Your attention, please.That's what God wants, Leighton Ford discovered. It's the path to becoming like Christ.Distractions, fear and busyness were keeping Ford from seeing God's work in and around him. He was missing God. So he began a journey of longing and looking for God. And it started with paying attention.In these pages, he invites you to journey with him. Using the rich monastic tradition of praying the hours, Ford will walk with you, helping you pay attention to God's work in you and around you throughout each day and in different seasons of your life.If you're busy, distracted, rushing through each day, you might be feeling disconnected from God, unable to see how he's working. You might be missing him. But the way toward him starts with a pause and a prayer―with intention and attention―and becomes a way of life, awake and alive to the peaceful, powerful presence of God.

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Celebration of Discipline
The Path to Spiritual Growth
by Richard Foster

Arguably the most established contemporary spiritual classic by our most profound living religious writer. This timeless classic has helped well over a million people discover a richer spiritual life infused with joy, peace and a deeper understanding of God.

The book explores the 'classic disciplines' of Christian faith: the inward disciplines of meditation, prayer, fasting, and study; the outward disciplines of simplicity, solitude, submission and service and the corporate disciplines of confession, worship, guidance and celebration.

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Life in Christ
Practicing Christian Spirituality
by Julia Gatta

With its great heritage from English mystics, the Episcopal Church has been “spiritual” since before it was trendy, and modern Episcopalians have been in the forefront of exploring practices beyond Anglican boundaries. Yet, perhaps only rarely do they grasp the implications of the theology embedded in these practices or in the liturgies of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer, which has shaped Episcopalians in this country with its emphasis on baptismal spirituality and the centrality of the Eucharist. Julia Gatta wants to change that with her book, Life in Christ.

Applying her years of experience as pastor and spiritual director combined with her study of the spiritual wisdom of the past, she explores common Christian practices and their underlying theology through an Episcopal lens. In the tradition of Esther de Waal, Martin Smith, and Martin Thornton, with particular reference to scripture, the Book of Common Prayer, and the wisdom of the Christian spiritual tradition, she illuminates methods readers may already be practicing and provides insight and guidance to ones that may be new to them.

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Freedom Through His Cross
by Mike Giaquinto

This book entitled Freedom Through His Cross is about God the Father's and His son Jesus' love for all. It speaks of what God has done through His Son Jesus Christ and by Jesus offering up His body on the cross. It speaks of God's righteousness on the basis of faith and not of works. The Lord is good to all and wants all to know the truth about what He has done for them through His Son Jesus.

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The Road to Forgiveness
by Bill Griffiths and Cindy Griffiths

Oprah Winfrey claimed this to be her number 1 spiritual story in over 20,000 guests and over 13 years of her show and quickly installed the story onto a select show called "The Best of Oprah". This powerful real life story of forgiveness has changed millions of lives in dramatic fashion and will continue to do so wherever boundaries of life have been horribly trespassed and God is allowed to enter the room. The Road to Forgiveness is the story of how Cindy and Bill Griffiths came to forgive-and eventually befriend-the woman who, while driving drunk, killed their daughter, Robyn, and Cindy's mother, Janice, in a horrible automobile accident in June 1996. It is a moving, first-person account of the transforming work God can do in the midst of tragedy. Readers will be inspired to examine their own lives, and to follow this powerful, true example of letting love and mercy triumph-even in the face of tragedy.

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 The Journey Toward God
In the Footsteps of the Great Spiritual Writers Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox
by Fr. Benedict J. Groeschel. C.F.R. and Kevin Perrotta

To know God is the deepest human desire. And to get closer to him, we need the guidance of the women and men who have already found the way. The Journey Toward God serves us by bringing together in one book inspiring and instructive selections from the great writers who have mastered the spiritual life. Uniquely, the book draws from Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox writers, opening for us the diverse and rich treasures of Christian spirituality

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At Home in the World
A Rule of Life for the Rest of Us
by Margaret Guenther

A thoughtful, real-world interpretation of the Rule of St. Benedict to guide us into a more balanced life.

From informal versions of the Rule of St. Benedict to Twelve-Step groups and Weight Watchers, the basic human need for guidance and structure in the quest for wholeness is palpable and real. Out of her long experience as a spiritual director, mentor, and teacher, Margaret Guenther offers a warm and sensible guide for “the rest of us”―singles, couples, parents, extended families, members of churches―to create a helpful and balanced rule of life to help us in our search for faith.

She explores ancient and contemporary meanings for the classic vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, along with the distinctively Benedictine ethos of stability and conversion, pointing out the pitfalls of each. A series of short essays follows on the different elements of a rule of life―such as authority, money, pleasure, stinginess, friends, enemies, and living through hard times. The final chapter gives practical ideas for crafting a rule of life that encourages each of us to grow, stretch, and flourish.

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Blessing Your Spirit
With the Blessing, of Your father and the Names of God
by Sylvia Gunter and Arthur Burk 

Our human spirit is responsive. When it is ignored, it will atrophy. When it is nurtured it will grow. Truth is the nutrient that most powerfully transforms your spirit. Your spirit needs to know the truth about you and about God. Some of that truth is spoken by the Spirit of God to your spirit and some is input that you deliberately seek. This book is a series of blessings designed to leverage the growth of your spirit. It begins with a fathering theme. For 40 days, legitimacy and identity are explored from the Father's perspective. Then after we have seen ourselves from God's perspective, He invites us to see Him. There are 21 more days of blessings flowing from the names of God. Finally at the end of the book there is a list of verses that describe the range of activities and emotions of the human spirit. These are designed to help you develop a working theology of your own spirit. This tool can significantly improve your marriage and your relationship with your children. The most exciting transformation through is when you become much more at peace with yourself and when you discover facets of your own nature that you did not know were there.

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The Prayer of Jesus
Secrets of Real Intimacy with God
by Hank Hanegraaff

Over seven million people have purchased Bruce Wilkinson's The Prayer of Jabez. As a result, the book has reached the number one spot on the New York Times and USA Today's Best-seller Lists in addition to the CBA Best-seller List. The Prayer of Jabez highlights the remarkable prayer of a little-known Bible character and has, in effect, impacted millions of people across the world for Christ.

Now author Hank Hanegraaff hopes to take these newly energized praying people to the next level in understanding the mystery of prayer. By delving into the prayers of Jesus Christ-the cornerstone of the Christian faith-readers will learn Jesus' seven-fold secret of prayer. In just one hour, readers will embark upon a truly exhilarating expedition that could radically change their prayer lives forever.

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Closer Than Your Skin
Unwrapping the Mystery of God
by Susan D. Hill

If you crave the real experience of God’s presence in your daily life…

If you sense there’s more to Christianity than service, study, and superficial spirituality…

If you’re ready to go beyond knowing about God to truly knowing Him…

Here’s where life with God begins.

Is God really like a father who cares about the details of our everyday lives? Then why does He often seem so far away, distant in the moments when we could most use a personal touch from Him?

So many of us have lived in that unspoken longing. In these incredible stories, you’ll see how one person found that God is not always content to wait for us to discover Him amid the clutter of life. Instead, when we simply hold out our hands, He illuminates our ordinary world and gives us new eyes to see.

Closer Than Your Skin traces the journey of an ordinary Christian who longed to move beyond the trappings of faith to genuine life with God. Her story reveals how to overcome the obstacles that most often block such intimate connection. Through this remarkable account, you’ll gain tangible insight into what a daily, vibrant companionship with the Creator really feels like once you wake up to the eternal reality all around you.

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Home is Where My People Are
The Roads That Lead Us to Where We Belong
by Sophie Hudson 

All roads lead to home. It’s easy to go through life believing that we can satisfy our longing for home with a three-bedroom, two-bath slice of the American dream that we mortgage at 4 percent and pay for over the course of thirty years. But ultimately, in our deepest places, we’re really looking to belong and to be known. And what we sometimes miss in our search for the perfect spot to set up camp is that wherever we are on the long and winding road of life, God is at work in the journey, teaching us, shaping us, and refining us―sometimes through the most unlikely people and circumstances. In Home Is Where My People Are, Sophie Hudson takes readers on a delightfully quirky journey through the South, introducing them to an unforgettable cast of characters, places, and experiences. Along the way, she reflects on how God has used each of the stops along the road to impart timeless spiritual wisdom and truth. Nobody embodies the South like Sophie Hudson, and this nostalgic celebration of home is sure to make even those north of the Mason-Dixon line long to settle in on the front porch with a glass of sweet tea and reflect on all of the people in our lives who―related or not―have come to represent home. Because at the end of the day, it’s not the address on the front door or even the name on the mailbox that says home, but the people who live and laugh and love there, wherever there might happen to be.

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 Just Walk Across the Room
Simple Steps Pointing People to Faith
by Bill Hybels

What if you knew that by simply crossing the room and saying hello to someone, you could change that person’s forever? Just a few steps to make an eternal difference. It has nothing to do with methods and everything to do with taking a genuine interest in another human being. All you need is a heart that’s in tune with the Holy Spirit and a willingness to venture out of your “Circle of Comfort” and into another person’s life. Just Walk Across the Room brings personal evangelism into the twenty-first century. Building on the solid foundation laid in Becoming a Contagious Christian, Bill Hybels shows how you can participate in the model first set by Jesus, who stepped down from heaven 2,000 years ago to bring hope and redemption to broken people living in a fallen world. Now it’s your turn. Your journey may not be as dramatic, but it can have a life-changing impact for someone standing a few steps away from you—and for you as well, as you learn the power of extending care, compassion, and inclusiveness under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. The highest value in personal evangelism is cooperating with the Spirit, says Hybels. This means playing only the role you’re meant to play—walking when the Spirit says to walk, talking when he says to talk, and falling silent when he suggests that you’ve said enough. Hybels encourages you to “live in 3D” … Developing friendships Discovering stories Discerning appropriate next steps … as a means of learning to understand the Holy Spirit’s promptings. With fresh perspectives from his own reflections and experiences collected during his most recent decade of ministry, Bill Hybels shows with convincing and inspiring clarity the power of this personal, richly relational approach to evangelism. The stakes are high. The implications are eternal. And you may be only a conversation away from having an eternal impact on someone’s life—if you will just walk across the room.

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Simplify
Ten Practices to Unclutter Your Soul
by Bill Hybels

Exhausted. Overwhelmed. Overscheduled. Sound familiar? Today’s velocity of life can consume and control us . . . until our breakneck pace begins to feel normal and expected. That’s where the danger lies: When we spend our lives doing things that keep us busy but don’t really matter, we sacrifice the things that do.

What if your life could be different? What if you could be certain you were living the life God called you to live―and building a legacy for those you love? If you crave a simpler life anchored by the priorities that matter most, roll up your sleeves: Simplified living requires more than just cleaning out your closets or reorganizing your desk drawer. It requires uncluttering your soul. By eradicating the stuff that leaves your spirit drained, you can stop doing what doesn’t matter―and start doing what does.

In Simplify, bestselling author Bill Hybels identifies the core issues that lure us into frenetic living―and offers practical steps for sweeping the clutter from our souls.

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A Power of a Whisper
Hearing God Having the Guts to Respond
by Bill Hybels

“Without a hint of exaggeration,” says Bill Hybels, “the ability to discern divine direction has saved me from a life of sure boredom and self-destruction. God’s well-timed words have redirected my path, rescued me from temptation and re-energized me during some of my deepest moments of despair.” In The Power of a Whisper, vision is cast for what life can look like when God’s followers choose to hear from heaven as they navigate life on earth. Whispers that arbitrate key decisions, nudges that rescue from dark nights of the soul, promptings that spur on growth, urgings that come by way of another person, inspiration that opens once-glazed-over eyes to the terrible plight people face in this world―through firsthand accounts spanning fifty-seven years of life, more than thirty of which have been spent in the trenches of ministry, Hybels promotes passion in Christ-followers' hearts for being wide open to hearing from God, and for getting gutsier about doing exactly what he says to do. 

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The Church on its Knees
Dynamic Prayer in the Local Church
by Jeremy Jennings

The story of how prayer developed at Holy Trinity Brompton, a dynamic church in central London and home of the Alpha course. Written by Jeremy Jennings, this book is a practical approach to dynamic prayer in the local church.

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A Bend In The Road
Experiencing God When Your World Caves In
by Dr. David Jeremiah

Drawing on his insightful sermon series, renowned pastor/teacher David Jeremiah shares the comfort and hope of the Psalms and how these truths can guide believers through life's greatest challenges. He includes inspiring real-life stories of people who have struggled with terminal illness, the loss of a child, or the imprisonment of a spouse. Jeremiah interweaves his own journal entries, revealing his battle with cancer and how the Psalms helped to sustain him during the fight of his life. A Bend in the Road is an invaluable source of help and encouragement for people facing major obstacles in life.

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Dreaming With God
Secret to Redesigning Your World Thru God's Creative Flow
by  Bill Johnson

Forget about redesigning your living room or adding "curb appeal"-how about redesigning the world!

Author Bill Johnson reveals the secrets of using God's unlimited supply of everything to transform your family and community, your job or business, the nation and the world.

You were created to be a "design star" by using your unique: * Imagination.* Creativity. * Wisdom. * Dreams.

There are rooms in your world that need your special touch-your child's classroom; your coworker's office; your neighbor's heart.

There are regions in your world that need your inspiration - your community's poor; your state's policies; your nation's leaders.

God has given you a blank check to create a better world-just sign your name!

"No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you (John 15:15).

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Traveling Mercies
Some Thoughts of Faith
by Anne Lamott

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the acclaimed author of Bird by Bird comes a personal, wise, very funny, and “life-affirming” book (People) that shows us how to find meaning and hope through shining the light of faith on the darkest part of ordinary life. 

"Anne Lamott is walking proof that a person can be both reverent and irreverent in the same lifetime. Sometimes even in the same breath." —San Francisco Chronicle

Lamott claims the two best prayers she knows are: "Help me, help me, help me" and "Thank you, thank you, thank you." She has a friend whose morning prayer each day is "Whatever," and whose evening prayer is "Oh, well." Anne thinks of Jesus as "Casper the friendly savior" and describes God as "one crafty mother."

Despite—or because of—her irreverence, faith is a natural subject for Anne Lamott. Since Operating Instructions and Bird by Bird, her fans have been waiting for her to write the book that explained how she came to the big-hearted, grateful, generous faith that she so often alluded to in her two earlier nonfiction books. The people in Anne Lamott's real life are like beloved characters in a favorite series for her readers—her friend Pammy, her son, Sam, and the many funny and wise folks who attend her church are all familiar. And Traveling Mercies is a welcome return to those lives, as well as an introduction to new companions Lamott treats with the same candor, insight, and tenderness.
Lamott's faith isn't about easy answers, which is part of what endears her to believers as well as nonbelievers. Against all odds, she came to believe in God and then, even more miraculously, in herself. As she puts it, "My coming to faith did not start with a leap but rather a series of staggers."

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Breakfast with Jesus
by Greg Laurie

Greg Laurie brings us along on a walk with Jesus and his disciples, encouraging us to see him through the eyes of his disciples in order to know him better, challenging us firsthand with the main spiritual lessons Jesus entrusted to his followers, and inspiring us with the many promises that the Savior gave to those who choose to follow him. As we walk with Jesus, hopefully we, too, will come to see Jesus as his disciples did: as a living, breathing, ever-present friend, mentor, and teacher.

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The Practice of the Presence of God
by Brother Lawrence​​​​​​​

2016 Reprint of 1895 Edition. Full facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. Brother Lawrence was a man of humble beginnings who discovered the greatest secret of living in the kingdom of God here on earth. It is the art of "practicing the presence of God in one single act that does not end." He often stated that it is God who paints Himself in the depths of our soul. We must merely open our hearts to receive Him and His loving presence. For centuries this unparalleled classic has given both blessing and instruction to those who can be content with nothing less than knowing God in all His majesty and feeling His loving presence throughout each simple day. Inspirational classic.

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Awakening to God
Discovering His Power And Your Purpose
by Gerard Long

The early church turned the world upside down. With only a few followers of Jesus filled with the Holy Spirit, the gospel message of love and transformation spread like wildfire; it could not be contained or held back. What was the secret―the “Jesus way”―behind such a radical movement of the gospel? And what would it take for a spiritual renewal to happen today―in your church, your community, your world, and your own heart?

Gerard Long, president of Alpha USA, has seen that spiritual awakenings tend to occur when God’s people understand their calling and prepare through prayer, personal renewal, and action. In Awakening, he offers a compelling vision for a “Jesus way” of widespread spiritual renewal, equipping you to better love people into the Kingdom of God. You’ll become empowered to live the abundant life given to us in Christ―and step out in faith to fulfill God’s calling.

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Just Give Me Jesus
by Anne Graham Lotz

After two pressure-filled, life-changing years of professional exhaustion and personal turmoil, Anne Graham Lotz found herself with only one heart-cry, "Please, just give me Jesus." In this faith-inspiring book, she stares intently at the realities of life with her Savior. To those needing a fresh start, to those still searching for happiness, to those in need of forgiveness, to the suffering and the self-righteous alike, Jesus was, is, and will always be the answer.

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