Showing titles in Discipleship

Do life’s challenges and distractions prevent you from developing or maintaining a deep, consistent, intimate relationship with the Father? Dr. Jackie Greene has been there but love—God’s love—changed everything for her, and it can change everything for you too. When Dr. Jackie finally learned to surrender, receive God’s love, and spend time in daily devotion with Him, resting in His love, she discovered a life-transforming revelation: His love remains consistent and unfailing despite her mistakes and flaws.

Dann Spader is a disciple-maker who has spent his adult life exploring what it means to take someone from being a seeker to making disciples themselves. Over 750,000 people in 80 countries have been trained to make disciples through organizations he has led. Through studying the life of Christ and his disciple-making methods, Dann developed 4 Chair Discipling, a simple picture for others to follow. Jesus’ last words on earth had a few very specific instructions: Go, make disciples, baptize, and teach.

The church often lacks maturity and missional impact because discipleship is at its periphery. In order to get discipleship to the center, leaders need a locally rooted, culturally contextual discipleship pathway to tether disciples who are disciplemakers to the neighborhood or network around them. Pastor and discipler E. K. Strawser shows that when discipleship becomes central to your leadership and community, then discipleship becomes central to congregational mission and cultural renewal.

So much of our belief can be formulaic. We often think that if we do A, B, and C, then God will do X, Y, and Z. We check things off the “Good Christian Checklist,” trusting we’ll be okay, and our trials will be minimal. But when our experiences inevitably deviate from that belief, our trust in God often crumbles. After a series of life-altering trials—including a devastating diagnosis—uncovering faith in the cracks of pain is something Kristen LaValley knows well.

What makes someone Godly? Scripture tells us that God has given us "everything we need for life and godliness." But what makes a Christian godly? In The Practice of Godliness, Jerry Bridges examines what it means to grow in Christian character and helps us establish the foundation upon which that character is built. Bridges opens our eyes to see how character formation affects the way we relate to God, to ourselves, and to others. In order to live godly lives, we need an inward foundation of God-centeredness.

The prospect of Christian Reconstruction is often derided by its critics as being “triumphalist.” One can just hear the unfaithful spies chiding Joshua and Caleb with similar disapproval as they sought to conquer the inhabitants of the promised land– a land filled with giants. But Christ did not entrust the Church with the Great Commission for its mere survival. We have been appointed to a calling that is more expansive than simply “reaching” people groups. We are called to disciple the nations to obedience in all areas of life.

Many of us find ourselves caught somewhere between unbelieving activists and inactive believers. We can write a check to feed starving children or hold signs in the streets and feel like we've made a difference without ever encountering the faces of the suffering masses. In this book, Shane Claiborne describes an authentic faith rooted in belief, action, and love, inviting us into a movement of the Spirit that begins inside each of us and extends into a broken world.

Replicate shows church leaders how to make disciples who make disciples and get the rest of your church on board as well. This one-on-one relational ministry is how Jesus laid the foundation for his church that is still growing today, and it’s how we continue the work in our own local congregations. Learn the five marks of a healthy disciple-making church, how to influence culture, uproot misconceptions of the church and the gospel, and change your church and community. No more focusing on mere numbers, it’s time to grow in maturity and through multiplication.

According to Drs. Larry Crabb and Dan Allender, encouragement is more than a compliment or a pat on the back. It's a skill that can be mastered by anyone. Crabb and Allender ask: "What must we know in order to fulfill the biblical exhortation to 'encourage one another?'" Part one deals with understanding encouragement, and part two explores the process of encouragement, including such practical how-tos as developing a careful selection of encouraging words; cultivating active listening skills; using biblical fellowship to move beyond superficial smiles.

So, You Want to Be Like Christ? is just right for anyone desiring to delve deeper into the fundamental elements of Christian life and essential for all who hunger for authentic faith experiences.

From the author of Winning the War in Your Mind, The Christian Atheist is a rallying cry to get honest with God, shed the self-sufficiency and the hypocrisy, and live a life that truly brings glory to Christ.

Culture, church, and life have sold us narratives about who we’re supposed to be as women. If we play the part well, we gain love, acceptance, validation, and significance. When we don’t know which role to play from one day to the next, we sink in insecurity. We feel driven to people-please, downplay, settle, and perform. In all this, we accept less than the abundant life Jesus died to give us. Amanda Pittman explains how we can rewrite our damaging self-beliefs with the truth about our God-given identity by establishing clarity, connection, competency, and conviction.

Jesus tells us that the greatest commandment is to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” But how many of us know what this looks like in daily life? Does loving God mean going to church, tithing, having regular prayer times? Is it a feeling in our hearts?

A few years after Chuck Colson became a Christian, he realized that the more he learned about God’s love for him, the more he wanted to know how to love God. This book is the masterpiece Colson wrote after searching Scripture, history, and his own difficult experiences to answer his deepest question. He discovered that loving God is obeying God - rarely easy, sometimes inconvenient, often painful, and entirely satisfying. When we love God, we know the pleasure of living out our true calling.

Billy Graham considers Loving God “one of the most spiritually satisfying books I have ever read.” Joni Eareckson Tada refers to it as “the complete volume on Christian living.” With fascinating stories and engaging theological insights, Loving God has been bringing people closer to Jesus for over 30 years. In this hour of opportunity for the church and for our own spiritual lives, Loving God will inspire you to love God with your whole being. It’s what you were created to do.

In this provocative tell-all, David Gushee gives an insider's look at the frictions and schisms of evangelical Christianity, based on his experiences that began with becoming a born-again Southern Baptist in 1978 to being kicked out of evangelicalism in 2014 for his stance on LGBT inclusion in the church. But Gushee's religious pilgrimage proves even broader than that, as he leads his listener through his childhood experiences in Roman Catholicism, his difficult days at the liberal Union Seminary in New York, his encounters with the Christian Right, and more. In telling his story, Gushee speaks to the cultural divisions of a generation.

Filled with fun stories, insightful information, and responses to popular cultural objections, How (Not) to Read the Bible is a lifeline for anyone—Christians and doubters alike—who are confused or discouraged with questions about the Bible.

With a fresh look at the Word of God, vulnerable honesty, and his trademark humor, bestselling author of Winning the War in Your Mind Craig Groeschel unpacks ways to strengthen your spiritual health and your positive influence on others.

In Starved, popular author and teacher Amy Seiffert shows listeners how to stop ingesting spiritual junk food and offers simple and replenishing practices like silence, service, and Sabbath that can bring us closer to Jesus. She encourages us to put down our phones, set aside our pride, and let go of the hustle so that we can receive a spiritual diet change that will leave us delightfully content, spiritually healthy, and free to experience the goodness of Jesus.

Night after night Mike and Sam found their beds under bridges and on the streets. They were forced to depend on the generosity and kindness of strangers as they panhandled to sustain their existence. For more than five months, the pair experienced firsthand the extreme pains of hunger, the constant uncertainty and danger of living on the streets, exhaustion, depression, and social rejection-and all of this by their own choice.

The book of John is foundational to our relationship with Jesus. This eight-session study through the Gospel of John will uncover who Jesus is, His love for us, and invite us to respond.

Rarely do we understand so much about a subject and practice it so little. This series on prayer can transform your life. Learn not only precepts about prayer but how to pray in an effective, powerful manner that will elicit supernatural results.