Showing results by narrator "Jim Denison" in All Categories

The third in Joe Thorn's three-book series on the confession, nature, and expression of the Church, The Life of the Church explores what the church does because of who it is. Useful for training in membership class, discipleship groups, and elder boards—and even for devotional reading—The Life of the Church is at once theological, practical, and experiential. Listeners will not simply be informed, but led to a deeper conviction about their role in the body of Christ.

Christians believe that history is moving towards a dramatic conclusion—that one day Jesus Christ will return in glory to judge the living and the dead. But there seem to be so many different views about how this will happen, and when it will take place. How can we make sense of it all? This short audiobook explains clearly and simply the liberating reality of what the Bible is actually saying about the return of Christ and the end of the world.

After twenty years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, a global pandemic, protests against racial violence, and frequent shootings, more Americans than ever are living with the effects of trauma. The good news is that Jesus was born and died in a traumatized world, and his story speaks forever to wounded people worldwide. Army veteran and Episcopal priest David Peters explores Jesus' life story through the post-traumatic lens with which the Gospel writers first wrote it.

What happens at the end of our lives and of the course of history? Will God bring about a just and peaceful world? What lies beyond this realm, and what can we know of the beings who dwell there? In Death, the End of History, and Beyond, Greg Carey offers resources for understanding multiple, even conflicting, ways that the Bible imagines these ultimate realities.

When most parenting books were written decades ago, they did not address - nor could they address - all the issues parents would face today in the era of technology and excess. Parents do not need another article that contradicts the last one they listened to; rather, they need insights, techniques, and strategies to tackle the issues of 21st-century parenting. That's what the Understanding and Loving Your Child series of books will do.

Daniel Reinhardt spent 24 years as a police officer near Cleveland, Ohio. He was long unaware of the ways the culture of the police department was shaping him, but gradually, through his own experiences as a police officer and through the mentorship of Black Christians in his life, his eyes were opened to a difficult truth: police brutality against racial minorities was endemic to the culture of the system itself. In Rethinking the Police, Reinhardt lays out a history of policing in the United States, showing how it developed a culture of dehumanization, systemic racism, and brutality.

Studying the views and lifestyles of your forerunners in the faith can provide incredible guidance for how you live out your spiritual convictions today. In Wisdom from the Ancients, author and scholar Bryan Litfin paints a vivid portrait of the first five centuries of the Christian church, packed with fascinating history and applicable insights for modern believers.

In this intellectual biography, Bennett W. Rogers analyzes the complicated life and times of a man variously described as traditional, moderate, and even radical during his 58-year ministry. Ryle began his ministerial career as a rural parish priest; he ended it as a bishop of the second city of the British Empire. In the time between, he became a popular preacher, influential author, effective controversialist, recognized party leader, stalwart church defender, and radical church reformer.

John Dietsch - fly fishing coordinator and stuntman for Brad Pitt on the timeless film A River Runs Through It - explores our connection to the outdoors through the prism of fly fishing and investigates its transformative and healing power in the face of loss. 

The growth of the nones in American society has been dramatic. In 1972, just five percent of Americans claimed "no religion" on the General Social Survey. In 2018, that number rose to 23.7 percent, making the nones as numerous as both evangelical Protestants and Roman Catholics. Every indication is that the nones will be the largest religious group in the United States in the next decade. Burge's accessible book draws from carefully curated datasets, some tracking changes in American religion over a long period of time.

The year 2017 is the 500th-year anniversary of Martin Luther nailing his Ninety-Five Theses to the door of Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany - the event that marked the beginning of the Reformation and the end of unified Christianity. For Catholics, it was an unjustified rebellion by the heterodox; for Protestants, the release of true and purified Christianity from centuries-old enslavement to corruption, idolatry, and error. Benjamin Wiker's account rejects the common distortions of Catholic, Protestant, Marxist, Freudian, or secularist retellings of this world-changing event.

Where do our ethics come from? Are they based on unchanging realities or subject to revision as human culture develops and changes? What distinguishes Christian ethics from other moral claims? In Giver of All Good, Chase R. Kuhn argues that Christian morality begins with the character of God...

In Stop Selling & Start Leading, you'll discover that the very same behaviors that make leaders more effective also work to make sellers more effective, too. This critical shift in the selling mind-set, and in the sales role itself, is the key to boosting your overall sales effectiveness.

Many of us have been taught to read Scripture as a collection of information that needs to be categorized, systematized, and analyzed verse by verse, concept by concept. But the Bible isn't a jigsaw puzzle, and it wasn't written in just Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. It was also written in the language of story. And as with every good story, we get to meet colorful characters, unravel mysteries, and see the world from a different point of view. It all makes more sense when understood from the perspective of storytelling.

People today encounter a dizzying array of religious options. We might consider mystical faiths like Buddhism and Hinduism, historical religions like Islam and Mormonism, or more nebulous modern expressions of being spiritual but not religious or religious but not spiritual. How do we know what is true? Is one faith just as good as another? Trial lawyer Mark Lanier presents the claims made by the world's great religions, discusses their histories, and cross-examines their witnesses (their scriptures and traditions) to determine whether their claims are worthy of belief.

It wasn't the end of the world. It was just the end of Emma Jameson's world. Fresh off the heels of a devastating breakup and floundering in her career, Emma is struggling to come to grips with why God allows so much pain in our lives, why he seems so absent when she needs him most, and why the Gospel accounts - our supposed guide for how to lead a contented Christian life - feel so completely irrelevant.

Popular author Jack Levison offers a fresh take on the Holy Spirit through a careful reading of every reference to the Spirit in the Gospels. Viewed through the lens of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection, the Spirit shows up at odd times and in odd teachings - in desert sojourns, a strange saying about scorpions and snakes, and puzzling sayings about birth from above and springs from below. Grounded in scholarship yet accessible and inviting, this companion volume to Levison's A Boundless God analyzes key aspects of Jesus' experience of the Holy Spirit.

What should we make of the Bible story about a talking donkey? What about the passage in Joshua where the sun and moon stood still? Should biblical practices like women wearing head coverings still be followed today? The Bible serves as the foundation for all of Christian life, crossing time and transcending cultures, yet many passages are perplexing. Providing fascinating historical and scriptural insights, Eric J. Bargerhuff demystifies 40 Bible verses and stories.

In Created for Purpose, you will discover God's plan for your life as a loved and valuable member of his creation, what it means to be called by God, and how to know and live in your purpose throughout your life. You are not an accident. You are present on this earth for a significant reason. Find out who you were meant to be!

We all long for homes where we can thrive and flourish. What does it take to have a spiritually vibrant household? Don Everts invites us to contemplate what the Bible says about households and consider what a new research project has revealed by pulling back the curtains on everyday households of faith. Original research from the Barna Group and Lutheran Hour Ministries shows that some of the healthiest, most vibrant homes extend beyond the nuclear family and include people that may not be biologically related but feel like family.