Mom Seeks God

Mom Seeks God
Author: Julia Roller
Publisher: Abingdon Press
Total Pages: 126
Release: 2014-04-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1426787375

The first months and years of motherhood can be the most challenging and disorienting of your life—and faith. When you’re surrounded by the happy chaos of children, how do you spend quiet time with God if the only quiet time you get is while you sleep? How can you demonstrate a solid spiritual life to your children if you don’t have time to pursue one yourself? When Julia Roller discovered that her spiritual growth had been stunted by the busyness of life with her toddler, she embarked on a yearlong journey through ten spiritual disciplines: prayer, fellowship, submission, study, simplicity, silence, worship, fasting, service, and celebration. As she focused on each discipline, she discovered practical ways to observe them—even in the chaos of her every day. Mom Seeks God offers a highly relatable story and useful advice to help new moms grow in their faith as they address life changes with grace, patience, and prayer. As readers discover ten essential faith practices, they’ll learn that motherhood, itself, is a spiritual discipline, and may be God’s most effective technique for forming a more Christ-like life.

Holy Labor

Holy Labor
Author: Aubry G. Smith
Publisher: Kirkdale Press
Total Pages: 189
Release: 2016-09-21
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1577997395

Women are valued for their ability to bear children in many cultures. The birth process, though supposedly the most painful experience of a woman’s life, is seen as a necessary evil to achieve the end goal of children and motherhood. And yet, in the face of a typically masculinized Christianity that nevertheless professes that women are equally created in the image of God, shouldn’t childbirth—a uniquely feminine experience—itself shape Christian women’s souls and teach them about the heart of the God they love and follow? Drawing on her own experience of giving birth and motherhood—and the conflicting assumptions attached to them, by Christians and the culture at large—Aubry G. Smith presents a richly scriptural exploration of common conceptions about pregnancy and childbirth that will not only help mothers and soon-to-be mothers understand how to think biblically about birth, but also walks them through how to put the ideas into practice in their own lives. Along the way, she shows all readers how to see God’s own experience of the birth process—and how childbirth leads to a deeper understanding of the gospel overall.

Connecting with God

Connecting with God
Author: Renovare
Publisher: Harper Collins
Total Pages: 146
Release: 2009-06-02
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0061951749

How can we experience god? God has communicated with his people throughout the ages in many ways. Adam and Eve encountered him directly in the Garden of Eden, Teresa of Avila experienced him through visions, and Francis of Assisi heard his voice in nature. This book gives practical advice for connecting on a deeply personal level with God. It uncovers new places to look for God, while providing reflection questions and activities to reinvigorate communication with God in such traditional areas as prayer and Bible study. Divided into twelve chapters conveniently organized for individual or group study, each section explores a different area in which we can deepen our individual communion with God. The Renovaré Spiritual Formation Guides, created by Richard J. Foster and the team that developed The Renovaré Spiritual Formation Bible and the longstanding A Spiritual Formation Workbook, provide tangible lessons that help us become spiritually formed, conformed, and transformed into the image of Jesus Christ. Geared for either individual study or use in small groups, each Renovaré Spiritual Formation Guide explores one facet of our life with God, providing readings from Scripture as well as classic and contemporary works of spirituality. The combination of readings, reflection questions, exercises, and activities makes these books invaluable interactive guides that prompt true spiritual growth.

A Year with God

A Year with God
Author: Richard J. Foster
Publisher: Zondervan
Total Pages: 452
Release: 2009-12-29
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0061768200

Many people are longing to find the footprint of God in their daily lives. This beautiful daily companion is comprised of 365 selections of scripture, commentary, meditations, and daily exercises to help readers see how they can bring their entire life into a life with Immanuel - a God who is with his people. In Richard Foster′s best-selling book, Celebration of Discipline, he explored the "classic disciplines," or central spiritual practices of the Christian faith. Foster showed that it is only by and through these practices that the true path to spiritual growth can be found. In A Year with God, the spiritual disciplines are presented in such a way that does not destroy the soul but enables the reader to enter into a transforming life with God. Through daily spiritual exercises and meditations, A Year with God explores eighteen spiritual disciplines. The inward disciplines of meditation, prayer, fasting, and study offer avenues of personal examination and change. The outward disciplines of simplicity, solitude, submission, and service help prepare one to make the world a better place. The corporate disciplines of confession, worship, guidance, and celebration bring one nearer to others and to God. Each discipline will be given twenty days of readings, beginning with scripture and followed by commentary, a meditation, and a spiritual exercise. Practicing these spiritual disciplines will help readers live intentionally, contributing to a more balanced spiritual life and a reformation of the inner self.

Prayer and Worship

Prayer and Worship
Author: Renovare
Publisher: Zondervan
Total Pages: 162
Release: 2007-05-29
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0060841257

Prayer and worship compose the heart of the devotional life and are essential practices for a close relationship with God. But too often our prayer is nothing more than a checklist of requests, and our worship happens only in church. What does it mean to communicate with God? How do we enter his presence in the midst of our daily lives? Utilizing the beloved book of the Psalms, this guide reveals many different ways to come before God in prayer and worship, including wrestling with God, pleading with God, lamenting to God, and longing for God. Conveniently organized for individual or group study, Prayer and Worship offers insights and avenues to help us bring every part of our lives before God and truly enter his presence.

Living the Mission

Living the Mission
Author: Renovare
Publisher: Zondervan
Total Pages: 162
Release: 2007-05-29
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0060841265

Living the Mission explores what it means to be a Christian today. By examining the early church's struggle in the wake of Jesus's devastating death and awe-inspiring resurrection in the book of Acts, we learn how we can follow Jesus, how Jesus is still with us in the Holy Spirit, and how we are called to form communities into which we are forever inviting others. Conveniently organized for individual or group study, Living the Mission explores the heart of what it means to follow Jesus and be a part of his church.

Learning from Jesus

Learning from Jesus
Author: Renovare
Publisher: Harper Collins
Total Pages: 164
Release: 2009-06-02
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0061955353

Become a Student of the Master To Christians, Jesus is many things: the Son of God, the pivotal figure in whom we put our trust and who speaks on our behalf, a companion in the life of faith. But Jesus is also an incredible example of how to lead a faithful life. Jesus, as a human, walked on earth and confronted the same struggles that we face. Our primary mission as his followers is to learn from him -- to become his apprentices. In this book we seek to further our apprenticeship by studying everything from Jesus's interactions with those around him to the revolutionary wisdom recorded in the Gospels. Learning from Jesus is conveniently organized for individual or group study, and each section of this guide leads you further down the path to true discipleship.

25 Books Every Christian Should Read

25 Books Every Christian Should Read
Author: Renovare
Publisher: Harper Collins
Total Pages: 418
Release: 2011-09-13
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0062098667

From the creators of Devotional Classics and Spiritual Classics comes 25 Books Every Christian Should Read, the definitive guide to the most spiritually influential and important books for Christians to read. Renovaré, a community of Christians promoting personal and spiritual renewal, put together a prestigious editorial board including Richard Foster, Dallas Willard, Phyllis Tickle, and Richard Rohr, resulting in this wonderful resource for exploring the richness of the Christian tradition.

God and Jetfire

God and Jetfire
Author: Amy Seek
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Total Pages: 353
Release: 2015-07-14
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0374713820

A searching, eloquent memoir about the joys and hardships of open adoption God and Jetfire is a mother's account of her decision to surrender her son in an open adoption and of their relationship over the twelve years that follow. Facing an unplanned pregnancy at twenty-two, Amy Seek and her ex-boyfriend begin an exhaustive search for a family to raise their child. They sift through hundreds of "Dear Birth Mother" letters, craft an extensive questionnaire, and interview numerous potential couples. Despite the immutability of the surrender, it does little to diminish Seek's newfound feelings of motherhood. Once an ambitious architecture student, she struggles to reconcile her sadness with the hope that she's done the best for her son, a struggle complicated by her continued, active presence in his life. For decades, closed adoptions were commonplace. Now, new laws are guaranteeing adoptees' access to birth records, and open adoption is on the rise. God and Jetfire is the rare memoir that explores the intricate dynamics and exceptional commitment of an open-adoption relationship from the perspective of a birth mother searching for her place within it. Written with literary poise and distinction, God and Jetfire is a story of a life divided between grief and gratitude, regret and joy. It is an elegy for a lost motherhood, a celebration of a family gained, and an apology to a beloved son.

A Long Walk with Mary

A Long Walk with Mary
Author: Brandi Willis Schreiber
Publisher:
Total Pages: 208
Release: 2021-03-25
Genre: Christian life
ISBN: 9781944967987

The Orthodox Church's reverence for Mary the Mother of God can be a stumbling block for converts, and a fulfilling relationship with her can prove elusive for converts and lifelong Orthodox Christians alike. In this deeply personal but beautifully universal memoir, Brandi Willis Schreiber relates her own quest to know and love the Virgin Mary and to incorporate her as a vital participant in her spiritual life. Brandi's sparkling, vulnerable account invites the reader to join her in this quest.