Rediscover Church

Rediscover Church
Author: Collin Hansen
Publisher: Crossway
Total Pages: 149
Release: 2021-07-28
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1433579596
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"A Christian without a church is a Christian in trouble." Since a global pandemic abruptly closed places of worship, many Christians have skipped church life, even neglecting virtual services. But this was a trend even before COVID-19. Polarizing issues, including political and racial strife, convinced some people to pull away from the church and one another. Now it's time to recommit to gathering as brothers and sisters in Christ. In Rediscover Church, Collin Hansen and Jonathan Leeman discuss why church is essential for believers and God's mission. Through biblical references and personal stories, they show readers God's true intention for corporate gathering: to spiritually strengthen members as individuals and the body of Christ. In an age of church-shopping and livestreamed services, rediscover why the future of the church relies on believers gathering regularly as the family of God. Published in partnership with the Gospel Coalition and 9Marks.

Bastard, the Damned, the Lords of the New Church and More: the Authorised Biography of Brian James

Bastard, the Damned, the Lords of the New Church and More: the Authorised Biography of Brian James
Author: John Wombat
Publisher:
Total Pages: 329
Release: 2019-09-21
Genre:
ISBN: 9781690995876
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This book presents the life and career of one of music's most pioneering, and far too often under-appreciated, guitarists and songwriters, Brian James. From his days as a youngster, cutting his teeth in blues and rock 'n' roll cover bands, Brian created the uncompromising Bastard. Playing briefly with London SS, he then formed the Damned. It was with the Damned that he wrote the UK's first ever punk single, 'New Rose'. What followed was the first ever UK punk album, 'Damned Damned Damned'. He went on to form the "transmagical" Tanz Der Youth, before being handpicked by Iggy Pop to join his live touring band. With the enigmatic Stiv Bators, he created the Lords of the New Church and released three studio albums. The book also details his other bands, the Hellions, Brian James Brains and the Brian James Gang, in addition to a slew of solo projects.Rat Scabies (the Damned), "It wasn't even a choice with Brian, this was just how he was. There was no wearing different clothes during the day and then different clothes when you went out. Brian's thing was that he wanted to look good all the time, not just putting it on but much more, "This is me; this is what I am and that's how the world is going to see it.""Dave Treganna (the Lords of the New Church), "He is non-compromising, "This is me, this is what you get. This is my guitar, these are my songs. This is how I do it. If you don't like it, fuck off." And I like that attitude."Stewart Copeland (the Police), "The Damned were one of the most kick-ass of all the punk groups. They really made an impact; Rat Scabies blasting away at those drums, pushing the group forward and Brian just had all the right chords, and of course the Captain and Dave."Alan Clayton (the Dirty Strangers), "I just got on really well with Brian, just struck up a friendship that has lasted for years and years. When he's not playing onstage Brian is just the same as when he is, just not with his guitar in his hands and playing rock 'n' roll."Graham Humphreys (artist and illustrator), "The first time I met Brian I was in awe and rather frightened! I knew his history with the Damned and expected a typical rock casualty with a snotty and arrogant attitude. Of course, nothing could have been further from the truth. The first thing Brian said to me was how much he loved my 'Evil Dead' artwork, he then told me his favourite film was 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre' - I warmed to him immediately."Adam Becvare (the Lust Killers, the Lords of the new Church), "Musically, he's a pioneer. A maverick. He likes to keep it honest and just go for it. He taught me that "magic happens in the mistakes." He needs to keep things fresh to stay inspired and he's a slave to the sonic. As a songwriter he's equally always honest and just loves a good D bridge."

Launch

Launch
Author: Nelson Searcy
Publisher: Baker Books
Total Pages: 150
Release: 2017-02-28
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1493406841
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Starting a church from scratch? Start here! Launch offers specific strategies for beginning a church with no members, no money, and no staff. Readers get clear, practical how-to strategies for quickly raising funds, creating a team, planning services, effective evangelism, and rapidly developing a growing membership. Specific advice is included for reaching that often difficult-to-target demographic, the 20- to 40-year-old. Now thoroughly revised and expanded to keep up with the ever-changing landscape of church planting.

The Church on the Other Side

The Church on the Other Side
Author: Brian D. McLaren
Publisher: Zondervan
Total Pages: 213
Release: 2009-12-15
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0310858208
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If you are a sincere church leader or a committed church member, you’re probably tired of easy steps, easy answers, and facile formulas for church health, growth, and renewal. You know it’s not that easy. In The Church on the Other Side, you’ll find something different: honest, clear, and creative thinking about our churches, along with a passionate challenge to thoughtful action and profound, liberating change. In understandable language, with an energetic and engaging writing style, and drawing from daily, down-to-earth pastoral experience, Brian McLaren offers thirteen strategies for navigating the modern/postmodern transition. You’ll learn the critical distinctions between renewed, restored, and reinvented churches. You’ll discover the importance of redefining your mission, of finding fresh ways to conceive of and communicate the Gospel, and of entering the postmodern world by understanding it, engaging it, and debugging your faith from modern 'viruses.' McLaren believes we are in an epochal sea-change, perhaps even more significant than the last great cultural transition about 500 years ago, when the world crossed over from the medieval to the modern era. He believes that today’s breakthroughs in communications, education, travel, cultural diversity, science, economics, politics, and philosophy are combining to create a new matrix in which Christians will live, worship, work, and pursue our mission. 'We are exploring off the map,' writes Brian McLaren, 'looking into mysterious territory beyond our familiar world on this side of the boundary between modern and postmodern worlds.' Even if you’ve read this book’s first edition, Reinventing Your Church, you’ll find enough new and revised material here to warrant a second purchase. And if you’re encountering these concepts for the first time, you’ll find wise guidance to help you and your church begin the journey toward the other side of the postmodern divide. You’ll learn to think differently, see church, life, and these revolutionary times in a new way, and act with courage, hope, and an adventurous spirit.

Still Time to Care

Still Time to Care
Author: Greg Johnson
Publisher: Zondervan
Total Pages: 304
Release: 2021-12-07
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0310116066
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At the start of the gay rights movement in 1969, evangelicalism's leading voices cast a vision for gay people who turn to Jesus. It was C.S. Lewis, Billy Graham, Francis Schaeffer and John Stott who were among the most respected leaders within theologically orthodox Protestantism. We see with them a positive pastoral approach toward gay people, an approach that viewed homosexuality as a fallen condition experienced by some Christians who needed care more than cure. With the birth and rise of the ex-gay movement, the focus shifted from care to cure. As a result, there are an estimated 700,000 people alive today who underwent conversion therapy in the United States alone. Many of these patients were treated by faith-based, testimony-driven parachurch ministries centered on the ex-gay script. Despite the best of intentions, the movement ended with very troubling results. Yet the ex-gay movement died not because it had the wrong sex ethic. It died because it was founded on a practice that diminished the beauty of the gospel. Yet even after the closure of the ex-gay umbrella organization Exodus International in 2013, the ex-gay script continues to walk about as the undead among us, pressuring people like me to say, "I used to be gay, but I'm not gay anymore. Now I'm just same-sex attracted." For orthodox Christians, the way forward is a path back to where we were forty years ago. It is time again to focus with our Neo-Evangelical fathers on care--not cure--for our non-straight sisters and brothers who are living lives of costly obedience to Jesus. With warmth and humor as well as original research, Still Time to Care will chart the path forward for our churches and ministries in providing care. It will provide guidance for the gay person who hears the gospel and finds themselves smitten by the life-giving call of Jesus. Woven throughout the book will be Richard Lovelace’s 1978 call for a "double repentance" in which gay Christians repent of their homosexual sins and the church repents of its homophobia--putting on display for all the power of the gospel.

Church Order in the New Testament

Church Order in the New Testament
Author: Eduard Schweizer
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2006-07-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1597528102
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Schweizer listens carefully to the testimony of the various New Testament writers in order to understand the theological problem of how the New Testament church understood itself, and how it expressed that understanding in its order. The purely historical question about the form of the church at different times is seen by Schweizer as necessary, but need only be asked insofar as the actual shaping of the church is always evidence of the concept of its own nature to which it testifies. Thus, Schweizer arranges the New Testament writings primarily by the theological kinship of their idea of the church, providing a comprehensive examination of the church in the New Testament and Apostolic Fathers. He treats both the diversity of views and the unity found in these writings. He also discusses issues relating to church office, ministry, and ordination.

The Deliberate Church

The Deliberate Church
Author: Mark Dever
Publisher: Crossway
Total Pages: 226
Release: 2005-09-09
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1433518422
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Dever and Alexander propose a model of complete reliance and submission to the Gospel when building a healthy church. Great resource for pastors, elders, and others interested in the vitality of their church.

It Takes a Church to Baptize

It Takes a Church to Baptize
Author: Scot McKnight
Publisher: Brazos Press
Total Pages: 143
Release: 2018-08-21
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1493414631
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The issue of baptism has troubled Protestants for centuries. Should infants be baptized before their faith is conscious, or does God command the baptism of babies whose parents have been baptized? Popular New Testament scholar Scot McKnight makes a biblical case for infant baptism, exploring its history, meaning, and practice and showing that infant baptism is the most historic Christian way of forming children into the faith. He explains that the church's practice of infant baptism developed straight from the Bible and argues that it must begin with the family and then extend to the church. Baptism is not just an individual profession of faith: it takes a family and a church community to nurture a child into faith over time. McKnight explains infant baptism for readers coming from a tradition that baptizes adults only, and he counters criticisms that fail to consider the role of families in the formation of faith. The book includes a foreword by Todd Hunter and an afterword by Gerald McDermott.