What if the church took with utmost seriousness that baptism is the gift of a new identity taking a lifetime to grow into? And, what if that identity includes God's call to a way of life made visible in how Jesus lived his? This book is a response to these questions in relationship to the church's practice of baptizing children. This book's underlying premise is that how the church helps parents prepare for baptism is vital to how ...
This book is a meditation on Paul's letter to the church in Galatia with the purpose of reclaiming Paul for those of faith who have grown tired of thinking that Christians are the people who draw lines, make distinctions, and police religious borders. This book is an attempt to reclaim the vision of Paul that is beyond Jew and Gentile, slave and free, male and female: the new creation. Ultimately, the vision of Paul was not Paul's visi ...
Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) or Domestic Violence (DV) continues to be a perennial issue in the Black church and Christendom as a whole. Women in the church continue to experience violence at increased rates, but leadership has been delayed in providing a meaningful response to IPV as families experience the turmoil of abuse. Further, more and more children suffer from the trauma of family violence that perpetuates as males, who witness IPV, ...
Five people, representing three generations, meet to share some of their deepest thoughts. Luc and Don get together after thirty years, with their one-time mentor, Jay, and are later joined by Luc's daughter and her friend Ian. Their dialogues, patterned roughly after Plato, start with Jay asking if death is just the end of life, or if there is more. Does science have an answer? Is there a soul or spirit, a reality that transcends t ...
Preaching is dramatic. Through it, we hear the voice of the living God as he speaks to us both through the reading and the preaching of the word of God. But where do the hearers of sermons fit into the drama? This book suggests ways in which the drama metaphor may help to address age old questions about the centrality of the gospel and the place of the hearer in preaching. As God in Christ is the central character in the biblical drama of redemp ...
Who am I? Who are we? Simple yet profound questions. What does it mean to be human? Why does society sometimes make us feel inadequate and diminished as humans? Where does the church and religion slot into this sense of dehumanization? What are we doing to ourselves and to others to impede our journey as humans living to the fullest? Why does it feel as if violence and fear is the dominant narrative in this modern world? Who ...
The intent of this work is to introduce the reader to an enhanced relationship with our Lord, Jesus. Incarnational living is coming to terms with who one is in relationship with Christ and then living that newfound excited spirit out within the community, and even the world. By learning to experience more of God, one experiences a form of conversion all over again. The experience is nothing short of breathtaking, and becomes increasingly desir ...
A treatment of power, vulnerability, and suffering in the life and ministry of mid-career leaders offers a reminder of the need to rethink power. The push and pull of power dynamics, unless acknowledged and surrendered, can impact leaders' spirituality, relationships, character, and ultimately their faithfulness in ministry. To supplement countless books on leadership models, techniques and motivation, this book offers a counter-nar ...
The Form of Faith is a hybrid work, part spiritual autobiography and part essay–a style that stands in a long and honorable line going back to Lewis, Newman, and ultimately Augustine. Moreover, this work was created in response to the question that loomed large in the author's mind and with which he still wrestles: how does one live a Christian witness in the twenty-first century that is not culturally hijacked by political identification a ...
