Center Church

Center Church PDF Author: Timothy Keller
Publisher: Zondervan
ISBN: 0310494192
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
Practical and Gospel-centered thoughts on how to have a fruitful ministry by one of America's leading and most beloved pastor. Many church leaders are struggling to adapt to a culture that values individuality above loyalty to a group or institution. There have been so many "church growth" and "effective ministry" books in the past few decades that it's hard to know where to start or which ones will provide useful and honest insight. Based on over twenty years of ministry in New York City, Timothy Keller takes a unique approach that measures a ministry's success neither by numbers nor purely by the faithfulness of its leaders, but on the biblical grounds of fruitfulness. Center Church outlines a balanced theological vision for ministry organized around three core commitments: Gospel-centered: The gospel of grace in Jesus Christ changes everything, from our hearts to our community to the world. It completely reshapes the content, tone, and strategy of all that we do. City-centered: With a positive approach toward our culture, we learn to affirm that cities are wonderful, strategic, and under-served places for gospel ministry. Movement-centered: Instead of building our own tribe, we seek the prosperity and peace of our community as we are led by the Holy Spirit. "Between a pastor's doctrinal beliefs and ministry practices should be a well-conceived vision for how to bring the gospel to bear on the particular cultural setting and historical moment. This is something more practical than just doctrine but much more theological than "how-to steps" for carrying out a ministry. Once this vision is in place, it leads church leaders to make good decisions on how to worship, disciple, evangelize, serve, and engage culture in their field of ministry—whether in a city, suburb, or small town." — Tim Keller, Core Church

Center Church

Center Church PDF Author: Timothy Keller
Publisher: Zondervan
ISBN: 0310494192
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 400

Get Book Here

Book Description
Practical and Gospel-centered thoughts on how to have a fruitful ministry by one of America's leading and most beloved pastor. Many church leaders are struggling to adapt to a culture that values individuality above loyalty to a group or institution. There have been so many "church growth" and "effective ministry" books in the past few decades that it's hard to know where to start or which ones will provide useful and honest insight. Based on over twenty years of ministry in New York City, Timothy Keller takes a unique approach that measures a ministry's success neither by numbers nor purely by the faithfulness of its leaders, but on the biblical grounds of fruitfulness. Center Church outlines a balanced theological vision for ministry organized around three core commitments: Gospel-centered: The gospel of grace in Jesus Christ changes everything, from our hearts to our community to the world. It completely reshapes the content, tone, and strategy of all that we do. City-centered: With a positive approach toward our culture, we learn to affirm that cities are wonderful, strategic, and under-served places for gospel ministry. Movement-centered: Instead of building our own tribe, we seek the prosperity and peace of our community as we are led by the Holy Spirit. "Between a pastor's doctrinal beliefs and ministry practices should be a well-conceived vision for how to bring the gospel to bear on the particular cultural setting and historical moment. This is something more practical than just doctrine but much more theological than "how-to steps" for carrying out a ministry. Once this vision is in place, it leads church leaders to make good decisions on how to worship, disciple, evangelize, serve, and engage culture in their field of ministry—whether in a city, suburb, or small town." — Tim Keller, Core Church

Loving Your City Into the Kingdom

Loving Your City Into the Kingdom PDF Author: Ted Haggard
Publisher: Regal Books
ISBN: 9780830718733
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
Loving Your City Into the Kingdom is a practitioners resource, written by practitioners. This hands-on guide brings you strategies that are working in towns and cities as churches take their communities for God. Now, for the first time, hear from those in the trenches as they tell exactly what has worked -- and what hasn't -- in terms of outreach strategies, prayer efforts, evangelistic crusades, and para-church partnerships. Co-edited by Jack Hayford and Ted Haggard, two local church pastors, this resource contains practical articles and advice on such subjects as: prayer evangelism, prayer summits, prayer walks (Marches for Jesus), spiritual mapping and warfare, cross-cultural reconciliation and networking, demographics and data-gathering, and much more.

Listening to Your Life

Listening to Your Life PDF Author: Frederick Buechner
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0061842818
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Daily meditations taken from the works of an acclaimed novelist, essayist, and preacher who has articulated what he sees with a freshness and clarity and energy that hails our stultified imaginations.

When I Don't Desire God

When I Don't Desire God PDF Author: John Piper
Publisher: Crossway
ISBN: 1581346522
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
Explaining how to become a Christian hedonist, a bestselling author offers guidance on how to find spiritual joy to readers who are unsure of where to seek it.

Making Sense of God

Making Sense of God PDF Author: Timothy Keller
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0525954155
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
We live in an age of skepticism. Our society places such faith in empirical reason, historical progress, and heartfelt emotion that it’s easy to wonder: Why should anyone believe in Christianity? What role can faith and religion play in our modern lives? In this thoughtful and inspiring new book, pastor and New York Times bestselling author Timothy Keller invites skeptics to consider that Christianity is more relevant now than ever. As human beings, we cannot live without meaning, satisfaction, freedom, identity, justice, and hope. Christianity provides us with unsurpassed resources to meet these needs. Written for both the ardent believer and the skeptic, Making Sense of God shines a light on the profound value and importance of Christianity in our lives.

You Are What You Love

You Are What You Love PDF Author: James K. A. Smith
Publisher: Brazos Press
ISBN: 1493403664
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 238

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Book Description
Christianity Today Book Award Winner Martin Institute and Dallas Willard Center Book Award You are what you love. But you might not love what you think. In this book, award-winning author James K. A. Smith shows that who and what we worship fundamentally shape our hearts. And while we desire to shape culture, we are not often aware of how culture shapes us. We might not realize the ways our hearts are being taught to love rival gods instead of the One for whom we were made. Smith helps readers recognize the formative power of culture and the transformative possibilities of Christian practices. He explains that worship is the "imagination station" that incubates our loves and longings so that our cultural endeavors are indexed toward God and his kingdom. This is why the church and worshiping in a local community of believers should be the hub and heart of Christian formation and discipleship. Following the publication of his influential work Desiring the Kingdom, Smith received numerous requests from pastors and leaders for a more accessible version of that book's content. No mere abridgment, this new book draws on years of Smith's popular presentations on the ideas in Desiring the Kingdom to offer a fresh, bottom-up rearticulation. The author creatively uses film, literature, and music illustrations to engage readers and includes new material on marriage, family, youth ministry, and faith and work. He also suggests individual and communal practices for shaping the Christian life.

James

James PDF Author: N. T. Wright
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
ISBN: 0830821961
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 65

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Book Description
With a scholar's mind and a pastor's heart, N. T. Wright guides you through James to help you understand what it means to have the kind of faith that translates belief into action. That kind of faith, he explains, is the faith that matters, the faith that justifies, the faith that saves. Includes nine sessions for group or personal study.

What Are You Going to Do with Your Life?

What Are You Going to Do with Your Life? PDF Author: J.D. Greear
Publisher: B&H Publishing Group
ISBN: 1087709334
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 108

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Book Description
God has a plan to make your life count for eternity. Stop wasting it. You want your life to matter. To mean something. But if you’re like most people, you probably don’t have a compelling answer to the question, “What are you going to do with your life?” In this book, J.D. Greear considers Jesus’ radical call to give your life away to the greatest cause of all. To view your life from the perspective of eternity. To start making decisions now that you’ll be glad you made then. It’s time to put your “yes” on the table and let God put it on the map.

Pagans and Christians in the City

Pagans and Christians in the City PDF Author: Steven D. Smith
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
ISBN: 1467451487
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 405

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Book Description
Traditionalist Christians who oppose same-sex marriage and other cultural developments in the United States wonder why they are being forced to bracket their beliefs in order to participate in public life. This situation is not new, says Steven D. Smith: Christians two thousand years ago faced very similar challenges. Picking up poet T. S. Eliot’s World War II–era thesis that the future of the West would be determined by a contest between Christianity and “modern paganism,” Smith argues in this book that today’s culture wars can be seen as a reprise of the basic antagonism that pitted pagans against Christians in the Roman Empire. Smith’s Pagans and Christians in the City looks at that historical conflict and explores how the same competing ideas continue to clash today. All of us, Smith shows, have much to learn by observing how patterns from ancient history are reemerging in today’s most controversial issues.

Above All

Above All PDF Author: J.D. Greear
Publisher: B&H Publishing Group
ISBN: 1535934808
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 182

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Book Description
Is gospel Christianity dead? Pundits are writing the obituary of historic, orthodox Christianity, but pastor and author J. D. Greear (Gospel, Stop Asking Jesus into Your Heart) believes the postmortems are premature. Jesus promised to build his church. He said that the gates of hell would not prevail against it. The church is not going away. Along with this promise, Jesus gave clear instructions for how the church would prevail. He promised to build it on the rock of the gospel. The most pressing need for Christianity today is not a new strategy. It is not an updated message. It is a return to keeping the gospel above all.