Faith
"All of us, as we age, retire. We retire not just from jobs, but from relationships, ways of thinking, and how we think about ourselves. We move on. We no longer find validation in activities and tasks that have been important to us for decades. We can no longer do the things we used to do. ...
For some, the step through the door is a defined moment: the transition away from employment, learning to live in the empty nest, an unexpected illness, the death of a parent, or the loss of a spouse. Others of us recognize the door only as we look back. We realize that gradual losses have built up in recent years, family dynamics have changed, and we are not getting as many calls for professional input. Whether the step through the door is clear or not, it is always a step into liminal space."
"Servant leadership starts with a vision and ends with a servant heart that helps people live according to that vision."
Seeing God in the Midst of Divorce and Single Parenting
Sue Birdseye
"In an instant my life became completely foreign to me."
"The problem of abandonment is far more widespread than many people realise, and up until now it has been in the shadows. What does a spouse do when the usual Christian resources about how to fight for your marriage no longer apply? How does one face a spouse's unfaithfulness and desertion with a Christlike perspective, both for one's own sake and, often, for the sake of one's children?"
Uncovering the face of the feminine in Revelations of Divine Love
Mirabai Starr
A priest administering the last rites holds up a crucifix to a young woman on her deathbed. She experiences 16 visions of Jesus . A horror show of pain and agony, blood and gore dominates her visions at first. Out of the suffering comes a revelation of the feminine aspects of the Trinity. At the end of the revelations she awakes in pain but alive. She became the first woman to write a book in English, yet we still do not know her name.
Youth ministry flounders because "youth, more often than not, reflect the religious commitment of their parents ... we do not have a teenage problem as much as we have an ecclesiasal or entire church problem."
Mike McHargue
While a deacon in a fundamentalist evangelical church, Mike McHargue made a mistake. He actually read the bible. Not isolated phrases ripped out of context, but the whole book, cover to cover. The more he read, the less he could believe - in God, his parents, in himself. His evangelical faith collapsed. He became an atheist. One morning at an astronomy conference, Mike was overcome by awe while walking along the beach. Mike found space for the presence of God in the midst of scientific revelation. This book is his journey.
"God becomes recognisable as God only at the place of extremity, where no answers seem to be given and God cannot be seen as the God we expect or understand."
A call for the church to die so it can rise again
Jeremy Myers
"The church is to be a beacon of hope in the darkness, a city set on a hill, the salt that preserves society and culture. But are we really any of these things if the average person in our neighbourhood wouldn't notice if we closed up shop? What has happened that the church, which seeks to be light and salt in the world, has become so insignificant and marginalised?"
Father Ronald Rolheiser examines the scriptures and theology in light of the modern plague of loneliness. The human condition is lonely and estranged from the divine. The 'restless heart' longs to be united in a 'community of life' with God.
We were given / as a gift of god / the possibility of community
Mark Steele challenges the evangelical churches that have lost their saltiness with this hilarious confessional tangentially combined with reflections on the moral malaise of modern evangelicalism in America, and the occasional scriptural reference.
"How did modern evangelicalism lose its balance? How did some behaviour fall into an accountability category while other distractions remained unaddressed and therefore socially and religiously acceptable?"
A practical guide for a ministry of radical welcome
Yvonne Gentile & Debi Nixon
"Practicing radical hospitality is an art. It requires the conscious use of skill and experience shaped by the radical hospitality we have received from Jesus. When our church, our congregation is truly transformed by this radical hospitality, we can't help but welcome the stranger. And in this, we join God's kingdom mission. It is time to start a movement where God can do great, miraculous things through us and through the church."
Sacred space can still be found in a disenchanted world, embedded in the daily routines of our lives as much as in the daily offices of a medieval monk.
Fresh out of seminary and straight into her church planting at House for all Sinners and Saints, Nadia Bolz-Weber put on one hell of a party: a non-stop 24 hour binge watching Christian Television. In between the bemusement, hilarity and sleep deprivation are some moments of deep reflection and cross-denominational inspiration.
Discerning Call in Community
Suzanne G. Farnham, Joseph P. Gill, R. Taylor McLean, & Susan M. Ward
How do we open our hearts to God's call?
"God calls out to us, inviting us to share in the divine life. How can we hear that call? What could hearing it mean as we live day to day? How can we help each other hear God's voice and follow where God leads? "
"Understanding that God calls us to ministry, preparing our hearts and minds to discern God's call, and meeting with others for insight and support helps us to live these questions."
"Thus we gain hearts to listen and respond to God's call."
"I was a stranger and you welcomed me". If we are to live that gospel, we can learn and take inspiration from the monastic communities that show us how to welcome people into our lives, our work, our community, and our church.
The former Archbishop of Canterbury explores themes of discipleship that may enhance a Christian life.
An imaginative retelling of the life of Saint Aidan, by the late vicar of Holy Island, Lindisfarne
Integrating faith and work every day of the week
Alistair Mackenzie and Wayne Kirkland
"What does God have to do with productivity reports and cleaning toilets? Everything. People were designed to work in partnership with God. When you find yourself rightly aligned with God's perspective, your daily work takes on a higher level of excitement and significance. Everything you do can be transformed into an act of worship."
30 daily devotions from the saintly exponent of the "Little Way" to God.
A Palestinian Christian reflects on the Gospels from the experience of living under modern Middle Eastern geo-politics, to present "a theology from and for the Palestinian context," and to "struggle with scripture and its meaning in its original context of permanent occupation."
How a liberated woman found herself sitting on her roof, covering her head, and calling her husband "master"
Rachel Held Evans
Following in the footsteps of AJ Jacobs, the late Rachel Held Evans continues her re-examination of the pillars of her evangelical upbringing in the heart of the Bible Belt: gentleness, domesticity, obedience, valor, beauty, modesty, purity, fertility, submission, justice, silence, and grace.
Exploring other ancient forms of Christianity that developed in Africa, the Middle East, India, and Asia, beyond "western-centric" standard histories of "Nicene" Christianities.
The former Archbishop of Canterbury explores the essential practices of Christian life in the Anglican tradition.
"The God of the Bible is also the God of the genome. He can be worshipped in the cathedral or in the laboratory. His creation is majestic, awesome, intricate and beautiful - and it cannot be at war with itself. Only we imperfect humans can start such battles."
During evening prayers on the first day of his first visit to Taizé, a woman with a history of mental instability murdered Brother Roger, the founder of Taizé, metres away from Jason Brian Santos.
Santos explores how the community of brothers coalesced around Brother Roger in the post-war period and how they responded to the increasing numbers of young pilgrims visiting the community. The result was the development of a distinctive mix of ecumenical worship and hospitality for young adults.
A war correspondent and professor of journalism travels to Mount Athos seeking healing for his failing marriage and the trauma of covering the Bosnian war.
A lively retelling of the life of Saint Cuthbert, by the late vicar of Holy Island, Lindisfarne
The former stand up comedian turned pastor continues her trademark combination of Alcoholics Anonymous confessional with Evangelical Lutheranism's focus on the grace of God.
"... what makes us the saints of God is not our ability to be saintly but rather God's ability to work through sinners."
Apalling, heart-rending, and astonishing stories of God's grace breaking into people's lives despite them rather than because of them.Â
As an adolescent growing up in the heart of the Bible Belt, calling herself "evangelical" signified that she found the Southern Baptists too staid and left-wing. A crisis of faith in young adulthood led the late Rachel Held Evans on a journey that ultimately lead her to ... Anglicanism.
Thomas C. Oden explores Coptic church traditions about St Mark and his early life in Libya. Oden then re-examines in the light of these traditions, exploring Mark's relationship to the Last Supper, Pentecost, and missionary travels.
"Why do we expect justice? Why do we crave spirituality? Why are we attracted to beauty? Why are relationships often so painful? And how will the world be made right? These are not simply perennial questions all generations must struggle with, but, according to NT Wright, the very echoes of a voice we dimly perceive but deeply long to hear. In fact, these questions take us into the heart of who God is and what He wants from us."
One man's humble quest to follow the Bible as literally as possible
AJ Jacobs
What begins as a journalistic stunt of taking biblical prohibitions literally (don't wear clothes of mixed fibres) becomes a fascinating engagement with people who do try to do exactly that, with the religion of his forefathers, and with the discipline of daily prayer.
A scientist of faith grapples with and rebuts many common smears against Christianity.
A collection of prayers by the late rector of Holy Island, David Adam, illustrated with contemplative photographs in and around Lindisfarne.
The Nazareth Community at St Martin-in-the-Fields is a reimagining of monastic disciplines and work, here, in our lives, now.
"... the sounds we make raise questions not only about how we live and about why we have created the environment we have, but that these soundscapes start to reveal deeper theological questions about who we are, of what we are afraid of and in whom we trust."
"... on Monday morning, you're back at work with all its regular assignments, deadlines and obstacles, and the Sunday sermon about God, faith, His kingdom, and Jesus becomes a distant memory."
This book explores various biblical passages, theological insights and self-reflection that might help bridge the gap between Sunday and Monday.
Karen Armstrong
"... one small act of kindness can turn a life around."
Armstrong examines the Golden Rule in the major world religions and how that might lead us to becoming more compassionate to others and to ourselves.
Nadia Bolz-weber
A heavily tattooed standup comic struggling with sobriety goes to seminary school....
When one of the members of her Alcoholics Anonymous group committed suicide, Nadia was asked to take the memorial service as being the only "religious" person any of them knew. She found her calling. After ordination, she founded a church.
Rowan Williams addresses the things worth treasuring in the Chronicles of Narnia series: "The possibility Lewis still offers of coming across the Christian story as if for the first time." ... "How do you make fresh what is thought to be familiar, so familiar that it doesn't need to be thought about? Try making up a world in which these things can be met without preconceptions, a world in which the strangeness of the Christian story is encountered for what it is, not as part of a familiar eccentricity of behaviour called religion."
Leunig
An illustrated book of prayers and cartoons originally published in Melbourne's Sunday Age newspaper.
"When we fall, let us fall inwards. Let us fall freely and completely: that we may find our depth and humility: the solid earth from which we may rise up and love again."
Joy Cowley
A book of modern meditations drawing on the Christian traditions of devotion, simplicity, discipline, service, surrender, trials, courage, growth, healing, prayer.
"Give whenever you can / The greatest gifts in life / cannot be bought with money ...
The richest people on earth / are those who give / themselves away."
Sally Lloyd-Jones and Jago
Meditations for the young and old
Upcoming
Rowan Williams
The former Archbishop of Canterbury explores how the rule of St Benedict is still relevant to enhance the Christian laypeople in the present day and age.
The former Archbishop of Canterbury explores the wisdom of the desert fathers and the paradox that silence and solitude may lead us to truly love one another.