How the Body of Christ Talks

How the Body of Christ Talks
Author: C. Christopher Smith
Publisher: Brazos Press
Total Pages: 212
Release: 2019-04-16
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1493417053

In today's highly charged social and political environment, we often don't know how to talk well with others--especially with people whose backgrounds differ from our own. C. Christopher Smith, coauthor of the critically acclaimed and influential Slow Church, addresses why conversation has become such a challenge in the 21st century and argues that it is perhaps the most-needed spiritual practice of our individualistic age. Smith likens practicing conversation to the working of the human body. Bodies are wondrous symphonies of diverse, intricate parts striving for our health, and our health suffers when these parts fail to converse effectively. Likewise, we must learn to converse effectively with those who differ from us in the body of Christ so we can embody Christ together in the world. In community, we learn what it means to belong to others and to a story that is bigger than ourselves. Smith shows how church communities can be training hubs where we learn to talk with and listen to one another with kindness and compassion. The book explores how churches can initiate and sustain conversation, offers advice for working through seasons of conflict, suggests spiritual practices and dispositions that can foster conversation, and features stories from several congregations that are learning to practice conversation.

The Universal Christ

The Universal Christ
Author: Richard Rohr
Publisher: Convergent Books
Total Pages: 250
Release: 2019-03-05
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1524762105

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From one of the world’s most influential spiritual thinkers, a long-awaited book exploring what it means that Jesus was called “Christ,” and how this forgotten truth can restore hope and meaning to our lives. “Anyone who strives to put their faith into action will find encouragement and inspiration in the pages of this book.”—Melinda Gates In his decades as a globally recognized teacher, Richard Rohr has helped millions realize what is at stake in matters of faith and spirituality. Yet Rohr has never written on the most perennially talked about topic in Christianity: Jesus. Most know who Jesus was, but who was Christ? Is the word simply Jesus’s last name? Too often, Rohr writes, our understandings have been limited by culture, religious debate, and the human tendency to put ourselves at the center. Drawing on scripture, history, and spiritual practice, Rohr articulates a transformative view of Jesus Christ as a portrait of God’s constant, unfolding work in the world. “God loves things by becoming them,” he writes, and Jesus’s life was meant to declare that humanity has never been separate from God—except by its own negative choice. When we recover this fundamental truth, faith becomes less about proving Jesus was God, and more about learning to recognize the Creator’s presence all around us, and in everyone we meet. Thought-provoking, practical, and full of deep hope and vision, The Universal Christ is a landmark book from one of our most beloved spiritual writers, and an invitation to contemplate how God liberates and loves all that is.

Honoring the Body

Honoring the Body
Author: Stephanie Paulsell
Publisher: Fortress Press
Total Pages: 198
Release: 2019-02-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1506454909

Learn to celebrate your body by attending to daily spiritual practices In Honoring the Body, Stephanie Paulsell speaks to those who have ever wondered how to celebrate the body's pleasures and protect the body's vulnerabilities in a world that seems confused about both. What we need, she shows, are practices that honor the body. Paulsell invites readers to explore how we might honor the body in daily activities--bathing, clothing, eating, working, exercising, loving, and suffering--seeking wisdom from Scripture, history, and contemporary experience, in story and song and poetry. She argues that the accumulated wisdom of religious traditions provides the resources for a rich practice of honoring the body. This practice will not be just an individual practice, however. It will be a shared, communal practice, one we engage in with others. Honoring the Body is for those who want to honor their body and the bodies of others, who wish for a community that cherishes, attends to, celebrates, and soothes the body.

What God Has to Say about Our Bodies

What God Has to Say about Our Bodies
Author: Sam Allberry
Publisher: Crossway
Total Pages: 191
Release: 2021-07-08
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1433570181

"God's eternal plan for us involves our body. We can't write off our physical life as spiritually irrelevant." — Sam Allberry There's a danger in focusing too much on the body. There's also a danger in not valuing it enough. In fact, the Bible has lots to say about the body. With the coming of Jesus, "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us"—flesh that was pierced and crushed for the sins of the world. In What God Has to Say about Our Bodies, Sam Allberry explains that all of us are fearfully and wonderfully made, and should regard our physicality as a gift. He offers biblical guidance for living, including understanding gender, sexuality, and identity; dealing with aging, illness, and death; and considering the physical future hope that we have in Christ. In this powerfully written book, you'll gain a new understanding for the immeasurable value of our bodies and God's ultimate plan to redeem them.

Divine Sex

Divine Sex
Author: Jonathan Grant
Publisher: Brazos Press
Total Pages: 316
Release: 2015-07-14
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1441227164

The digital revolution has ushered in a series of sexual revolutions, all contributing to a perfect storm for modern relationships. Online dating, social media, internet pornography, and the phenomenon of the smartphone generation have created an avalanche of change with far-reaching consequences for sexuality today. The church has struggled to address this new moral ecology because it has focused on clarity of belief rather than quality of formation. The real challenge for spiritual formation lies in addressing the underlying moral intuitions we carry subconsciously, which are shaped by the convictions of our age. In this book, a fresh new voice offers a persuasive Christian vision of sex and relationships, calling young adults to faithful discipleship in a hypersexualized world. Drawing from his pastoral experience with young people and from cutting-edge research across multiple disciplines, Jonathan Grant helps Christian leaders understand the cultural forces that make the church's teaching on sex and relationships ineffective in the lives of today's young adults. He also sets forth pastoral strategies for addressing the underlying fault lines in modern sexuality.

Slow Church

Slow Church
Author: C. Christopher Smith
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
Total Pages: 251
Release: 2014-05-06
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0830841148

In today's fast-food world, Christianity can seem outdated or archaic. The temptation becomes to pick up the pace and play the game. But Chris Smith and John Pattison invites us to leave franchise faith behind and enter the kingdom of God, where people know each other well and love one another as Christ loves the church.

What We Talk About When We Talk About Love

What We Talk About When We Talk About Love
Author: Raymond Carver
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 169
Release: 2015-05-25
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1101970588

The most celebrated story collection from “one of the true American masters” (The New York Review of Books)—a haunting meditation on love, loss, and companionship, and finding one’s way through the dark that includes the iconic and much-referenced title story featured in the Academy Award-winning film Birdman. "Raymond Carver's America is ... clouded by pain and the loss of dreams, but it is not as fragile as it looks. It is a place of survivors and a place of stories.... [Carver] has done what many of the most gifted writers fail to do: He has invented a country of his own, like no other except that very world, as Wordsworth said, which is the world to all of us." —The New York Times Book Review

Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist

Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist
Author: Brant Pitre
Publisher: Image
Total Pages: 242
Release: 2011-02-15
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0385531850

A revelatory exploration of the Jewish roots of the Last Supper that seeks to understand exactly what happened at Jesus’ final Passover. “Clear, profound and practical—you do not want to miss this book.”—Dr. Scott Hahn, author of The Lamb’s Supper and The Fourth Cup Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist shines fresh light on the Last Supper by looking at it through Jewish eyes. Using his in-depth knowledge of the Bible and ancient Judaism, Dr. Brant Pitre answers questions such as: What was the Passover like at the time of Jesus? What were the Jewish hopes for the Messiah? What was Jesus’ purpose in instituting the Eucharist during the feast of Passover? And, most important of all, what did Jesus mean when he said, “This is my body… This is my blood”? To answer these questions, Pitre explores ancient Jewish beliefs about the Passover of the Messiah, the miraculous Manna from heaven, and the mysterious Bread of the Presence. As he shows, these three keys—the Passover, the Manna, and the Bread of the Presence—have the power to unlock the original meaning of the Eucharistic words of Jesus. Along the way, Pitre also explains how Jesus united the Last Supper to his death on Good Friday and his Resurrection on Easter Sunday. Inspiring and informative, Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist is a groundbreaking work that is sure to illuminate one of the greatest mysteries of the Christian faith: the mystery of Jesus’ presence in “the breaking of the bread.”

Spirit, Soul, and Body

Spirit, Soul, and Body
Author: Andrew Wommack
Publisher: Destiny Image Publishers
Total Pages: 149
Release: 2018-12-18
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1606830376

Have you ever asked yourself what changed when you were "born again?" You look in the mirror and see the same reflection - your body hasn't changed. You find yourself acting the same and yielding to those same old temptations - that didn't seem to change either. So you wonder, Has anything really changed? The correct...