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A Guide for Drawing Close to GodBeing close to God means communicating with him. It requires both telling him what is on our hearts in prayer and understanding what he is saying to us. The second half of this conversation is so important--and so difficult. How do we hear God?In these daily devotionals, Dallas Willard helps us understand how we can know the voice of God and act on it. Each day you'll read Scripture on this topic and find suggestions for prayer, journaling, and reflection to become more open to God's presence. You may be surprised--and even transformed--by what you discover.

How do we learn to risk, to trust, to pursue wholeness and excellence-to run with the horses and live life at its best? In a series of profound reflections on the life of Jeremiah the prophet, Eugene Peterson explores the heart of what it means to be fully and genuinely human. This commemorative edition includes a preface from Peterson's son.

Have you ever felt a tension between developing your internal spiritual life and the call to outward service in the world? Those of us who are more naturally activists risk becoming bitter, tired and burned out. Those of us who gravitate toward the contemplative life may struggle to connect our spirituality with the world around us. How do we allow the life of Jesus to flow through our whole bodies into our everyday lives?This book is a result of how Tom Smith held these questions in tension, as Eugene H. Peterson reflects in his foreword:"There is a back story here that is helpful in understanding Tom Smith's fierce focus and energetic imagination. He grew up in South Africa during the years of apartheid. . . . He also was aware that the Rwanda genocide took place in a population mostly Christian. He became a pastor in a flourishing South African church and then came to North America. He experienced the temptation to degenerate church into a consumer program. . . . This book is a witness to what takes place when names trump numbers and stories with their accompanying metaphors keep relationships personal and prayerful."Having Jesus in our hearts is not enough. Jesus calls us to a spirituality that involves our everyday actions and interactions with others and extends our sphere of influence. In this raw, honest, whole-life approach to Christian formation, Tom Smith introduces us into a "rhythm of life" that that brings flourishing to our personal spirituality that then extends to our service in the world.

Calvin Miller introduces six types of Celtic prayer that teach you how to pray out of the circumstances and uncertainties of your own life. With traditional examples of each type of prayer, the book also includes a historical and spiritual overview of Celtic spirituality.

Perhaps you've been missing out. God has given us five senses and a brain with two sides. Yet we often approach God in one way only: through words that are analyzed and processed logically in our left brain. The right brain, however, is the creative, intuitive center--the place that connects most to our seeing, smelling, touching, tasting and hearing, and that roots experiences in our hearts in transforming ways.In Awaken Your Senses, longtime ministers Beth Booram and Brent Bill invite you to engage your right brain in your faith through sensory spiritual practices that position your heart for divine encounter. Readings and a variety of exercises that utilize your whole body lead you to experience God in new ways by tasting chocolate, words, matzoh, Scripture, forgiveness seeing the moon, wisdom, art, glory, your best self touching others, stones, prayers, rubble, Jesus hearing silence, music, pain, footsteps, the Spirit, the news smelling gardenias, life, salty air, home, healing oil, coffeeTeaching you to pay attention in love to your surroundings, Booram and Bill will help you open your eyes and ears and nose to a sensuous faith--one in which God can be experienced each day as we live and move and have our being.So whether you're weary, stuck, struggling, growing or on information-overload, the exercises and reflections offered here can bring refreshment--a cold drink of water, a gentle breeze--to your soul. Come experience God with all of who you are, and discover more of who he is.

2011 Christianity Today Book Award winner"We do not set out to become old. Far from it. We hardly intend even to become middle-aged. Instead we plan to live in some eternal now which will lead on to something better, something more complete than what we had before. . . .Sometime in our spiritual travels, as a complete surprise, we notice it has become winter. . . . This change has occurred, it seems, without preparation, without fair warning."So spirituality writer Emilie Griffin begins, taking us on an exploration of our later years. It is a book filled with wonderful, rich story, carefully crafted spiritual exercises and wisdom from those who have gone before us. She explores relocation, vocational changes, losing her mother, and negotiating and renegotiating her relationships with her grown children.The journey of our later years is a wondrous voyage, though turbulent at points. But it is, as Emilie Griffin reminds us, the journey we have been preparing for all along.

We are made by and for relationship with God and others, even discovering and developing our God-given identity through relational connection. Bringing together the study of psychology and spiritual formation, The Relational Soul highlights how a conscious relationship with the Trinity can transform our self-awareness and our connection with other people.

Copastors Kent Carlson and Mike Lueken tell the decade-long story of how God took their thriving, consumer-oriented church and transformed it into a modest congregation of unformed believers committed to the growth of the spirit-even when it meant a decline in numbers.

Revival starts when people pray together.Christians often dream about the possibility of revival. But revival doesn't come because we wish or plan for it. Revival occurs when groups of people pray together. However, praying together effectively doesn't come easily, and we're often left wondering how to best engage in the work of intercession.Carolyn Carney offers a practical guide for those who want something more than just another prayer meeting. Drawing from decades of ministry experience, The Power of Group Prayer includes stories and practices for corporate prayer, reflection questions, and supplemental resources to help build powerful intercession groups. Pastors, small group leaders, and campus ministry leaders--or anyone who wants a deeper prayer life--will be equipped to lead others in the kind of prayer that is necessary for effective, resilient ministry.Praying together has the power to transform you and the world around you. Come to a place of deep intimacy with God as you learn ways to pray in community.

Too often we study biblical texts without believing that God truly inhabits this book. In these pages Chris Webb shows how reading the Bible with the right approach can reconfigure the habits of your heart, refresh your imagination and memory, reshape and redeem your emotions, realign your reality individually and communally for kingdom life.

Elijah Campbell is on the verge of losing everything when he returns home and faces a terrifying decision-keep hiding in secrets or uncover the only thing that can save his marriage: himself. This page-turning novel from psychologist Kelly Flanagan is filled with poignant insights on identity, relationships, and spiritual transformation.

Michael Mangis explores why we get stuck in a pattern of sin by looking at how we repeat one core, or signature, sin again and again. He helps us each uncover that sin, and then looks at gender, personality, family background and other influences that shape our sin, offering further help in breaking sin patterns.

Keri Wyatt Kent explores how the disciplines of gardening parallel the disciplines of spiritual life. As you work with God to create the right conditions in the soil of your soul, growth will follow. And the harvest will be glorious.

Would you like to journal, but you're not sure how to start?Do you love to journal, but need some fresh ideas?Here's a book to help you discover (or recover) the power of writing as a spiritual discipline.In these pages you'll find intriguing and encouraging insights on topics like ""ordinary things,"" ""discovery journaling,"" ""drawing from another's well"" and ""dialogue journaling with Scriptures.""In each brief chapter, Luann Budd draws on her own life and writing. She shows how to put each of her ideas into practice. And she provides additional inspiration and examples from significant men and women throughout history who have journaled.Read this book to discover the transforming power of journal keeping!

Iron sharpens iron, and one person sharpens . . . another. (Proverbs 27:17) As we seek God together we come to know him more deeply. That's the idea behind Spiritual Mentoring. Spiritual mentoring is an ages-old practice that Keith Anderson and Randy Reese introduce in a way that fits life as we know it today. Spiritual mentoring is not only for pastors or saints. Mentors are ordinary Christians who are willing to enter into a faith relationship with another person who wants to grow. Likewise, those who are mentored are not seminary candidates but simply followers of Jesus who long for guidance in their spiritual journey. In this book Anderson and Reese show you how to mentor and be mentored as they introduce, chapter by chapter, the work of a different classical spiritual writer, including¿ Augustine Aelred of Rievaulx John of the Cross Julian of Norwich Ignatius of Loyola Teresa of Avila Madame Jeanne GuyonThese writers offer timeless insights from centuries past, while Anderson and Reese help you put their teaching into practice today to grow closer to Jesus in the company of another believer. If you want to learn how to help younger Christians grow while stretching your own faith, or if you want to tap into the experience of a Christian friend who is farther along the road of faith, this is the book that will get you started.