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Why does forgiveness, so central in Jesus' life and teaching, seem much more difficult today?Why are we so often told we should forgive but so seldom shown the steps toward forgiveness?"Forgiveness is a perilous and volatile subject because it is so deeply intertwined with our communal and individual wounds," Flora Wuellner writes in the introduction. She explores how Jesus' Beatitudes promise us release from these wounds.You are invited to begin your journey to forgiveness with these hope-filled meditations on each of the Beatitudes.Whether you have deep wounds or are worn down by a multitude of seemingly small grievances, let Wuellener's unique insights into the Beatitudes introduce you to the renewed and healed life Jesus offers. Each of the 11 chapters includes a guided meditation to help you bring the truth of Jesus' words into your own life.Discover an open door to new, healed ways of relating to God, others, yourself, the communities around you, and future generations.

Trends reveal that more and more people are using vacation time to experience new things or to help others. This book will help you consider how you can use your free time toward discipleship. Whether you go with a construction team, a traveling choir, or as an individual volunteer missionary abroad, you'll end up receiving more from the experience than you give.Short-term mission projects can change an individual's life and the ministry of any church. Transforming Ventures approaches these mission opportunities with the spiritual journey at its core.Ives weaves scripture, personal witness statements, and spiritual practices into a resource that will affect your life and the larger ministry of the church. As you gain a clearer understanding of God's call in your life, you'll recognize the ways God is already at work in the lives of those you seek to serve.Ives's book is also an engaging study for small groups, leaders of youth missioners, and individuals who long to wander.

In the harried, expect-the-unexpected flow of everyday life, faith seems far away for many people. Your car breaks down. The bills are due. The kids need school supplies. The business report remains unwritten.In A Wakeful Faith, Jenkins asserts that living awake to God in all of our daily affairs is the answer. Only when we become consciously aware of God's gracious activity in the details of the day can we transform and find purpose in our lives today."Each day brings a flood of demands for our time and attention," writes Jenkins. "Deep down, many of us feel the pace is killing us, but we do not admit it very often. After all, everyone else seems to get along okay. Something is killing us, but it is not the pace. It is the inattention to our deepest desire, the desire for God."Filled with humor and grounded in scripture, A Wakeful Faith calls us to a refreshed sense of God's presence, which can lead to spiritual well-being in all dimensions of life. Jenkins offers practical suggestions to rouse our spiritual wakefulness and alertness to God in daily living by showing how Jesus trained disciples to perceive the kingdom and to know God.Appropriate for individuals and small groups, A Wakeful Faith contains questions for reflection and discussion at the end of each chapter.

Heart Whispers offers accessible insights from Benedictine spirituality to help us explore the need for faithful living in today's often stress-filled world.By listening with "the ear of the heart," the sixth-century monk Benedict gained a fresh perspective on Christian spirituality as he lived by three simple vows: stability, obedience, and conversion.A Leader's Guide is also available for those who wish to study Heart Whispers in groups.

Take spirituality into the real world.Jesus didn't "become flesh" so we could feel different. He came to this world so we will be different.Often our spirituality seems invisible and mute to a hurting world. Many of us simply internalize faith out of fear, feelings of inadequacy, or choice. A faithful response to discipleship's call, however, is both inward and outward.Through Howell's study, you'll find ways to apply faith to your daily life and make evident your commitment to Christ. By considering all that Jesus did with his hands as a teacher, a healer, and a compassionate servant, Howell challenges readers to be the hands and feet and love of Christ in the world."Christianity must become something real, tangible, something that pervades all that we are," writes Howell. "It must become something we do. In our culture, for Christianity to have any meaningful future, we must get serious about a genuine lifestyle that is holy without being elitist, engaged with the world without being jaded or self-righteous, active and busy yet prepared to cope with failure."Howell's inspiration for this work comes from a poetic meditation written by Teresa of Avila, a Spanish nun who lived in the 16th century. The poem begins: "Christ has no body now on earth but yours, no hands but yours, no feet but yours."Howell connects these words with the apostle Paul, who wrote in 1 Corinthians 12: "Now you are the body of Christ."Express your faith through action. Be the hands of Christ today to a hurting world.

Stretch Out Your Hand offers practical ways for us to consider the varieties of God's healing love for individuals, institutions, and communities. The book provides an honest examination of the many difficult questions about prayer and the role of faith in healing.Through exercises and stories, the authors reintroduce readers to Jesus' healing ministry and to his vision of the church as a healing community.

Many of us thirst for a meaningful spiritual life. We may even begin a spiritual journey, yet before we are very far along, we discover we need help.Is the living, compassionate God revealed in scripture in a way that offers guidance and comfort to us in our contemporary lives? Norvene Vest says a resounding "Yes!"Using the classic spiritual practice of lectio divina or "divine reading" in the context of small groups, she shows how this devotional and prayerful reading of the scriptures leads us to a deeper understanding of and relationship with God.

Everyone is a storyteller, according to Michael Williams, and all of us are on a spiritual journey. Storytelling helps us make sense of our lives, the world around us, and God. When we tell stories, we speak a world into beingjust as God did in the creation accounts in the book of Genesis. Spoken into Being is both a guide to telling our own stories and a reminder that we have been spoken into being as part of a much larger story. It is a voyage of discovery for those of us who wish to deepen our experience of God's presence in our lives. Employing poetry, personal narrative, and retellings of biblical stories, Michael Williams leads us to a deeper knowledge of the power of narrative. Storytelling is not simply a means of expressing spiritual insights already learned but also a way of exploring our lives and the world around us in order to encounter the divine presence anew.