Showing results by narrator "Lyle Blaker" in All Categories

As both a pastor and a parent, Cameron S. Shaffer is alarmed by the mass exodus of young people from the church over the past couple decades. The rise of the Nones and exvangelicals is clear evidence that our current children's and youth ministry practices are ineffective and must change if we want to stem the tide of dechurching. Whatever we're doing now is not creating lifelong disciples.

The Jesus Climb crafts George Mallory's quest to climb the world's tallest mountain into a parable illustrating how Jesus trained his first students to summit the world's greatest commandment. Like Mallory peering too low on the horizon to see Everest's peak towering above him, the lack of Christlikeness in modern Christianity stems from our inability to imagine the impossible heights to which Jesus calls us.

From John Calvin until today, Reformed theology and worship have acknowledged Word and sacrament as central to its Christian identity. By exploring key liturgies, confessions, directories for worship, and theological movements, this book examines common theological themes and commitments that have undergirded worship as well as ways that our understandings and practices have developed in light of new contexts and challenges.

If you cringe at the thought of pulling out a napkin and drawing a chasm that only the cross can span, you’re in good company. While most of us have the desire to share the gospel, we don’t know how to bring it up. Let’s face it… it’s not easy to go from “How is the weather?” to...

Gunlore, for better or worse, is a powerful and pervasive method of self-expression. In examining the folklore around these controversial and politically charged tools, weapons, and symbols, we can begin to understand the aspects of American culture that will remain prominent for the foreseeable future.

A Concise and Systematic Exploration of the Doctrine of Predestination How can God choose to save some and eternally punish others? What about my loved ones who are not believers? For many, contemplating predestination brings about fear, trepidation, controversy, and emotional exhaustion, making...

Refreshingly honest and keenly insightful, pastor and talk show host Gregory Dickow shows how your mindset is the single most powerful force in shaping your emotions, your decisions-and your destiny. When you discover the power of God's healing love, then fear, anxiety, anger and shame will stop sabotaging your happiness-and your life.

Despite growing secularization, our culture still pays a lot of attention to the devil. He shows up everywhere from movies to music and is blamed for all sorts of crimes, natural disasters, and the policies of politicians we don't like. Yet in the Bible, Satan is barely present, barely speaks, and is subject to God's authority. So how has he gotten so much airtime in the lives of Christians and the wider culture? Award-winning biographer Jared Brock sorts through the myths and misinformation about the devil, revealing a biblical adversary we need to know.

Almost every Christian man wants others to think of them as a “man’s man,” a “real man.” Yet, most of the time, these same men would be hard-pressed to provide a clear, compelling, and biblically rooted definition for what it means to be a man. Between the toxic masculinity and gender...

Many listeners have heard C. S. Lewis's logical arguments for the Christian faith. Yet throughout his wide-ranging study and writing, Lewis often began with experience, intuition, and religious feeling rather than dogmatic assertions. The most profound questions of Lewis's own life, argues theologian and literary critic Jeffrey Barbeau, can be seen in his quest to understand the relationship between personal experience and the truth about the world around him.

In the space of just nineteen days, former Army Special Forces officer and police officer Shane Winnings went from a public, six-figure career to an unpaid, full-time missionary position across the country. His story exploded across social media, and to this day he reaches millions each week with his audacious daily encouragement to be a light in a dark world.

This book articulates how believing in Jesus gives us a sense of who we are, why we're here, what the good life is, and how to move toward that good life. This is not traditional apologetics, offering logical proofs that God exists or that Jesus is God incarnate or that all those alternative belief systems are false. Put simply, the aim of this book is to help you see for yourself and to explain to others how Christian belief and Christian practice can make life meaningful.

In the classic edition of this outstanding book, originally published in 2004, Dr. Marc Feldman explores the bizarre cases of real patients who feign or even self-induce illness. Playing Sick? chronicles the devastating impact of illness hoaxes, including factitious disorders, Munchausen syndrome, Munchausen by proxy, and malingering. Based on years of research and clinical practice, Playing Sick? provides the clues that can help professionals, family members, friends, and patients themselves to recognize these diagnoses, avoid invasive procedures, and understand elusive motives.

Men who serve the church well are men who have learned how to lead their own families with wisdom and skill. Bettis considers practical lessons from household management and debunks misconceptions.

Have you been traumatized by infidelity? The phrase "broken heart" belies the real trauma behind the all-too-common occurrence of infidelity. Psychologist Dennis Ortman likens the psychological aftermath of sexual betrayal to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in its origin and symptoms...

When Richard Nixon battled for the presidency in 1968, he did so with the knowledge that, should he win, he would face the looming question of how to extract the United States from its disastrous war in Vietnam. It was on a beach that summer that Nixon disclosed to his chief aide, HR Haldeman, one of his most notorious, risky gambits: the madman theory. In On Nixon's Madness, Zachary Jonathan Jacobson examines the enigmatic president through this theory of Nixon's own invention.

Few have ever valued literacy as much as the enslaved Black people of the American South. For them, it was more than a means to a better life; it was a gateway to freedom and, in some instances, a tool for inspiring revolt. And few governments tried harder to suppress literacy than did those in the South. Everyone understood that knowledge was power: power to keep a person enslaved in mind and body, power to resist oppression. In the decades before the Civil War, Southern governments drove Black literacy underground, but it was too precious to be entirely stamped out.

On the 40th anniversary of Neil Postman's prophetic book Amusing Ourselves to Death (1985), Scrolling Ourselves to Death gathers today's most incisive writers to think critically about the shaping power of contemporary technology. This book explores Postman's insights, connects them to the challenges facing Christians today, and turns difficult challenges into life-giving opportunities for the church. Stepping back from their screens, listeners will be equipped to live faithfully, and grow spiritually, in a "scrolling ourselves to death" world.

For more than one hundred years, E. Stanley Jones has led the way in evangelism by contextualizing Christ in the existing culture, wherever that may be. In The Christ of the Indian Road, he recounts his experiences in India, where he arrived as a young and presumptuous missionary who later matured into a veteran who attempted to contextualize Jesus Christ within the Indian culture. Jones names the mistakes many Christians make in trying to impose their culture on the existing culture.

For award-winning natural history writer David B. Williams, to be connected to a place you need to pause and look deeply at it. Wild in Seattle is Williams's delightful journey of discovery in this city where not only is nature all around, it's also written in the stones of the urban landscape. Explore the geologic history of glaciers, tsunamis, earthquakes, and volcanoes as well as the ways humans shape the Seattle topography. From backyards to downtown, watch for coyotes, crows, seals, otters, owls, and so much more wildlife who also call the region home.