Category: church books

For more than fifty years Good Grief has helped millions of readers, including NFL players and a former first lady, find comfort, understand their emotions and regain hope after loss. This classic text identifies ten stages of grief — shock, emotion, depression, physical distress, panic, guilt, anger, resistance, hope, and acceptance — but recognizing that grief is complex and deeply personal, defines no “right” way to grieve.

Good Grief offers valuable insights on the emotional and physical responses persons may experience during the natural process of grieving something as small as a change in plans to something as traumatic and final as death. Reflection questions sprinkled throughout the book help readers explore their own experience with each stage of the grieving process.

As long as it has been available, people have turned to the Bible to address the problems and anxieties of everyday life. We look to it for comfort in the midst of suffering, clarity in times of confusion, or simply to learn about God. Thankfully, what we find in its pages is not a collection of rules or demands but a message of unbending honesty and unspeakable compassion: the gospel of Jesus Christ. With humor and heart (and a surprising number of disco and B-movie references) the 365 short devotions in The Mockingbird Devotional carry the good news of God’s mercy and forgiveness to the inner-rooms of human reality.

Forty-seven days of devotions from Ash Wednesday (March 2) to Easter Sunday (April 17) lead you through St. John’s Gospel, using the firsthand witness of the saints and villains in Christ’s Passion. These daily devotions complement the corresponding Witness to Christ Lenten sermon series.

About the Theme

This year’s series paints a stunning portrait of Jesus through the eyes the witnesses of His Passion in St. John’s Gospel. John tells us he wrote his Gospel: “so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name” (John 20:30–31).

This Lent, strengthen your faith with the witness of those who were present as part of Jesus’ journey to the cross.

Beyond God’s promise of a Savior just after the fall in Genesis 3:15, do we really see much of Christ in the Old Testament? Well, if we take His New Testament words to heart, we must! 

“You search the Scriptures…and it is they that bear witness to me!” (John 5:39)

Over eight sessions, The Messiah: Revealing Jesus in the Old Testament will lead you through the entirety of the Old Testament with daily readings, questions, and discussion prompts. After a brief introduction that reviews Christ’s earthly ministry, you will dive into the heart of the Holy Books that have spiritually nourished God’s people from creation to today!

The Hero’s Journey has been repeated throughout all of history: from mythological tales of great warriors to fantasy novels on today’s bookshelves. These heroes are a source of inspiration and hope for all who listen to their thrilling stories. But, what if one of these heroes was actually real, rather than a tall-tale or passed-down mythology?

Jesus Christ is a real hero, born to save all of humanity from their villains: death, the devil, and sin. God created and perfected The Hero’s Journey through Him, from creating the Ordinary World, to fufilling the Chosen One prophecy of the Old Testament through Christ’s birth in the New Testament. 

Come on an adventure with author Eric Eichinger as he unpacks the saga of Jesus’ Hero Journey. You’ll see how aspects of this journey are seen in popular stories, and how God used Jesus to create the most action-packed one with a real Savior for all. 

Evangelism Explosion Churches will learn a biblically based method for sharing the Gospel along with motivating “on-the-job” training on how to share Christ and disciple new believers. This expanded fourth edition features a new section on friendship evangelism and how to build a vision for worldwide discipline. Through this book, churches will experience what can take place when its leaders and members take seriously the command of Christ to equip the saints to do the work of ministry. Chapters include “Training Laymen for Evangelism,” “A Presentation of the Gospel,” and “The Proper Use of Testimony.”

Christian Fiction by Lynn Austin

When news that the wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates have been burned with fire, Nehemiah, Jewish cupbearer to King Artaxerxes in Persia, seeks God’s guidance. After fasting and prayer, he’s given leave to travel to Jerusalem and rebuild the city wall, not anticipating all the dangers that await him on his arrival.

The leaders of the surrounding nations become his fierce enemies, plotting to assassinate him and halt the work. A drought, meanwhile, has left the country impoverished, many families resorting to selling their children as bondservants just to keep from starving.

Capturing the rebuilding of the wall through the eyes of a number of characters, On This Foundation is a powerful exploration of faith in the midst of oppression, and hope that, in spite of appearances, the gracious hand of God is upon those who believe.

In Their Darkest Hour, Where Would Hope Be Found?

In one life-changing moment, the lives of the exiles in Babylon are thrown into despair when a decree from the king’s palace calls for the annihilation of every Jewish man, woman, and child throughout the empire in less than one year.

Ezra, a quiet but brilliant scholar, soon finds himself called upon to become the leader of his people. Forced to rally an army when all his training has been in the Torah, he struggles to bring hope in a time of utter despair, when dreams of the future–of family and love–seem impossible.

In Keepers of the Covenant, acclaimed novelist Lynn Austin weaves together the struggles and stories of both Jews and Gentiles, creating a tapestry of faith and doubt, love and loss. Here, the Old Testament comes to life, demonstrating the everlasting hope displayed in God’s unwavering love for His people.  

Cataclysmic have shaken our world. Uncertainty is on the rise, and so is interest in the occult and astrology. Startling discoveries related by eminent theologian Dr. James Kennedy prove that God created the Zodiac! God intended the stars to foretell the future of the world. Discover what Dr. Kennedy calls biblical astrology or the Gospel of the stars. Reading the book: The Real Meaning of the Zodiac, just might give you an insight into your future.

Someone’s Making a Monkey Out of You is designed to help you understand the differences between Evolution and the teachings about creation from the Bible. This book breaks down complex scientific issues in a quick, easy-to-understand way. Ideal for teaching, the book also includes memory acronyms to provide you with Biblically sound and scientifically accurate answers when you encounter Evolutionary teaching.

Today, Christians (and those considering the Christian faith) increasingly doubt the Bible’s reliability. Why? What changed?

Revised & Expanded for this special 25th-anniversary edition, Ken Ham points out the looming precipice too many church leaders are rushing towards a denial of the full authority and accuracy of the Bible from its very first verse. In addition, Ken powerfully shows how the unproven, unscientific philosophy of evolution is driving young people away from the Christian faith and provides solid, biblical solutions to turn things around.

The Lie uncovers:

• Why Genesis remains critically important in presenting the Gospel
• This slippery slope of reinterpreting Scripture and redefining biblical doctrine
• How the handling of the biblical account of creation impacts your understanding of all of Scripture and your worldview
• The collapsing structure of Christianity as Genesis is questioned, compromised, and dismissed
• The religion of evolution
• The authority of God’s Word versus man’s fallible word
• Genesis as the foundation for all biblical doctrine
• Evolutionary ideas are actually destructive to the foundational message of the Cross of Jesus Christ
• Evolution is used to justify social issues such as abortion, communism, drug abuse, homosexual practices and worse
• The successful use of creation evangelism to present the whole gospel message

These issues are of critical importance when you realize that today we have Christians questioning Genesis, the age of the earth, the reality of Hell, Adam as a real person, and Christ’s own words about creation, marriage and more. One compromise just leads to another and it has to end if we want to leave a legacy of faith to future generations.

Churches, individuals, and Bible colleges are using this Christian apologetic resource to strengthen their faith, families, and sharing of the whole gospel of Jesus Christ.

A man claiming to be Jesus is in Rome. Is it the beginning of the end?

Joshua Ben-Yosef attracts a huge following. He was born in Nazareth to parents name Mary and Joseph and speaks more than a dozen languages―fluently and without accent. His words ripple with wisdom and authority. And the crowds that follow him are enthralled as he heals the sick, gives sight to the blind, casts out demons, and even raises the dead.

Is Dr. Merton, the well-known leader and author of end-times books, correct about the return of Christ? It seems everyone is a believer in this “Messiah”―including Jonathan Weber’s wife, Shannon―especially when Joshua performs the ultimate sign by raising a disciple from the dead. Plagued by skepticism, Jonathan faces the ultimate challenge in uncovering whether this is the actual return of Christ of the most devious betrayal ever carried out.

Over 250,000 copies sold. This anniversary edition celebrates 50 years of Whitcomb and Morris’s biblically-based system of creationism and catastrophism that unifies and correlates scientific data from early earth history a modern creationist classic.

Since the first cave discoveries in Germany’s Neander Valley, we have been fascinated by these thick-browned, powerful creatures. Who were they and where did they go? A centerpiece in the study of human evolution, Neanderthal Man has, by his own mysterious demise, created more questions than he has answered.

But what if Neanderthals could answer for themselves and tell us about their origins?
Now, for the first time, that is possible through the original research of Jack Cuozzo. Fascinated by Neanderthal Man for over two decades, Cuozzo, an orthodontist, has fashioned a research book that will clutch the attention of scientists and laypersons alike, for the Neanderthal family has finally emerged to tell a shocking story.

What happens when an evolutionary biologist is overwhelmed with scientific evidences of God’s plan in nature?

After three years of trying to “prove evolution” to skeptical professors in his science department, Gary Parker finally realized that the scientific evidence we see in God’s world agrees with what we read in God’s Word.

In Creation Facts of Life, Dr. Parker respectfully describes the evidences he once used to “preach” evolution–but then he explains how the “rest of the evidence” points away from evolution and toward a perfect world created by God, ruined by man, restored to new life in Christ! In easy-to-follow conversational style, Dr. Parker discusses:

• DNA and genetics
• Life before birth
• Mutations
• Adaptations
• Natural Selection
• Fossils
• The Geologic Column
• The Grand Canyon

Featuring 113 primary source documents, The U.S. Constitution: A Reader was developed for teaching the core course on the U.S. Constitution at Hillsdale College.

Divided into eleven sections with introductions by members of Hillsdale’s Politics Department faculty, readings cover:
-the principles of the American founding;
-the framing and structure of the Constitution;
-the secession crisis and the Civil War;
-the Progressive rejection of the Constitution; and
-the building of the administrative state based on Progressive principles.

America’s Founders created a form of government which had, in the words of James Madison, “no model on the face of the earth.” Its moral foundation is in the Declaration of Independence and its principle of equal natural rights. Under the Constitution, government was to be limited to protecting those rights.

In recent decades, the way our government operates has departed from the Constitution. Government has become less limited, and our liberties less secure. At the same time, true civic education in America–education in the Constitution–has largely died out. We at Hillsdale College see it as one of our highest duties to reverse this.

Are you ready for adventure?

Join Montana Smith and his dog, Dakota, as they help you dig deep into the Bible to explore Scripture verses and what they mean. Montana and Dakota will lead your family through a year’s worth (52) of weekly devotions filled with special activities, poems, songs, finger plays, and more to make learning fun!

Try a Bible Discovery Devotion today and discover the wonder of God’s world.

The devil is working daily to make you turn away from your faith. Sometimes though, it’s not in grand efforts, but in the small ones your encounter every day. The devil can work through exhaustion, anxiety, temptation, and frustration, all common daily occurrences. But God provides strength to battle the devil’s ways by giving you His armor. Follow along in Ephesians 6 to see the armor God equips you with to defend yourself against Satan.

Each piece of armor­—belt of truth, breastplate of righteousness, shoes of peace, shield of faith, helmet of salvation, sword of the spirit—is given for you to defend yourself with. They all help you in various ways during the day, such as seeing the truth through lies, and walking with peace to keep stress away. Discover them all with Rev. Christopher Kennedy.

This book also includes an index of prayers and scripture for when you feel that the devil’s attacks need extra defense against. Additionally, a leader guide is included for you to use as you work through the book by yourself, but more importantly, with others. This book is meant to be shared and worked through with those in your life that are suffering, and this leader guide makes it easy to guide your loved one to God’s armor. Use it as a means of outreach to those around you.

Witnessing starts simply: with one person, broken by sin, speaking to another broken person. Together, they follow the Holy Spirit’s guidance to find the ultimate Healer: Christ. It doesn’t require your life being perfect, nor does it require a vast knowledge of Christianity. The Spirit will work through you to plant the seeds of Christ’s love in the person’s heart.

Rev. Dr. Mark A. Wood invites you and your church members to walk together and find a new definition of witnessing. Using a gardening metaphor of plowing, planting, watering, waiting, and harvesting, you can see how the seeds your congregation plants now, with the help of the Holy Spirit, can be harvested by future generations of Christians to bring those broken by sin to the Savior. 

About the Author

Rev. Dr. Mark A. Wood serves in the LCMS Office of National Mission as the director of the Witness & Outreach Ministry and the director of the LCMS Revitalization Intiative. He is the creator of the Every One His Witness evangelism program and the re:Vitality revitalizatoin program. A 2000 graduate of Concordia Theological Seminary, he earned a doctorate of ministry from Reformed Theological Seminary in 2017. He and his wife, Mary Ellen, have five adult children, seven grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren. 

Between getting kids to school, cooking dinner, and doing laundry it’s difficult to find time in your busy schedule to continue studying and learning God’s word. Well known Bible stories such as the Creation story, Moses’s parting of the Red Sea, and David and Goliath are easy to remember. But many smaller Bible stories are forgotten over time. 30 Days To Know The Bible will lead you through each book of the Bible in just thirty days. Each of the thirty chapters are a brief and effortless read while still highlighting the most important stories in each book.

Revisit your favorite stories, or learn new ones, with Rev. Wayne Palmer in only thirty days. Each Book of the Bible is divided into easy-to-understand sections with compelling Scripture verses that allow you to dig deeper into your understanding or simply get to know God’s Word on the surface. The “Dig Deeper Challenge” allows you to question your understanding and uncover new findings as you read. No matter your understanding of the Bible, spending thirty days immersed in it will enrich your faith life and help the Holy Spirit guide you to the narratives and messages God wants you to hear.

From struggle to jubilation, the Psalms reveal the human experience. They exhibit a broad, stunning range of human emotion from God’s creation and serve as a summary of the entire Bible. The Psalms also serve as a wonderful tool for devotion and reflection. Engaging the Psalms: A Guide for Reflection and Prayer guides you through all 150 Psalms to find quiet devotional time within each line of scripture. 

Using a threefold approach to devotional time, known as the three R’s, you can deepen your understanding of the Psalms. The three R’s are: Request the Spirit’s help in prayer, Read and repeat the Word, Return to the Lord in prayer. Using these three guides you can gain the most out of your devotional time in the Word with fill in the blank prayer portions and insightful questions to help you think about each individual line.

This book is designed to educate readers on one’s vocation and what that means in terms of living out our life in our various and overlapping vocational arenas – family, professional, community, and congregational.  Throughout the book, what the true meaning of “success” is for a Christian is examined to help the reader discover and live out the life that God uniquely created for them.

The Calling: Live a Life of Significance

*Identify and avoid common mistakes
*Establish eight strategies for living a life of significance
*Set and attain goals
*Diminish your ego to enhance your ability to serve
*Lead a life of simplicity
*Care for yourself so that you are able to care for others

Dr. Kurt Senske serves as Chief Executive Officer of Lutheran Social Services of the South (LSS), as Chair of the Board of Directors of Thrivent Financial for Lutherans, and on the Board of Directors of Lutheran Services in America. He holds a law degree from the University of Illinois College of Law, a BS in Business Administration from Valparaiso University, a master’s degree in International Relations from Schiller International University in Paris, France, and a PhD in Government from the University of Texas at Austin.

Let us fix our eyes on Jesus. Are you tempted to dwell on feelings of guilt and expressions of self-denial during the season of Lent? Triumph at the Cross reminds Christians, by way of the gospel, that Lent is instead a time of joyous renewal. Triumph at the Cross provides 47 devotions–one for each day from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday–to lead you on a journey of cleansing and repentance. Author Harold Senkbeil directs you to the reassurance of Scripture, showing you that Jesus is here among us and that his gifts remain forever sure!

Each Devotion includes a Bible verse, reading, prayer and craft idea.

Tony Dungy’s words and example have intrigued millions of people, particularly following his victory in Super Bowl XLI, the first for an African American coach. How is it possible for a coach—especially a football coach—to win the respect of his players and lead them to the Super Bowl without the screaming histrionics, the profanities, and the demand that the sport come before anything else? How is it possible for anyone to be successful without compromising faith and family? In this inspiring and reflective memoir, now updated with a new chapter, Coach Dungy tells the story of a life lived for God and family—and challenges us all to redefine our ideas of what it means to succeed.

Real Answers
Real Religion
Real Holy Spirituality

There are only two kinds of spirituality in the world. One is false, and one is true. One is the manifestation of the old evil foe who has sent many false spiritualties out into the world, and the other is the holy spirituality found only in faith in the one true God. One is a lie, and one is real.

But which is which?

There is a cultural perfect storm shredding the spiritual landscape of the United States. It travels on the wind of a growing ignorance of both history and the Bible. Christians are losing faith because the kind of Christianity they are trying to believe is

BROKEN

This book examines seven of the most common spiritual traditions and how they use speculation, mysticism, and moralism to break Christianity. Author Jonathan Fisk calls them the seven “counterfeit Christian rules that every Christian ought to break as often as possible,” because they are seven myths that have infiltrated the churches in our age, seven teachings taught as if they were doctrine, but which are nothing more than the traditions of men.

The dark secret of Christianity in America is that we are losing.
We hide it with light shows, Christian dance and music, and video games,
but it’s true. And it’s not new.

The house has grown too dirty. Fisk is going to sweep it clean. All of it: the dusty corners where spores of speculation lay, the air filled with the mustiness of mysticism, the grout where the mold of moralism has grown thick over our clean confidence in Christ. Once the grime has been scrubbed away, Fisk shows how, under the cross of Jesus, you will find that your mind, heart, and hands, your reason, emotions, and sense of mercy, are the very things that our Lord has redeemed. In the resurrection of Jesus, in His fulfillment of the Law, in the essence of His Gospel, in the pure Word of God, you will find the truth.

Luther’s Small Catechism has been a guidebook and devotional material for generations of Lutherans. Now, elevate your devotional time with The Illuminated Catechism, a coloring book inspired by Martin Luther’s writings in the Catechism. Each spread includes more than just the Catechism. Read questions that ask you to think deeply about the explanation and symbols on the page. Read a Bible passage and a verse from Lutheran Service Book that connect to each spread, ensuring that you’re getting the most out of your devotional time with Christ. Blank space in the margins allows you to doodle on your own, or add personal insight into what you’re thinking or feeling. This adult coloring book is a perfect gift for confirmands or graduates to take with them through their new stages of life. For families: use this coloring book as a family devotional resource, letting children color the beautiful images while also teaching them Luther’s important teachings, even before confirmation classes begin. For adults, relax and unwind in a quiet moment with loved teachings and delightful illustrations.