Brand New Church? aims to make sense of what 'postmodern' actually looks and feels like in real life, and to ask what this means for the church. Over the past few years, Graeme Fancourt has travelled around the UK and USA consulting with a wide range of church leaders, including Sue Wallace, who founded Visions and Transcendence, Jonny Baker, a member of Grace, and Roy Searle of the Northumbria Community. He writes: "The church that I have encountered is thoughtful, active and confident in the gospel . . . Though holding many different views, these leaders all appear to take seriously the need for the church genuinely to engage (positively or negatively) with what it perceives to be the postmodern condition." The author reveals and explores the diversity of thinking found in local churches, in colleges and universities, and expressed in works of contemporary theology: the approaches of a range of writers, such as D. A. Carson, Peter Rollins, Pete Ward, Tom Wright and Stanley Hauerwas are examined to stimulating effect. The result is a thoroughly vibrant read, which offers a broad understanding of how - in these postmodern times - the church might engage fruitfully in dialogue and mission for the sake of all God's people.

In this seventh book in a series about his personal spiritual journey, author D.L.Kline provides more insight from the other side about learning to conquer the fear, anger and guilt that is holding us all back from moving forward in a positive direction in our lives. This book will provide the reader with exercises to overcome those negative emotions, as well as new ways to connect with our higher selves. Ultimately, it will convince everyone who reads it that their life is and must be about unconditional self love.

Arthur Penn: American Director is the comprehensive biography of one of the twentieth century's most influential filmmakers. Thematic chapters lucidly convey the story of Penn's life and career, as well as pertinent events in the history of American film, theater, and television. In the process of tracing the full spectrum of his career, Arthur Penn reveals the enormous scope of Penn's talent and his profound impact on the entertainment industry in an accessible, engaging account of the well-known director's life. Born in 1922 to a family of Philadelphia immigrants, the young Penn was bright but aimless -- especially compared to his talented older brother Irving, who would later become a world-renowned photographer. Penn drifted into directing, but he soon mastered the craft in three mediums: television, Broadway, and motion pictures. By the time he made Bonnie and Clyde (1967), Penn was already a Tony-winning Broadway director and one of the prodigies of the golden age of television. His innovative handling of the story of two Depression-era outlaws not only challenged Hollywood's strict censorship code, it shook the foundation of studio system itself and ushered in the film revolution. His next films -- Alice's Restaurant (1969), Little Big Man (1970), and Night Moves (1975) -- became instant classics, summoning emotions from shock to sensuality and from confusion to horror, all of which reflected the complexity of the man behind the camera. The personal and creative odyssey captured in these pages includes memorable adventures in World War II; the chaotic days of live television; the emergence of Method acting in Hollywood; and experiences with Marlon Brando, Anne Bancroft, Warren Beatty, William Gibson, Lillian Hellman, and a host of other show business legends.

Standing in the Need presents an intimate account of an African American family’s ordeal after Hurricane Katrina. Before the storm struck, this family of one hundred fifty members lived in the bayou communities of St. Bernard Parish just outside New Orleans. Rooted there like the wild red iris of the coastal wetlands, the family had gathered for generations to cook and share homemade seafood meals, savor conversation, and refresh their interconnected lives. In this lively narrative, Katherine Browne weaves together voices and experiences from eight years of post-Katrina research. Her story documents the heartbreaking struggles to remake life after everyone in the family faced ruin. Cast against a recovery landscape managed by outsiders, the efforts of family members to help themselves could get no traction; outsiders undermined any sense of their control over the process. In the end, the insights of the story offer hope. Written for a broad audience and supported by an array of photographs and graphics, Standing in the Need offers readers an inside view of life at its most vulnerable.

Fleeing a secret that changed her life forever, Judith Robertson decides she can live in the little cabin in the woods that she inherited from her grandfather. The big barn and the quaint little church just add to the allure of the four hundred acres of her new home. Within minutes of her decision, Reverend Washington asks to use her church building, and Jacob Fraser wants to cut a deal to timber the woods Judith now owns. But arsonists are burning African-American churches and threatening anyone who dares to intervene. Judith loans her church to the recently burned out members of the All Faith Community Church, which brings troubles beyond anything she ever imagined. And Jacob Fraser is everywhere, causing a heart she'd thought was stone cold dead to flutter with emotions she had lost a long time ago. But Jacob has secrets, too. Can two heartbroken people gain the courage to challenge the status quo and accept the Lord's blessings?

In Hero Maker, you will learn how to bring real change to your church and community by developing the practical skills to help others reach their leadership potential. Drawing on five powerful practices found in the ministry of Jesus, Hero Maker presents the key steps of apprenticeship that will build up other leaders and provide strategies for how you can: activate the gifts of those around you help others take ownership of their mission develop a simple scorecard for measuring your kingdom-building progress With rich insights from the Gospels, Hero Maker is packed with real-life ministry stories ranging from paid staff to volunteer leaders--from established churches to new church plants. Whether you lead ten people or ten thousand, Hero Maker will not only help you maximize your leadership impact; but, in doing so, you will also help shift today's church culture to a model of reproduction and multiplication. Chicago pastor and church planter Dave Ferguson and award-winning writer Warren Bird make a compelling case that God's power and purpose are best revealed when we train and release others to further advance the Kingdom of God. By becoming a hero maker and investing in others, you can join a movement of influencers that are impacting thousands of people around the world. Everybody wants to be a hero, but few understand the power of being a hero maker.

Overcoming Katrina tells the stories of 27 New Orleanians as they fought to survive Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. Their oral histories offer first-hand experiences: three days on a roof with Navy veteran Leonard Smith; at the convention center with waitress Eleanor Thornton; and with Willie Pitford, an elevator man, as he rescued 150 people in New Orleans East. Overcoming approaches the question of why New Orleans matters, from perspectives of the individuals who lived, loved, worked, and celebrated life and death there prior to being scattered across the country by Hurricane Katrina. This book's twenty-seven narrators range from Mack Slan, a conservative businessman who disparages the younger generation for not sharing his ability to make "good, rational decisions," to Kalamu ya Salaam, who was followed by the New Orleans Police Department for several years as a militant defender of Black Power in the late 1960s and '70s. These narratives are memorials to the corner stores, the Baptist churches, the community health clinics, and those streets where the aunties stood on the corner, and whose physical traces have now all been washed away. They conclude with visions of a safer, equitably rebuilt New Orleans. *Scroll down for more audio excerpts from Overcoming Katrina*.

A teacher nicknamed him Stupid for an entire school yearjob-placement counselors told him to steer clear of college due to his academic ineptitudefriends shied away from him because of his love for the artseven those closest to him were mystified by his early passion for the Bible and his lack of interest in sports. And the enemy used it all to torment him daily for years. But Rick Renner was no misfit, as his young mind had been told. He not only marched to the beat of a different drummer from a very young age he was marching to the rhythm of Gods unique calling on his life. It was a call to full-time ministry that drew him through the confusing mire of opposing voices and dream thieves to Soviet lands on the other side of the world to places where his love for the arts was normal, but most importantly, to places that had been spiritually dry and devoid of the Bible for decades, where the people welcomed him and his family with open arms. Ricks intellectual ineptitude was also refuted when he studied Greek in college and went on to become a foremost teacher of New Testament Greek in the international Christian community. Having begun the first Christian television network in the former Soviet Union; produced daily TV teaching programs that air around the world; and written more than 50 books on topics ranging from Church history and spiritual warfare to events concerning the last days, Ricks story is as unlikely as they come. Having grown up in Sand Springs, Oklahoma, Rick now lives in the metropolitan city of Moscow, Russia. In his autobiography, he writes about: the pain of suicide and multiple divorces in his extended family. his struggles against mind-bending spirits that tried to derail him from his youth. his close experience with the spirit of death. angelic encounters. saboteurs on the inside. threats against his life by a motorcycle gang, a madman, and the Russian mafia. a government confrontation when he and his team were building the first Protestant church in that former Soviet republic since it had become a part of the USSR decades earlier. You will laugh and cry and be encouraged and inspired as you read this authors vulnerable account of his unlikely calling and the many obstacles and personal challenges he had to overcome to fulfill it. And youll rejoice to read about his many happy endings, including his unlikely courtship and marriage to his wife Denise, who has accompanied him on the last almost four decades of his fascinating journey. Whether you realize it or not, you have an unlikely story too. And you dont have to be wise, powerful, or prestigious to live the dream of fulfilling your divine destiny. In fact, these arent the best characteristics for submitting your resum to God. Instead, give Him your weakness and your willingness and just watch your own story of unlikely unfold.