Transform your church with grace. Doing Justice Together introduces a process using Scripture as a souce of inspiration and instruction for pastors and church people to move through together, to re-envision and reorient themselves away from old, harmful habits. Beck and Hand show pastors how they can, over time, lead the congregation to become a place where racial harmony, justice, and liberation are intrinsic to the structure and life of the church. The authors lay out four pathways for discerning and correcting the unjust patterns that often sneak into church life unnoticed. They also share other leaders’ stories from a variety of settings where this process has led to healing, revival, and hope. Following the pathways, pastors and congregants will be equipped to thoughtfully transform their church. They’ll make changes with grace and care, honoring and including longtime members. And they’ll begin new ministries—perhaps reaching people they could never have imagined reaching before--becoming a fresh expression of church in their community.

Dennis Jacobsen brings his many years of experience doing congregation-based organizing for justice into conversation with unique spiritual reflections. Jacobsen has learned along the way that deeper reflection must precede organizing action. He says, "As I age, I have respect for those who faithfully enter the inner room of their soul to meet and love God. Social action is messy and disruptive and noisy." Jacobsen turns to his work creating and meditating on icons to connect biblical themes and Christian personalities to guide those who are preparing for congregation-organizing and faith-based social action. His unique perspectives help anyone engaged in such work go deeper in prayer and devotion before diving into the messy work of organizing. This book follows his first volume, Doing Justice: Congregations and Community Organizing, in which Jacobsen explored biblical and theological reasons congregation-based organizing offers a faithful way of living out the teachings of Jesus. In this new volume, he seeks to integrate spiritual practices (reflections on iconography, in particular) that he claims are foundational to congregation-based community organizing. The book includes introductory chapters to describe his own spiritual practice around icons, several chapters on different figures and what can be learned or gleaned from them as one prepares for justice work. The final section provides a month-long daily office for doing justice, which participants may adopt in their life of prayer and faithful reflection.

This study examines the principles and practices of the Afikpo (Eugbo) Nigeria indigenous justice system in contemporary times. Like most African societies, the Afikpo indigenous justice system employs restorative, transformative and communitarian principles in conflict resolution. This book describes the processes of community empowerment, participatory justice system and how regular institutions of society that provide education, social and economic support are also effective in early intervention in disputes and prevention of conflicts.

Echoes of Mercy, Whispers of Love connects the work of Alfred North Whitehead, process writers, Bishop Desmond Tutu, Henri Nouwen, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and others, to present a defense or apologetic for faith, hope, and love in action. This kind of faith and hope leads to transformed lives and transformed communities. A theology of hope provides a framework for counseling troubled, despairing persons in the midst of acute suffering, loss, and tragedy. Doty identifies the need for a healthy religion that will inspire, transform, and enable personal and community healing. This is the work of peacemaking in families and in our world. This book will connect with an audience that includes all believers and all who live with doubts and questions. All seekers for peace, hope, and truth in our post-modern era will find this a stimulating and helpful dialogue with the hard questions. Doty poses searching questions for readers reflection. This book promises to provide inspiration, Hope, and a rare opportunity for spiritual formation in the midst of life struggles. Hooray for Pauline Doty! Her courage encourages us to lower our lofty traditionsso they may speak with the hurt, pain, loss, grief of our everyday lives. She invites us by her exampletrust our own experience, follow our own questions, create our own process of life in faith and action.By confiding in us, Doty lends confidence that God (by many names and revelations) goes with and before us, all ways and always. This is a book for all whose process of life and work wants healing to lead to hoping, the practical to the prophetic.What a call to confront in urgent grace the outrageouswithin and around us! Rev. John Auer, Retired, Forty years United Methodist congregational urban ministry

The book will provide readers with a wide ranging and critical view of the evolving field of environmental justice scholarship and encourages careful thinking and analysis of what is at issue, and provides a framework for understanding the claim making of environmental justice in spatial, temporal and political context.

What does the Bible have to say about justice, and what relevance has this for people, particularly Christians, today? 'Justice: The Biblical Challenge' offers readers a balanced assessment of the biblical treatment of justice and what we might learn from this. The book opens with a brief overview of the differing social contexts which shaped how people thought about justice in biblical times. The examples of justice are grouped under three key narratives: the story of creation (justice as cosmic order), the story of the Exodus (justice as faithfulness), and the story of Israel (justice as a community of equals). The story of Jesus in Mark is then examined as exemplifying all three narratives. The book then applies these biblical stories to the world we live in now, applying an innovative 'justice audit' which uses the three biblical narratives of justice as yardsticks. The book concludes with an exploration of how readers might apply the ideas raised in the book to working for justice.

An uncompromising appraisal of the unique penal crisis affecting Britain and other Western-style democracies.

Punishment policies and practices in the United States today are unprincipled, chaotic, and much too often unjust. The financial costs are enormous. The moral cost is greater: countless individual injustices, mass incarceration, the world's highest imprisonment rate, extreme disparities, especially affecting members of racial and ethnic minority groups, high rates of wrongful conviction, assembly line case processing, and a general absence of respectful consideration of offenders' interests, circumstances, and needs. In Doing Justice, Preventing Crime, Michael Tonry lays normative and empirical foundations for building new, more just, and more effective systems of sentencing and punishment in the twenty-first century. The overriding goals are to treat people convicted of crimes justly, fairly, and even-handedly; to take sympathetic account of the circumstances of peoples' lives; and to punish no one more severely than he or she deserves. Drawing on philosophy and punishment theory, this book explains the structural changes needed to uphold the rule of law and its requirement that the human dignity of every person be respected. In clear and engaging prose, Michael Tonry surveys what is known about the deterrent, incapacitative, and rehabilitative effects of punishment, and explains what needs to be done to move from an ignoble present to a better future.

Veteran pastor James C. Howell skillfully unpacks one of the most powerful verses in the Old Testament, Micah 6:8: "What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?" Howell illuminates the original context in which this verse was written, while demonstrating how it can still guide us in our lives today. A Leader's Guide is also included in this book, making it a wonderful resource for both group and individual use.

Modern worship leaders are restless. They have inherited a model of leadership that equates leading worship with being a rock star. But leading worship is more than a performance, it's about shaping souls and making disciples. Every worship leader is really a pastor. The Worship Pastor is a practical and biblical introduction to this essential pastoral role. Filled with engaging, illustrative stories it is organized to address questions of theory and practice, striving to balance conversational accessibility with informed instruction. Part One presents a series of evocative "vignettes"--intriguing and descriptive titles and metaphors of who a Worship Pastor is and what he or she does. It shows the Worship Pastor as Church-Lover, Disciple Maker, Corporate Mystic, and Doxological Philosopher. Part Two covers specific roles related to ministry within the worship service itself--the Worship Pastor as Theological Dietician, Caregiver, Mortician, Emotional Shepherd, War General, Prophetic Guardian, Missional Historian, and Liturgical Architect. Part Three looks at ministry beyond the worship service--the Worship Pastor as Visionary Teacher, Evangelist, Artist Chaplain, and Team Leader. While some worship leaders are eager to embrace their pastoral role, many are lost and confused or lack the resources of time or money to figure out what this role looks like. Pastor Zac Hicks gives us a clear guide to leading worship, one that takes the pastoral call seriously.