Few pastors or Christian writers have dared to approach the subject of how proper eating and an active lifestyle can affect how we serve God. Author Gary Thomas does just that. And he reaches all the way back to the apostle Paul, who wrote that we need to prime our bodies to become, "an instrument for noble purposes, made holy, useful to the Master and prepared to do any good work." To illustrate the body/soul correlation, Thomas presents engaging and diverse stories that include a young mom who got fit through volleyball and reaped spiritual rewards in her marriage, a 300-pound pastor who realized his obesity was eroding his ministry impact, and a woman who gained the spiritual strength to survive a contentious divorce by training for a marathon. In every instance, Thomas makes a direct connection between the physical challenge and its spiritual consequence.This book is a must read for anyone seeking new and compelling motivation for strengthening their bodies and fortifying their souls.

Shortlisted for the Political Book Awards 2013 Political Book of the Year The first woman President of Ireland, who became UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson has spent her life in pursuit of a fairer world. Now, for the first time, she reveals what lies behind the vision, strength and determination that has helped her to achieve so much for human rights around the globe. She describes the upbringing which gave her her strong sense of values and how she came into painful conflict with her parents - marrying against their wishes and, later, helping to legalise contraception in a deeply Catholic Ireland. As a barrister she won landmark cases advancing the causes of women and the marginalised against the prejudices of the day. When - to the surprise of many - she became the first woman President of Ireland in 1990, she put Ireland firmly on the international stage. Accepting the position of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in 1997 was her biggest challenge and here she describes the huge political difficulties she encountered among the many triumphs. Subsequently, based in New York, she led Realizing Rights for eight years, pioneering how to implement in practice economic and social rights: working in African countries on health, decent work, corporate responsibility and women's empowerment in peace and security. Now heading her own Climate Justice foundation she has succeeded in finding the independence she needs to work effectively on behalf of the millions of poor around the world most affected by climate change. Told with the same calm conviction and modest pride that has guided her life, Everybody Matters will inspire everyone who reads it with the belief that each of us can, in our own way, help to change the world for the better.

“Bob Chapman, CEO of the $1.7 billion manufacturing company Barry-Wehmiller, is on a mission to change the way businesses treat their employees.” – Inc. Magazine Starting in 1997, Bob Chapman and Barry-Wehmiller have pioneered a dramatically different approach to leadership that creates off-the-charts morale, loyalty, creativity, and business performance. The company utterly rejects the idea that employees are simply functions, to be moved around, "managed" with carrots and sticks, or discarded at will. Instead, Barry-Wehmiller manifests the reality that every single person matters, just like in a family. That’s not a cliché on a mission statement; it’s the bedrock of the company’s success. During tough times a family pulls together, makes sacrifices together, and endures short-term pain together. If a parent loses his or her job, a family doesn’t lay off one of the kids. That’s the approach Barry-Wehmiller took when the Great Recession caused revenue to plunge for more than a year. Instead of mass layoffs, they found creative and caring ways to cut costs, such as asking team members to take a month of unpaid leave. As a result, Barry-Wehmiller emerged from the downturn with higher employee morale than ever before. It’s natural to be skeptical when you first hear about this approach. Every time Barry-Wehmiller acquires a company that relied on traditional management practices, the new team members are skeptical too. But they soon learn what it’s like to work at an exceptional workplace where the goal is for everyone to feel trusted and cared for—and where it’s expected that they will justify that trust by caring for each other and putting the common good first. Chapman and coauthor Raj Sisodia show how any organization can reject the traumatic consequences of rolling layoffs, dehumanizing rules, and hypercompetitive cultures. Once you stop treating people like functions or costs, disengaged workers begin to share their gifts and talents toward a shared future. Uninspired workers stop feeling that their jobs have no meaning. Frustrated workers stop taking their bad days out on their spouses and kids. And everyone stops counting the minutes until it’s time to go home. This book chronicles Chapman’s journey to find his true calling, going behind the scenes as his team tackles real-world challenges with caring, empathy, and inspiration. It also provides clear steps to transform your own workplace, whether you lead two people or two hundred thousand. While the Barry-Wehmiller way isn’t easy, it is simple. As the authors put it: "Everyone wants to do better. Trust them. Leaders are everywhere. Find them. People achieve good things, big and small, every day. Celebrate them. Some people wish things were different. Listen to them. Everybody matters. Show them."

Small churches need the work of all of their people to survive, and this means that there's a productive place in the church family for every person, no matter how gifted or challenged. Small churches are uniquely personal, and they provide an unparalleled opportunity for Christians to learn, grow, and live out their faith consciously, every day. Small churches become a family, children of God, and brothers and sisters of Jesus together. There's no place to hide in a small church. The normal human dramas of good and evil, sin and repentance, forgiveness and reconciliation all happen in our relationships in the family. A small church is a place where people can serve an apprenticeship in faith, learning from those before them and passing on their experience to those around them. In a small church the pastor provides context by preaching and teaching, serves as a role model in encouraging the ministry of others, and, by loving the people, helps them see themselves through God's eyes. The rest is up to the people themselves and to God.

A beautifully illustrated picture book that introduces children to the concept of respect. It explains that everyone deserves respect, whether by being treated fairly or by not being discriminated against because they are different. It explains how to earn respect, by being polite, honest and listening to others. It also explains how having respect for ourselves and others makes the world a better place. Notes for parents and teachers at the back of the book provide valuable advice for how to share this book with your child or class. Written by a trained psychotherapist, journalist and parent, and illustrated by an experienced children's book artist, this title is part of an acclaimed and successful series of picture-book non-fiction for Early Years. Books in the series give advice and promote interaction between children, parents, and teachers on a wide variety of personal, social and emotional issues.

Focusing on the sociological embodiment of various "social actors", the authors consider the subsequent links with the constraints of daily life i.e. the male body, female therapists, body builders, marital and sexual counsellors, sex workers. They present recent or new research findings on aspects of the body, variants from what is conventionally seen as "natural" and consider and question aspects of self-image versus society's expectations. A number of developments in discussions of the body on such topics as feminist thought, the study of health and illness and cultural theory are presented as a series of essays which demonstrate the variety of interests mentioned.; The book is aimed at undergraduates/postgraduates students and lecturers in sociology, cultural studies, women's and gender studies.

Body Matters approaches the material world directly; it seeks to remind people that they are the matter of their bodies. This volume offers an assortment of contributions from anthropology, archaeology and medieval studies, with case studies from northern Europe, the Near East, East Africa and Amazonia, which variously draw attention to the multiple shifting materials that comprise, impact upon and co-create human bodies. This lively collection foregrounds myriad material influences interacting with and shaping the human body; the chapters come together to illustrate the fundamental fleshy, bony, suppurating, leaky and oozing physicality of being human. Ultimately, by reminding readers of their indisputable materiality, Body Matters seeks to draw people and the rest of the material world together to illustrate that bodies not only seep into (and are part of) the landscape, but equally that people and the material world are inextricably co-constitutive.

This book is a posthumous tribute to bisexual philosopher, theologian, AIDS-activist and educator, Shaykh Dr. Ibrahim Abdurrahman Farajajé (b. 1952; d. 2016) and contains scholarship, critical engagement, and creative responses that illustrate the significance of his life and work to queer theory, liberation theology, decoloniality, Islamic/Tasawwuf studies, sacred sexuality, religious responses to HIV/AIDS, and a counter-hegemonic understanding of our world. In addition to the work of his former colleagues, students, mentees, and those his work inspired, the collection contains Dr. Farajajé’s essays and speeches—many of which were not previously published. Because of the breadth and depth of its contents as a definitive text, this collection is a foundational guide to proceeding scholarship on Dr. Farajajé and his legacy. Born in Berkeley, CA, one of the earliest male students to graduate from Vassar College, Dr. Theol. magna cum laude from University of Bern, holder of a chair in the sociology of religion at Howard University during the height of the HIV/AIDS crisis, and provost of Starr King School for the Ministry, the premier hub for the academic and vocational exploration of multi-religious identity and practice, Dr. Farajajé lived the values advanced in his work through his choice of professional affiliations and modes of activism-scholarship. This book will be a key resource for scholars of queer theology and ethics, Islamic studies, cultural and social understandings of HIV/AIDS as well as religious studies and theology more generally. One of the chapters in this volume was originally published in the book titled, Male Lust: Pleasure, Power, and Transformation, edited by Kerwin Brook, Jill Nagle, Baruch Gould. Other chapters were originally published as a special issue of Journal of Bisexuality.