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A Multi-Site Church Roadtrip: Exploring the New Normal (Leadership Network Innovation Series)
by Warren Bird Geoff Surratt Greg LigonWhat is the rapidly expanding multi-site church movement all about? Experience the revolution for yourself and see why it has become the “new normal” for growing churches. A Multi-Site Church Roadtrip takes pastors, church leaders, and anyone who is interested on a tour of multi-site churches across America to see how those churches are handling the opportunities and challenges raised by this dynamic organizational model. Travel with tour guides Geoff Surratt, Greg Ligon, and Warren Bird, authors of The Multi-Site Church Revolution, and enjoy engaging and humorous on-site narratives that show you the creative ways churches of all kinds are expanding their impact through multiple locations. Hear the inside stories and learn about the latest developments. Find out firsthand how the churches in this book are broadening their options for evangelism, service, and outreach—while making better use of their ministry funds. Since each church on this tour is unique, you won’t find a cookie-cutter approach to ministry. Instead, you’ll gain some practical tools you can use to explore a multi-site direction at your own church.
A Multitude of All Peoples: Engaging Ancient Christianity's Global Identity (Missiological Engagements)
by Vince L. Bantubecomingalways beenA Multitude of All Peoples
A Murder Among Friends
by Ramona RichardsThe death of bestselling author Aaron Jackson turned Maggie Weston's world inside out. The manager of Jackson's Writers Retreat, Maggie knew a murderer hid among her colleagues and friends. Was it actress Lily Dunne, target of a stalker's obsession? Lily's writer husband, struggling to make a name for himself? Money-loving Korie, Aaron's wife? Or someone else?Maggie herself stood to inherit from Aaron's estate. As former New York City cop Fletcher MacAllister piled up evidence against Maggie, only faith kept her strong. And Fletcher needed to rekindle his own faith in time to prevent the killer from claiming another victim.
A Murderous Midsummer: The Western Rising of 1549
by Mark StoyleThe fascinating story of the so-called “Prayer Book Rebellion” of 1549 which saw the people of Devon and Cornwall rise up against the Crown The Western Rising of 1549 was the most catastrophic event to occur in Devon and Cornwall between the Black Death and the Civil War. Beginning as an argument between two men and their vicar, the rebellion led to a siege of Exeter, savage battles with Crown forces, and the deaths of 4,000 local men and women. It represents the most determined attempt by ordinary English people to halt the religious reformation of the Tudor period. Mark Stoyle tells the story of the so-called “Prayer Book Rebellion” in full. Correcting the accepted narrative in a number of places, Stoyle shows that the government in London saw the rebels as a real threat. He demonstrates the importance of regional identity and emphasizes that religion was at the heart of the uprising. This definitive account brings to life the stories of the thousands of men and women who acted to defend their faith almost five hundred years ago.
A Musician Looks At The Psalms: 365 Daily Meditations
by Charles Swindoll Don WyrtzenA Musician Looks at the Psalms is like “a modern-day psalter, written by one who has grappled with the hard realities of life in the workplace, at home, and in the secret sanctuary of his own heart. Like the psalmists, he does not offer pat answers to complex problems. Rather, he strips away the superficialities he encounters in daily living and probes all one hundred and fifty psalms for the light they shed on his spiritual pilgrimage.” Foreword by Charles Swindoll
A Muslim American Slave
by Alison Liebhafsky Des ForgesBorn to a wealthy family in West Africa around 1770, Omar Ibn Said was abducted and sold into slavery in the United States, where he came to the attention of a prominent North Carolina family after filling “the walls of his room with piteous petitions to be released, all written in the Arabic language,” as one local newspaper reported. Ibn Said soon became a local celebrity, and in 1831 he was asked to write his life story, producing the only known surviving American slave narrative written in Arabic. In A Muslim American Slave, scholar and translator Ala Alryyes offers both a definitive translation and an authoritative edition of this singularly important work, lending new insights into the early history of Islam in America and exploring the multiple, shifting interpretations of Ibn Said’s narrative by the nineteenth-century missionaries, ethnographers, and intellectuals who championed it. This edition presents the English translation on pages facing facsimile pages of Ibn Said’s Arabic narrative, augmented by Alryyes’s comprehensive introduction, contextual essays and historical commentary by leading literary critics and scholars of Islam and the African diaspora, photographs, maps, and other writings by Omar Ibn Said. The result is an invaluable addition to our understanding of writings by enslaved Americans and a timely reminder that “Islam” and “America” are not mutually exclusive terms. This edition presents the English translation on pages facing facsimile pages of Ibn Said’s Arabic narrative, augmented by Alryyes’s comprehensive introduction and by photographs, maps, and other writings by Omar Ibn Said. The volume also includes contextual essays and historical commentary by literary critics and scholars of Islam and the African diaspora: Michael A. Gomez, Allan D. Austin, Robert J. Allison, Sylviane A. Diouf, Ghada Osman, and Camille F. Forbes. The result is an invaluable addition to our understanding of writings by enslaved Americans and a timely reminder that “Islam” and “America” are not mutually exclusive terms.
A Muslim Conspiracy in British India?: Politics and Paranoia in the Early Nineteenth-Century Deccan
by Chandra MallampalliAs the British prepared for war in Afghanistan in 1839, rumours spread of a Muslim conspiracy based in India's Deccan region. Colonial officials were convinced that itinerant preachers of jihad - whom they labelled 'Wahhabis' - were collaborating with Russian and Persian armies and inspiring Muslim princes to revolt. Officials detained and interrogated Muslim travellers, conducted weapons inspections at princely forts, surveyed mosques, and ultimately annexed territories of the accused. Using untapped archival materials, Chandra Mallampalli describes how local intrigues, often having little to do with 'religion', manufactured belief in a global conspiracy against British rule. By skilfully narrating stories of the alleged conspirators, he shows how fears of the dreaded 'Wahhabi' sometimes prompted colonial authorities to act upon thin evidence, while also inspiring Muslim plots against princes not of their liking. At stake were not only questions about Muslim loyalty, but also the very ideals of a liberal empire.
A Muslim Reformist in Communist Yugoslavia: The Life and Thought of Husein Đozo (Contemporary Thought in the Islamic World)
by Sejad MekićA Muslim Reformist in Communist Yugoslavia examines the Islamic modernist thought of Husein Đozo, a prominent Balkan scholar. Born at a time when the external challenges to the Muslim world were many, and its internal problems both complex and overwhelming, Đozo made it his goal to reinterpret the teachings of the Qur’an and hadīth (prophetic tradition) to a generation for whom the truths and realities of Islam had fallen into disuse. As a Muslim scholar who lived and worked in a European, communist, multi-cultural and multi-religious society, Husein Đozo and his work present us with a particularly exciting account through which to examine the innovative interpretations of Islam. <p><P>For example, through a critical analysis of Đozo’s most significant fatwās and other relevant materials, this book examines the extent of the inherent flexibility of the Islamic law and its ability to respond to Muslim interests in different socio-political conditions. Since Đozo’s writings in general and his fatwās in particular have continued to be published in the Balkan lands up to the present, this monograph should help shed some light on certain assumptions underlying modern Islamic thought and consciousness found in the region.
A Muslim Response to Evil: Said Nursi on the Theodicy (Contemporary Thought in the Islamic World)
by Tubanur Yesilhark OzkanWhile Christian approaches to the problem of evil have been much discussed, the issue of theodicy in Islam is relatively neglected. A Muslim Response to Evil explores new insights and viewpoints and discusses possible solutions to theodicy and the problem of evil through the early philosophy and theology ofIslam as well as through a semantic analysis of evil (sharr) in the Qur’Ä n. Reflecting on Said Nursi’s magnum opus, the Risale-i Nur Collection (Epistles of Light), Tubanur Yesilhark Ozkan puts Nursi’s theodicy into discourse with so called ’secular’ theodicy or ’anthropodicy’, supported by scholars such as Newton, Descartes, Leibniz, Spinoza, Hume, and Kant. Her study offers a fascinating new perspective on the problem of evil for scholars of comparative religion, philosophy of religion, and Islamic thought.
A Muslim Sage Among Peers: Fethullah Gulen in Dialogue with Christians
by John D. BartonThis volume puts Fethullah Gulen and the Hizmet movement in dialogue with Christian theologians, philosophers and organizations concerning areas of shared interest. The Christian voices represented in these constructed dialogues are diverse: contemporary and historical, Catholic and Protestant, theological and pragmatic. While all of the essays explore overlaps and similarities between Gulen and these dialogue partners, they also bring to the surface differences and critical assessments. The result is a multi-faceted conversation that invites us all into deeper levels of historical and theological imagination, self-reflection, and collaborative service.
A Muslim in Victorian America: The Life of Alexander Russell Webb
by Umar F. Abd-AllahA biography of Alexander Russell Webb, a central figure of American Islam during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. A native of the Hudson Valley, he was a journalist, editor, and civil servant. Raised a Presbyterian, Webb early on began to cultivate an interest in other religions and became particularly fascinated by Islam. While serving as U.S. consul to the Philippines in 1887, he took a greater interest in the faith and embraced it in 1888, becoming one of the first Americans known to have done so. Within a few years, he began corresponding with important Muslims in India. Webb became an enthusiastic propagator of the faith, founding the first Islamic institution in the United States: the American Mission. He wrote numerous books intended to introduce Islam to Americans, started the first Islamic press in the United States, published a journal entitled the Modern World, and served as the representative of Islam at the 1893 World's Parliament of Religions in Chicago. In 1901, he was appointed Honorary Turkish Consul General in New York and was invited to Turkey, where he received two Ottoman medals of merit. In this first-ever biography of Webb, Umar F. Abd-Allah examines Webb's life and uses it as a window through which to explore the early history of Islam in America. Except for his adopted faith, every aspect of Webb's life was, as Abd-Allah shows, quintessentially characteristic of his place and time. It is because he was so typically American that he was able to serve as Islam's ambassador to America (and vice versa).
A Mysterious History (Mysteries of Sparrow Island)
by Charlotte CarterOLD WINCHIMELL MANOR on top of Arrowhead Hill has been abandoned for more than a century. Abigail Stanton knows there have been strange doings up at the house, yet she scoffs at the notion that it is haunted. When the town decides to demolish the house, Abby has only one week to find a way to save it, and her efforts lead her into a mystery of betrayal, love and redemption of the human spirit. While Abby is occupied with Winchell Manor, Mary is teaching arts and crafts at the church's vacation Bible school and discovers, amidst her selfconsciousness, gifts she never thought she had. She also meets young Josh Nicholson, a teen who's been helping out at the school. But is he harboring a secret of his own?
A Mystical Portrait of Jesus: New Perspectives on John's Gospel
by Demetrius R. DummThe poetic and symbolic nature of John's gospel betrays the weakness of historical-critical and other ‘scientific’ methods of scriptural exegesis: Although valuable for the insights they do provide, scientific methods are not sensitive to the spiritual dimensions of biblical revelation. Father Dumm therefore offers something more than the traditional chapter-and-verse commentary. Understanding that all of the gospels were written after the resurrection and, consequently, that the passion narrative greatly influenced how the earlier chapters were composed, Father Dumm gives more prominence to the climax of the career of Jesus: his passion, death, and resurrection. By beginning ‘at the end,’ Father Dumm uncovers the guiding principle of this gospel. In the process he makes some surprising discoveries about the dangers of religious ritual but finds remedy for these dangers in the importance of personal mystical experience within the context of a believing community.
A Name of Her Own (Tender Ties #1)
by Jane KirkpatrickBased on the life of Marie Dorion, the first mother to cross the Rocky Mountains and remain in the Northwest,A Name of Her Own is the fictionalized adventure account of a real woman's fight to settle in a new landscape, survive in a nation at war, protect her sons and raise them well and, despite an abusive, alcoholic husband, keep her marriage together. With two rambunctious young sons to raise, Marie Dorion refuses to be left behind in St. Louis when her husband heads West with the Wilson Hunt Astoria expedition of 1811. Faced with hostile landscapes, an untried expedition leader, and her volatile husband, Marie finds that the daring act she hoped would bind her family together may in the end tear them apart. On the journey, Marie meets up with the famous Lewis and Clark interpreter, Sacagawea. Both are Indian women married to mixed-blood men of French Canadian and Indian descent, both are pregnant, both traveled with expeditions led by white men, and both are raising sons in a white world. Together, the women forge a friendship that will strengthen and uphold Marie long after they part, even as she faces the greatest crisis of her life, and as she fights for her family's very survival with the courage and gritty determination that can only be fueled by a mother's love.
A Nanny for Keeps
by Janet Lee BartonA Family in Need With no teaching positions open, Georgia Marshall agrees to become the temporary nanny for the two little girls next door. But she soon becomes enamored of the precocious children and their dashing but distant widowed father. Though she's falling for him, she can't help but think that the nobleman is out of her reach. After the tragic loss of his wife, Tyler Walker swore he'd never again give his heart away. Until his neighbor brightens his home and brings some much-needed stability to his motherless family. But he refuses to allow this arrangement with the pretty teacher to become permanent...no matter how much he wants Georgia by his side-forever.
A Nanny for the Rancher's Twins: An Uplifting Inspirational Romance
by Heidi MainReturning to small-town Texas was her fresh start. She never expected a ready-made family. What could be better than running a rustic wedding venue? Event planner Laney Taylor has it all laid out…except for the serious renovations her inherited property needs. Rancher Ethan McCaw will help—but only if she&’ll nanny his toddler twins. Laney&’s all about planning weddings for others and shielding her own heart, but Ethan, Zoe and Tori might be just the ones to change her mind…From Love Inspired: Uplifting stories of faith, forgiveness and hope.
A Narrative Community: Voices of Israeli Backpackers
by Chaim NoyAn intertextual examination of the storytelling of Israeli backpackers that analyzes their unique patterns of communication to create a thorough picture of this "narrative community."
A Narrow Bridge: A Novel
by J. J. GesherShortly after Orthodox Jewish Brooklynite Jacob Fischer puts his young family on a bus to visit relatives, the bus explodes in a stunning act of terrorism. HIs faith shattered, Jacob flees the comforts of his community and disappears. He lands up in a predominantly black town in rural Alabama, where he meets Rosie, the single mother of a young son. Their developing relationship, along with the rekindling of his love of music, precipitate events that will change both their lives. This debut novel is a powerful page-turner that follows a complex man on a journey of salvation after tragedy.
A Nashville Collection: Nashville Dreams and Nashville Sweetheart
by Rachel HauckNashville DreamsLast week, I was stocking groceries in Freedom, Alabama. This week, I live in Nashville, Tennessee, about to take the stage at the famous Bluebird Cafe.Sounds fantastic, doesn't it? Only one problem: I've got stage fright.But after years of being ruled by fear and hiding from my dream, I confronted my limited reality and left home. Forget the hometown hunk who wants to make me queen of his doublewide trailer. Forget Momma's doubt-inspiring tirade. I can make it in Music City . . . can't I?So I took a leap of faith, gathered my old guitar, my notebook full of songs, and packed up my '69 Chevy pickup. Look out NashVegas!With the help of some new friends, especially handsome Lee Rivers, my dream is about to find the light of day. But as I face my first night at the Bluebird Cafe, I realize . . . I might just do what comes naturally: Look for the nearest exit and run!Nashville SweetheartWhat do you do when the past you've been dodging shows up at your door with cameras rolling?Aubrey James ruled the charts as the queen of country for over a decade. She'd rocketed to fame in the shadow of her parents' death--both of them pioneers in gospel music. But while her public life--high-profile romances and fights with Music Row execs--made for juicy tabloid headlines, the real and private Aubrey has remained a media mystery.When a former band member betrays Aubrey's trust and sells an "exclusive" to a tabloid, the star knows she must go public with her story. But Aubrey's private world is rocked when the Inside NashVegas interviewer is someone from her past--someone she'd hoped to forget.All the moxie in the world won't let this diva run any longer.
A Nation Born in a Day: How God's Land Grant to Abraham Affects World Affairs and the End Times, and How You Can Partner With God in This Coming Event
by Paul TobertyMuch more than the land Israel now possesses, God has promised expansive boundaries. &“To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the River Euphrates&” --Genesis 15:18 (NKJV). God will fulfill His promise of additional land from the Mediterranean on through parts of Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and the northern tip of Saudi Arabia. In this compelling book, you will come to understand the &“land grant&” God promises to Israel through Abraham. Leaders and governments must understand that peace will follow when the descendants of Abraham possess the entire land that God ordains for His chosen people.A Nation Born in a Day offers powerful teaching along with a 31-day devotional that will provide insight and wisdom as you seek God&’s truth. For effective intercessory prayer, this book guides your participation with God for the peace of Jerusalem as you partner with Israel for their rightful borders!
A Nation in Crisis: The Meltdown of Money, Government and Religion - How To Prepare For The Coming Collapse
by Larry Bates Chuck BatesThis book begins with the premise that the world is a mess in the areas of money, politics, and religion. The authors will show us where we went wrong in these areas through a view of life back when we were "America the Beautiful." This book brings a message of reality and hope and provides strategies for dealing with life. It demonstrates the way to raise up wisdom in a generation that is lacking it.
A Nation of Empire: The Ottoman Legacy of Turkish Modernity
by Michael E. MeekerA history of the political transformation of the Ottoman Empire from the 16th century to the present by an anthropologist who has spent 30 years studying Turkish history and culture.
A Nation of Religions
by Stephen ProtheroThe United States has long been described as a nation of immigrants, but it is also a nation of religions in which Muslims and Methodists, Buddhists and Baptists live and work side by side. This book explores that nation of religions, focusing on how four recently arrived religious communities--Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, and Sikhs--are shaping and, in turn, shaped by American values. For a generation, scholars have been documenting how the landmark legislation that loosened immigration restrictions in 1965 catalyzed the development of the United States as "a nation of Buddhists, Confucianists, and Taoists, as well as Christians," as Supreme Court Justice Tom Clark put it. The contributors to this volume take U. S. religious diversity not as a proposition to be proved but as the truism it has become. Essays address not whether the United States is a Christian or a multireligious nation--clearly, it is both--but how religious diversity is changing the public values, rites, and institutions of the nation and how those values, rites, and institutions are affecting religions centuries old yet relatively new in America. This conversation makes an important contribution to the intensifying public debate about the appropriate role of religion in American politics and society. Contributors: Ihsan Bagby, University of Kentucky Courtney Bender, Columbia University Stephen Dawson, Forest, Virginia David Franz, University of Virginia Hien Duc Do, San Jose State University James Davison Hunter, University of Virginia Prema A. Kurien, Syracuse University Gurinder Singh Mann, University of California, Santa Barbara Vasudha Narayanan, University of Florida Stephen Prothero, Boston University Omid Safi, Colgate University Jennifer Snow, Pasadena, California Robert A. F. Thurman, Columbia University R. Stephen Warner, University of Illinois at Chicago Duncan Ry ken Williams, University of California, Berkeley
A Natural History of Natural Theology
by Johan De Smedt Helen De CruzQuestions about the existence and attributes of God form the subject matter of natural theology, which seeks to gain knowledge of the divine by relying on reason and experience of the world. Arguments in natural theology rely largely on intuitions and inferences that seem natural to us, occurring spontaneously -- at the sight of a beautiful landscape, perhaps, or in wonderment at the complexity of the cosmos -- even to a nonphilosopher. In this book, Helen De Cruz and Johan De Smedt examine the cognitive origins of arguments in natural theology. They find that although natural theological arguments can be very sophisticated, they are rooted in everyday intuitions about purpose, causation, agency, and morality. Using evidence and theories from disciplines including the cognitive science of religion, evolutionary ethics, evolutionary aesthetics, and the cognitive science of testimony, they show that these intuitions emerge early in development and are a stable part of human cognition.De Cruz and De Smedt analyze the cognitive underpinnings of five well-known arguments for the existence of God: the argument from design, the cosmological argument, the moral argument, the argument from beauty, and the argument from miracles. Finally, they consider whether the cognitive origins of these natural theological arguments should affect their rationality.
A Natural History of Natural Theology: The Cognitive Science of Theology and Philosophy of Religion (The\mit Press Ser.)
by Johan De Smedt Helen De CruzAn examination of the cognitive foundations of intuitions about the existence and attributes of God.Questions about the existence and attributes of God form the subject matter of natural theology, which seeks to gain knowledge of the divine by relying on reason and experience of the world. Arguments in natural theology rely largely on intuitions and inferences that seem natural to us, occurring spontaneously—at the sight of a beautiful landscape, perhaps, or in wonderment at the complexity of the cosmos—even to a nonphilosopher. In this book, Helen De Cruz and Johan De Smedt examine the cognitive origins of arguments in natural theology. They find that although natural theological arguments can be very sophisticated, they are rooted in everyday intuitions about purpose, causation, agency, and morality. Using evidence and theories from disciplines including the cognitive science of religion, evolutionary ethics, evolutionary aesthetics, and the cognitive science of testimony, they show that these intuitions emerge early in development and are a stable part of human cognition.De Cruz and De Smedt analyze the cognitive underpinnings of five well-known arguments for the existence of God: the argument from design, the cosmological argument, the moral argument, the argument from beauty, and the argument from miracles. Finally, they consider whether the cognitive origins of these natural theological arguments should affect their rationality.