The Secular Creed: Engaging Five Contemporary Claims
by Rebecca McLaughlin
In this provocative book, Rebecca McLaughlin helps us disentangle the beliefs Christians gladly affirm from those they cannot embrace, and invites us to talk with our neighbors about the things that matter most. Far from opposing love across difference, McLaughlin argues, Christianity is the original source and firmest foundation for true diversity, equality, and life-transforming love.
Ten Words to Live By: Delighting in and Doing What God Commands
Christianity isn’t about following rules, it’s about a relationship. The rise in popularity of this phrase coincides with a growing disinterest and misunderstanding regarding the role of God’s life-giving, perfect law in the Christian life. Rather than the source of joy it was intended to be, the law is viewed as an angry god’s restrictions for a rebellious people.
In Ten Words to Live By, Jen Wilkin presents a fresh biblical look at the Ten Commandments, showing how they come to bear on our lives today as we seek to love God and others, to live in joyful freedom, and to long for that future day when God will be rightly worshiped for eternity. Learn to see the law of God as a feast for your famished soul, open to anyone who calls on the name of the Lord.
Rethink Your Self: The Power of Looking Up Before Looking In
Follow your heart. You do you. You are enough.
We take these slogans for granted, but what if this path to personal happiness leads to a dead-end? In Rethink Your Self, Trevin Wax encourages you to rethink some of our society’s most common assumptions about identity and the road to happiness.
Most people define their identity and purpose by first looking in (to their desires), then looking around (to express their uniqueness), and finally—maybe—looking up (to add a spiritual dimension to life). Rethink Your Self proposes a counter-intuitive approach: looking up before looking in.
It's only when we look up to learn who we were created to be that we discover our true purpose and become our truest selves.
This Changes Everything: How the Gospel Transforms the Teen Years
My name is Jaquelle, and I'm a teenager.
I like football movies, sushi, and dark chocolate. But the biggest, most crucial, most significant thing about me is that my life’s task is to follow Jesus. He is the One who changed my life.
That’s what this book is about.
It’s for teenagers eager to reject the status quo and low standards our culture sets for us. It’s for those of us who don’t want to spend the adolescent years slacking off, but rather standing out and digging deep into what Jesus says about following him. This book will help you see how the truth about God changes everything―our relationships, our time, our sin, our habits, and more―freeing us to live joyful, obedient, and Christ-exalting lives, even while we’re young.
The Gathering Storm: Secularism, Culture, and the Church
A Storm Is Coming
Western civilization and the Christian church stand at a moment of great danger. Facing them both is a hurricane-force battle of ideas that will determine the future of Western civilization and the soul of the Christian church. The forces arrayed against the West and the church are destructive ideologies, policies, and worldviews deeply established among intellectual elites, the political class, and our schools. More menacingly, these forces have also invaded the Christian church.
Holier Than Thou: How God’s Holiness Helps Us Trust Him
Bestselling author Jackie Hill Perry, in her much anticipated follow-up to Gay Girl, Good God, helps us find the reason we don’t trust God— we misunderstand His holiness.
In Holier Than Thou, Jackie walks us through Scripture, shaking the dust off of “holy” as we’ve come to know it and revealing it for what it really is: good news. In these pages, we will see that God is not like us. He is different. He is holy. And that’s exactly what makes Him trustworthy. As it turns out, God being “holier than thou” is actually the best news in the world, and it’s the key to trusting Him.
Before You Lose Your Faith: Deconstructing Doubt in the Church
"I'm deconstructing."
Yet another social-media post announces departure from the Christian faith. The cause could be sex, race, politics, social justice, science, hell or all of the above. For many, Christianity is becoming implausible, even impossible to believe.
While it might be tempting to leave the church in order to find answers Before You Lose Your Faith argues that the church should be the best place to deal with doubts. Featuring contributors such as Claude Atcho, Rachel Gilson, Jay Y. Kim, Brett McCracken, Karen Swallow Prior, Derek Rishmawy, and Jared C. Wilson, this book shows deconstructing need not end in unbelief. In fact, deconstructing can be the road toward reconstructing building up a more mature, robust faith that grapples honestly with the deepest questions of life.
Gospel Fluency: Speaking the Truths of Jesus into the Everyday Stuff of Life
flu·en·cy / noun
:the ability to speak a language easily and effectively
Even if they want to, many Christians find it hard to talk to others about Jesus. Is it possible this difficulty is because we're trying to speak a language we haven't actually spent time practicing?
To become fluent in a new language, you must immerse yourself in it until you actually start to think about life through it. Becoming fluent in the gospel happens the same way―after believing it, we have to intentionally rehearse it (to ourselves and to others) and immerse ourselves in its truths. Only then will we start to see how everything in our lives, from the mundane to the magnificent, is transformed by the hope of the gospel.
Deep Discipleship: How the Church Can Make Whole Disciples of Jesus
Everyone is being discipled. The question is: what is discipling us?
The majority of Christians today are being discipled by popular media, flashy events, and folk theology because churches have neglected their responsibility to make disciples. But the church is not a secondary platform in the mission of God; it is the primary platform God uses to grow people into the image of Jesus. Therefore, as church leaders, it is our primary responsibility to establish environments and relationships where people can be trained, grow, and be sent as disciples.
There are three indispensable elements of discipleship:
- Learning to participate in the biblical story (the Bible)
- Growing in our confession of who God is and who we are (theology)
- Regularly participating in private and corporate intentional action (spiritual disciplines)
10 Questions Every Teen Should Ask (and Answer) about Christianity
by: Rebecca McLaughlin
How can we believe the Bible is true? Why can’t we just agree that love is love? Isn’t Christianity against diversity?
Going to school, hanging out with friends, or scrolling through social media feeds, teenagers are sure to face real challenges to faith in Jesus Christ. And whether you consider yourself a Christ follower or not, these questions can seem like deal breakers.
