Showing results by narrator "Tom Parks" in All Categories

Faithful Catholics are beginning to realize it’s not their imagination. Pope Francis has led them on a journey from joy to unease to alarm and even a sense of betrayal. They can no longer pretend that he represents merely a change of emphasis in papal teaching. Assessing the confusion sown by this pontificate, Lost Shepherd explains what’s at stake, what’s not at stake, and how loyal believers should respond.

The presidency of George W. Bush has been the subject of extensive commentary but limited scholarly analysis in the years since he left office. 43 draws extensively, but not solely, from the recently released interviews of the Miller Center's Presidential Oral History Program at the University of Virginia.

An expert on youth and youth culture, McKee shares his own heart-rending story and offers a sobering glimpse into the rapidly changing world of bullies, bystanders, and the bullied while providing helpful ways to connect with these kids, open doors of dialogue, and give them the encouragement they need and the validation they're searching for...too often in all the wrong places.

For many employees, feeling burned out and uninspired is nothing new. But going through the motions impairs more than just work performance - it affects your well-being. Wouldn't it be better to feel as engaged and energized as you were on day one? Fortunately, everyone has the ability to rekindle inspiration. The key is to quit waiting for it to happen and take control of the process yourself. Whether you're wrestling with fear, disconnectedness, boredom, or other issues, Find the Fire helps shake off the malaise and dial up the motivation.

The Southern Strategy is traditionally understood as a Goldwater and Nixon-era effort by the Republican Party to win over disaffected white voters in the Democratic stronghold of the American South. To realign these voters with the GOP, the party abandoned its past support for civil rights and used racially coded language to capitalize on southern white racial angst. However, that decision was but one in a series of decisions the GOP made not just on race, but on feminism and religion as well, in what Angie Maxwell and Todd Shields call the "Long Southern Strategy."

Change is the essential goal of the counseling process. How can a Christian counselor facilitate such change? The answer, of course, may be found in Scripture, specifically in 2 Timothy 3:14-17. Professor, pastor, and well-known counselor Jay E. Adams bases his whole approach on Scripture. This...

From turf wars to low morale, most companies attempt to cure what ails them with the latest management fad - and fail. They are treating the symptoms while ignoring the true problem. Success starts with knowing the kind of business you're really in.

At one time or another, we will all find ourselves facing a dark journey—the passage through grief. Experiencing Grief is written for a person who is in the wake of despair grief leaves. This brief but powerful book will help lead listeners out of their grief experience through five stages of grief. At the end of the journey is peace and a seasoned, more mature faith.

Confession is a crucial ritual of the Catholic Church, offering absolution of sin and spiritual guidance to the faithful. Yet this ancient sacrament has also been a source of controversy and oppression, culminating, as prize-winning historian John Cornwell reveals in The Dark Box, with the scandal of clerical child abuse. Drawing on extensive historical sources, contemporary reports, and first-hand accounts, Cornwell takes a hard look at the long evolution of confession.

Everyone loves a good miracle story, and this book provides true stories of healing, divine intervention, and answered prayers. These amazing stories prove that God is alive and very active in the world today, working miracles on our behalf. Regular people share their personal stories of God's Divine intervention and healing power as He makes the impossible possible! The incredible accounts shared by people from all walks of life show His awesome love and involvement in our lives.

Author Jeffrey Johnson begins The Pursuit of Glory with this observation: “You and I are looking for something. Though we may not know exactly what it is, we continue to search for it. What is it? It is glory.” Explaining this pursuit as part of our human condition, the author considers the ways we try to fill that empty place in our hearts through happiness, purpose, freedom, companionship, truth, peace, holiness, and life.

Recent years have seen a growing recognition of the role that White Christian Nationalism plays in American society. As White Christian Nationalism has become a major force, and as racial and religious attitudes become increasingly aligned among whites-for example, the more likely you are to say that the decline of white people as a share of the population is "bad for society," the more likely you are to believe the government should support religious values-it has become reasonable to wonder which of the adjectives in the phrase "White Christian Nationalism" takes precedence.

Experienced pastor and seminary teacher R. Robert Creech helps pastoral leaders increase their effectiveness by applying family systems theory to congregational life and ministry. Creech introduces listeners to the basic concepts of Bowen Family Systems Theory, applies family theory to the work of ministry in church settings, and connects systems thinking to the everyday aspects of congregational ministry, such as preaching, pastoral care, leadership, spiritual formation, and interpreting biblical texts. Each chapter contains discussion questions and helpful information about Bowen theory.

Jesus made it clear that while sexual integrity is expressed through the body, it’s rooted in the mind. But aligning our thoughts with God’s thoughts isn’t always easy. Illicit sexual thoughts don’t need to have free rein in your mind. The Bible provides an arsenal of weapons to win the battle. Jesus invites you to live with full sexual integrity—in your behavior, heart, and mind. Instead of succumbing to the despair and darkness of sin, you can take every thought captive and replace it with thoughts that align with God’s truth.

As the renowned scholar Thomas Oden noted, "No subject of Christian teaching is more prone to fanaticism and novelty and subjectivism than that of the Holy Spirit." The Bible's own metaphors for the Spirit are as elusive as they are evocative - wind, oil, flame, water, dove - making pneumatology a mysterious study. But shying away from the topic is no solution.

With the current divorce rate spiking at a dizzying sixty percent, it is clear that young couples are not being taught the skills needed to navigate through the conflicts and difficulties of being in a committed relationship. Charlie and Linda Bloom, psychotherapists with fifty-five years of combined experience in relationship counseling, are acutely aware of this. For the last fifteen years the Blooms have been leading seminars on improving life relationships through their organization, The Empowerment Network.

What does it take to live a meaningful life? Why are so many people in affluent nations so anxious and unhappy? What difference does believing in God really make? And does belief in the God of the Bible truly make sense today? In this revised edition of The God Question, philosopher J. P. Moreland invites us on a journey to a rich, flourishing life. He digs into the causes of our cultural crisis of unhappiness and considers how the God revealed in Jesus provides the most rational solution to our deepest needs.

Charting the path forward for our churches and ministries in providing care—not a cure— for our non-straight sisters and brothers who are living lives of costly obedience to Jesus. At the start of the gay rights movement in 1969, evangelicalism's leading voices cast a vision for gay people...

Has sex been a source of frustration or pain in your marriage? Celebrating God's beautiful purposes for sex, biblical counselor Scott Mehl helps couples to put God-glorifying sexuality into practice.

For all the debate over Islam and its growing presence in the world, one thing is often overlooked: Islam is not a religion in the sanitized Western sense. It is, in contrast, an all-encompassing sociopolitical legal matrix that has bred a worldview antagonistic to anything but itself. While there may be millions of peaceful and tolerant Muslims, many of them our neighbors, Islam itself is hardly peaceful and tolerant.