Attentive To God

Your attention, please. That's what God wants, Leighton Ford discovered. It's the path to becoming like Christ. Distractions, fear and busyness were keeping Ford from seeing God's work in and around him. He was missing God. So he began a journey of longing and looking for God. And it started with paying attention. In these pages, he invites you to journey with him. Using the rich monastic tradition of praying the hours, Ford will walk with you, helping you pay attention to God's work in you and around you throughout each day and in different seasons of your life. If you're busy, distracted, rushing through each day, you might be feeling disconnected from God, unable to see how he's working. You might be missing him. But the way toward him starts with a pause and a prayer—with intention and attention—and becomes a way of life, awake and alive to the peaceful, powerful presence of God.

“We all know how easy it is to lose concentration and let our attention wander. It happens so easily, and far too frequently, this problem of inattentiveness. This also happens in the spiritual life. God speaks to us but we fail to recognise his voice, our minds are elsewhere, we are not attuned to his whisper. He wants to lead us and guide us, but we miss his gentle promptings. He is present all around us, yet we don’t register his nearness. This robs us of a greater depth in our relationship with him. The purpose of this book is to help you become more consistently aware of God; to train your ear to hear his voice, and your eye to see what he is doing; to grow and improve so you can serve God more effectively.” – Tony Horsfall, in his Introduction

How the pastor reads a situation theologically will define the possibilities for ministry now and for the church's future. The pastor's theological lens affects every ministry task. This book introduces students to the importance of theological reflection. It tells them why theological reflection is crucial to who they are and what they do, and it shows them how they can acquire and strengthen their capacity for theological attentiveness. Central to Wood and Blue's approach is the conviction that pastoral character and pastoral practice are mutually formative. Also through the practice of ministry the pastor's identity is both continually discovered and continually worked on and worked out. All pastors must integrate who they believe themselves to be and who they believe God is to be effective leaders.

The Practice of the Presence of God is a spiritual classic written by Brother Lawrence, a 17th-century Carmelite monk. This small but impactful work is a compilation of letters and conversations attributed to Brother Lawrence, offering profound insights into cultivating a continuous awareness of the presence of God in everyday life.

The hard work required to make God real, how it changes the people who do it, and why it helps explain the enduring power of faith How do gods and spirits come to feel vividly real to people—as if they were standing right next to them? Humans tend to see supernatural agents everywhere, as the cognitive science of religion has shown. But it isn’t easy to maintain a sense that there are invisible spirits who care about you. In How God Becomes Real, acclaimed anthropologist and scholar of religion T. M. Luhrmann argues that people must work incredibly hard to make gods real and that this effort—by changing the people who do it and giving them the benefits they seek from invisible others—helps to explain the enduring power of faith. Drawing on ethnographic studies of evangelical Christians, pagans, magicians, Zoroastrians, Black Catholics, Santeria initiates, and newly orthodox Jews, Luhrmann notes that none of these people behave as if gods and spirits are simply there. Rather, these worshippers make strenuous efforts to create a world in which invisible others matter and can become intensely present and real. The faithful accomplish this through detailed stories, absorption, the cultivation of inner senses, belief in a porous mind, strong sensory experiences, prayer, and other practices. Along the way, Luhrmann shows why faith is harder than belief, why prayer is a metacognitive activity like therapy, why becoming religious is like getting engrossed in a book, and much more. A fascinating account of why religious practices are more powerful than religious beliefs, How God Becomes Real suggests that faith is resilient not because it provides intuitions about gods and spirits—but because it changes the faithful in profound ways.

Author Ed Foley―priest, preacher, and teacher―invites preachers to an awareness of the world and the people around them as a lens for preaching God's Incarnate Word and inviting people into the Paschal Mystery. He maintains that paying attention is a key to theological reflection. When pondering a work of art or a catastrophe, the preacher asks, “Where is God in all of this?” and “How does my preaching invite people to respond to that presence?” Fr. Foley presents excerpts of his own homilies and references to poets, scientists, and other resources―some a bit surprising―as models and suggestions that might draw a preacher’s attention as a sign of God present and active in our midst. In short, this book offers a mindset, not a method, for preachers.

This book is about how to read and study the Bible. This book is about getting the non-Christian to learn how to study the Bible, and this book is for the Pastor and theologian who needs to have their "refresh" button pressed. This book is in fact for anybody desiring to know the Book of ages. If you are new to the Word or are a seasoned teacher. If you do not know where to begin, or you have tried countless times and feel overwhelmed and frustrated, this is the book for you!

In a time before youth were welcomed in short-term missions, Loren Cunningham founded Youth With A Mission to unlock the world for millions. He called young and old, women and men, and every ethnicity to go. Loren Cunningham's dream began with a vision - waves of young people from every nation going to every nation, telling everyone, everywhere about Jesus. How did God move Loren's dream from vision to reality and take him to every country on earth? Loren and his wife, Darlene, grew through tough lessons on hearing and obeying the Lord. This exciting story of Youth With A Mission shows how hearing God's voice is for every believer. Translated into 150+ languages, Is That Really You, God? is a practical guide to hearing God's voice and following His direction to change our hearts and our world. In this legacy edition, read a special new chapter On to Eternity, on "the biggest vision I can imagine" where Loren unveils his final call, to rally this generation to translate the Bible orally into every mother tongue on earth. In addition, see a special tribute called 'Grateful Reflections" on Loren's life from dear friend and senior YWAM leader David Joel Hamilton from his up close and personal experience serving Loren over the decades.