Blue Collar Believer

This book is written from a personal coming of age perspective. It shares the many years and stages of a non-believer and the radical transformation to a believer. Though many of the stories can be quite embarrassing for the author at times, he feels it is imperative to share his memories, leaving nothing out, with a no holds barred approach revealing a lifestyle worth of much shame. The transformation is the key to the story, as he is led by the Holy Spirit. As his story develops, life then takes on new meaning and he admires how God works His providence, trusting in His will to be done. Lives can change, as you will see, but that does not mean there wont be opposition. As you will come to learn through Blue Collar Believer, sometimes the biggest obstacles come with the ones you love the most. It takes the reality of life, which is death, and this is the only tool to give the afterlife serious thought. Though we can appeal to the intellect, it is up to the Holy Spirt to convict the heart. As an ambassadors for Christ, we must always be ready for opportunities to defend the gospel, showing love and compassion. We live in a lost and dying world, and if only it were easy to share the Gospel and get a positive response 100% of the time, but as you will see, this just not is the case. Jesus said, He who has ears, let him hear. Unfortunately most ears who hear are deaf, but that does not mean we give up. Persistence and love for the lost can do wonders and all things are possible with God. Journey with Blue Collar Believer, from beginning to end and be guided on a tour with a testimony that will not soon be forgotten. It is an emotional roller coaster, filled with many ups and downs. You will laugh, you will cry, but more importantly, it will get you to think. If you have to see it to believe it, get ready to experience it for yourself through the words of a Blue Collar Believer.

Stupid is the new smart—but it wasn’t always so Popular culture has divorced itself from the life of the mind. Who has time for great books or deep thought when there is Jersey Shore to watch, a txt 2 respond 2, and World of Warcraft to play? At the same time, those who pursue the life of the mind have insulated themselves from popular culture. Speaking in insider jargon and writing unread books, intellectuals have locked themselves away in a ghetto of their own creation. It wasn’t always so. Blue Collar Intellectuals vividly captures a time in the twentieth century when the everyman aspired to high culture and when intellectuals descended from the ivory tower to speak to the everyman. Author Daniel J. Flynn profiles thinkers from working-class backgrounds who played a prominent role in American life by addressing their intellectual work to a mass audience. Blue Collar Intellectuals tells the fascinating story of the unschooled hobo who migrated from skid row anonymity to White House chats with the president and prime-time TV specials. Blue Collar Intellectuals tells the fascinating story of: •The scandalous teacher-student romance that spawned a half-century labor of love in writing the history of the world. •The Ivy League Ph.D. who held neither a high school nor college degree, and fittingly launched a renaissance in reading the great books outside of formal schools. •The scholarship student who experienced the free market firsthand waiting tables and peddling socks, and who became one of capitalism’s most influential exponents. •The impoverished outcast who became the poet of the pulps, elevating millions of readers along with heretofore marginal genres. Guiding us through a world now vanished, Flynn causes us to look anew at our own digital age and its nostrums: Video gaming is just a new form of literacy, Reality shows . . . Challenge our emotional intelligence, and Who cares if Johnny can’t read? The value of books is overstated. Blue Collar Intellectuals shows us how much everyone intellectual and everyman alike has suffered from mass culture’s crowding out of higher things and the elite’s failure to engage the masses.

Phil's desire is to see growth and maturity in all facets of people's lives. He is passionate about encouraging and equipping people to be fruitful in their abilities and relationships toward God and each other. Phil has always felt strongly about the priesthood of every believer, the work of the Holy Spirit in each life and the everyday, non-vocational ministry that results; as such, he has spent over twenty-eight years ministering in conjunction with alternate employment in various professions spanning three cities and two provinces. Phil has been married to Linda for thirty-one years, and they have five children. When God's truth is offered, there has to be a connection from truth that we already know to truth that we are about to discover. The very order of our world would teach us that there has to be a line of reasoning that does not break. There is connection, there is purpose and there is order. This needs to happen through "clay pots." When this book reaches the hands of another worker and helps to establish their life, that will be success. My prayer is that this book would be a catalyst toward that process.

The MPs’ expenses scandal in England and Wales and the international banking crisis have both brought into focus a concern about ‘elite’ individuals and their treatment by criminal justice systems. This interest intersects with a well-established concern within criminology for the transgressions of such offenders. However, up until now there has been little sustained consideration of what happens to such offenders following conviction and little discussion of how they attempt to avoid reoffending in the wake of their punishment. This study rectifies this omission by drawing upon white-collar offenders’ own accounts of their punishment and their attempts to make new lives in the aftermath of it. Detailing the impact of imprisonment on white-collar offenders, their release from prison and efforts to be successful again, this book outlines the particular strategies white-collar offenders used to cope with the difficulties they encountered and also analyses the ways they tried to work out ‘who they were’ in the post-release worlds they found themselves in. Representing the first sustained qualitative study of white-collar offenders and desistance from crime, this book will be of interest to academics and students engaged in the study of white-collar crime, desistance from crime and prison. The insights it offers into a particular group of offenders’ experience of criminal justice would also make it useful for criminal justice practitioners and anyone who wishes to understand the challenges faced by a group of offenders who are assumed to have many advantages when it comes to desisting from crime.

Too often people believe that they have to be perfect to be forgiven, but Christ came to save the lost. Just because an alcoholic accepts Christ though, or goes to AA, does not mean he will necessarily be able to stop his addictions. Learn about the poignant struggle of one believer and what the Bible really has to say about addiction, Heaven and Hell, and who Jesus really is.

To be faithful to the gospel, all ministry must be indigenous; it must participate in the distinctive practices and perspectives of the people among whom ministry is taking place. Because our society tends to ignore or deny the reality of class divisions and prejudice, too many congregational leaders know too little about the world of working class whites. Continuing his groundbreaking work on class and American religion, Sample opens up the lives and lifestyles of working class whites in order to engage with them in authentic and transformational ministry.From the Circuit Rider review: "Tex Sample has written one of the most fun books to read on ministry that you will ever come across. Weaving philosophy, theology, country western lyrics, and stories throughout the book Sample at once delights and provokes us to think about the way in which we live out church in this day and age." (Click here to read the whole review.)

This book enables worship leaders to skillfully guide spiritual novices, skeptics, and Christian veterans to the grace embedded in the timeless liturgy. Offering winsome worship hospitality, these pages provide seasoned wisdom, often in the form of pithy introductions (Adams calls these “frames”) that alert worshipers to the character and purpose of various service elements. Readers get the tools to create their own frames, informed by the church of all ages, and customized to their congregation and neighborhood. This book will serve well anyone who wants to increase their missional worship IQ.

David Crisp uses humor and everyday life experiences to effectively communicate timeless scriptural truths that challenge and inspire both the believer and the seeker. Drawing from time he spent growing up on a farm in western Kansas, a season as a Deputy Sheriff, 15 years serving as the pastor of a growing suburban church, and lessons learned from 27 years of marriage and raising two sons, David Crisp weaves together home-spun humor, common sense and Biblical truth into a comfortable patch-work quilt of a devotional book that sometimes evokes a grin, sometimes a tear, but always interesting and introspective thoughts about life while keeping a consistent focus on Christ.