Holy Discontent

What is the one aspect of this broken world that, when you see it, touch it, get near it, you just can’t stand? Very likely, that firestorm of frustration reflects your holy discontent, a reality so troubling that you are thrust off the couch and into the game. It’s during these defining times when your eyes open to the needs surrounding you and your heart hungers to respond that you hear God say, “I feel the same way about this problem. Now, let’s go solve it together!”Bill Hybels invites you to consider the dramatic impact your life will have when you allow your holy discontent to fuel instead of frustrate you. Using examples from the Bible, his own life, and the experiences of others, Hybels shows how you can find and feed your personal area of holy discontent, fight for it when things get risky, and follow it when it takes a mid-course turn. As you live from the energy of your holy discontent, you’ll fulfill your role in setting what is wrong in this world right!

In this made-for-use guidebook, Bill Hybels provides the exact steps needed for ministry leaders to translate the principles described in his book Holy Discontent into practical and effective action. What is the one aspect of this broken world that, when you see it, touch it, or get near it, you just can’t stand? What reality is so troubling that it thrusts you off the couch and into action? This is what Bill Hybels refers to as a holy discontent: a personal “firestorm of frustration” that, although sparked by that which is terribly wrong, can catalyze fierce determination to set things right. It is often during these eye-opening, heart-hungering moments of engagement when you will hear God whisper, “I feel the exact same way about this situation. Now, let’s go solve it together!” Here are the steps and the guidance you need to make that happen. This companion to Holy Discontent includes: • Interactive processing exercises that encourage you to ask the tough questions of your ministry strategy, your supporting organizational structure, and the key people with whom you collaborate • Sidebar stories of ministry leaders who are living and leading from their holy discontent in a variety of contexts • Insightful prompts to help you act on what you learn • Space for personal reflection

Thomas Merton continues to speak with a prophetic voice. The 2015 centenary of his birth provides an opportunity to reconsider both the international reputation and the relevance in today's world of a man who still intrigues, perplexes and challenges - as a Trappist monk, as a writer, as a contemplative, as a social critic, and (in the context of world faiths) as an ecumenist. Merton's extensive writings (many of which were not available until the late 1980s and 1990s) provide the basis of an examination of the various aspects of his story, permitting Merton to speak for himself whenever possible, but enabling also an analysis of his abiding fascination and the discontents - human and divine - that dominated so much of his life. In the light of all that he has to say, we are encouraged to look again at our preconceived ideas about the natural world, the prevailing culture, abuses of power, questions of war and peace, institutions and the freedom of the individual, contemplation and action - and the search for God.

Jonathon Kahn offers a fresh and controversial reading of W.E.B. Du Bois, showing how Du Bois consciously marshals religious rhetoric, concepts, typologies, narratives, virtues, and moods in order to challenge the traditional Christian worldview.

In a society where "upward mobility" is the highest goal, Bill Hybels asks a tough question: Do Christians place God's desires first-or their own? In Descending into Greatness, Hybels and writer Rob Wilkins take the example of Christ's downward journey as it was meant to be; the radical and essential answer for every Christian. In fourteen powerful chapters, the authors explore such topics as How Jesus managed power. The intentional decisions necessary to move down. The uplifting nature of true humility. Abundant life through dying to self. The ambush of joy. Moving down is never an easy matter that can be reduced to a formula. It involves a life committed to discipleship. Descending into Greatness introduces you to the touching stories of modern men and women committed to advancing the kingdom of God: from the pro football player, to the medical missionary, to a businessman wrestling with the priorities in the world of finance. Descending into Greatness asks tough questions and gives hopeful answers. Now, this powerful, urgent message also includes a discussion guide so that you can follow through, too. "Like Christ, we must descend-into self-abandonment, unconditional giving, sacrifice, and death to self. And, like Christ, we will then ascend-into fulfillment, blessing, joy, and purpose."

Popular Bible teacher and author Youssef introduces readers to biblical characters who demonstrate the redemptive power of the journey of contentment. These men and women followed their restlessness back to the God who, in his grace, invites all to enter his rest.

What Du Bois noted has gone largely unstudied until now. In this book, Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham gives us our first full account of the crucial role of black women in making the church a powerful institution for social and political change in the black community. Between 1880 and 1920, the black church served as the most effective vehicle by which men and women alike, pushed down by racism and poverty, regrouped and rallied against emotional and physical defeat. Focusing on the National Baptist Convention, the largest religious movement among black Americans, Higginbotham shows us how women were largely responsible for making the church a force for self-help in the black community. In her account, we see how the efforts of women enabled the church to build schools, provide food and clothing to the poor, and offer a host of social welfare services. And we observe the challenges of black women to patriarchal theology. Class, race, and gender dynamics continually interact in Higginbotham’s nuanced history. She depicts the cooperation, tension, and negotiation that characterized the relationship between men and women church leaders as well as the interaction of southern black and northern white women’s groups. Higginbotham’s history is at once tough-minded and engaging. It portrays the lives of individuals within this movement as lucidly as it delineates feminist thinking and racial politics. She addresses the role of black Baptist women in contesting racism and sexism through a “politics of respectability” and in demanding civil rights, voting rights, equal employment, and educational opportunities. Righteous Discontent finally assigns women their rightful place in the story of political and social activism in the black church. It is central to an understanding of African American social and cultural life and a critical chapter in the history of religion in America.