Our Witness

Nearly twenty percent of adolescents have developmental disabilities, yet far too often they are marginalized within churches. Amplifying Our Witness challenges congregations to adopt a new, practice-centered approach to congregational ministry -- one that includes and amplifies the witness of adolescents with developmental disabilities. Replete with stories taken from Benjamin Conner's own extensive experience with befriending and discipling adolescents with developmental disabilities, Amplifying Our Witness Shows how churches exclude the mentally disabled in various structural and even theological ways Stresses the intrinsic value of kids with developmental disabilities Reconceptualizes evangelism to adolescents with developmental disabilities, emphasizing hospitality and friendship.

The stories of LGBT+ Christians are not untold, but have often been unheard by faith leaders and communities. While so much of the conversation about LGBT+ inclu18sion has focused on theology and ideology, few have actually interacted with the raw, real stories and experiences of LGBT+ Christians. In this volume, LGBT+ Christian activist and theologian Brandan Robertson has brought together stories of LGBT+ Christians from around the world combined with his theological insights to create a powerful book that will challenge, convict, and inspire readers from all theological backgrounds to examine their posture and message toward the LGBT+ community and embrace the revival that the Holy Spirit is igniting among queer Christians around the world.

The stories of LGBT+ Christians are not untold, but have often been unheard by faith leaders and communities. While so much of the conversation about LGBT+ inclusion has focused on theology and ideology, few have actually interacted with the raw, real stories and experiences of LGBT+ Christians. In this volume, LGBT+ Christian activist and theologian Brandan Robertson has brought together stories of LGBT+ Christians from around the world combined with his theological insights to create a powerful book that will challenge, convict, and inspire readers from all theological backgrounds to examine their posture and message toward the LGBT+ community and embrace the revival that the Holy Spirit is igniting among queer Christians around the world.

I was only sixteen when my family and I were pulled away from our home and country. My name is Alicja (Moskaluk) Edwards. I was born and raised in Poland and now am 77 years old. For the last 17 years I have been writing a story or rather memoirs of my familys imprisonment in the Soviet Union during World War II, in Stalins bloody era. We were forcibly taken from our home in the eastern part of Poland to the Asiatic state of Kazachstan, where we were condemned to slave labor in the year of 1940. Over the three agonizing years we faced mistreatment and degradation, sickness, hunger and death, till our release from bondage and fight to freedom across the Caspian Sea to Iran, where I met my husband, an American Army lieutenant. My story was originally meant to answer many questions posed by my family and friends, but somehow the explanation of what happened to me and the other forgotten war victims grew into enlarged vignettes of nonfiction events and history, unknown or forgotten by the rest of the world. (I say unknown or forgotten because I have yet to hear or read about any of the atrocities inflicted on Polish survivors imprisoned in Soviet Russia during World War II ---- could I be the only one alive?)

Rich with a half-century of photographs from the pages of Life magazine, this volume presents a gallery of famous people and a photohistory of great events captured by the camera of the brilliant photojournalist Alfred Eisenstaedt (1898-1995). Portraying over three hundred men and women of our time (among them John Kennedy, Golda Meir, George Bernard Shaw, Sophia Loren, Ernest Hemingway, Katharine Hepburn, and Mikhail Baryshnikov), Eisenstaedt recreates the memories, the emotions, and the excitement of five tumultuous decades.--From publisher description.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER "A poignant and piercing examination of the phenomenon of tears—exhaustive, yes, but also open-ended. . . A deeply felt, and genuinely touching, book." —Esmé Weijun Wang, author of The Collected Schizophrenias "Spellbinding and propulsive—the map of a luminous mind in conversation with books, songs, friends, scientific theories, literary histories, her own jagged joy, and despair. Heather Christle is a visionary writer." —Leni Zumas, author of Red Clocks This bestselling "lyrical, moving book: part essay, part memoir, part surprising cultural study" is an examination of why we cry, how we cry, and what it means to cry from a woman on the cusp of motherhood confronting her own depression (The New York Times Book Review). Heather Christle has just lost a dear friend to suicide and now must reckon with her own depression and the birth of her first child. As she faces her grief and impending parenthood, she decides to research the act of crying: what it is and why people do it, even if they rarely talk about it. Along the way, she discovers an artist who designed a frozen–tear–shooting gun and a moth that feeds on the tears of other animals. She researches tear–collecting devices (lachrymatories) and explores the role white women’s tears play in racist violence. Honest, intelligent, rapturous, and surprising, Christle’s investigations look through a mosaic of science, history, and her own lived experience to find new ways of understanding life, loss, and mental illness. The Crying Book is a deeply personal tribute to the fascinating strangeness of tears and the unexpected resilience of joy.

How might a church infused with missional theology change the way it approaches Christian practices? Interacting both with the missional theology of George Hunsberger and Darrell Guder and with the theology of Christian practices laid out by Craig Dykstra and Dorothy Bass, Benjamin T. Conner argues that allowing these two disciplines to inform one another can enhance the nature of the church s witness, its congregational discipleship, and its theological education. Framing his work with real-world narratives and applications inspired by his work as a minister to adolescents with special needs, Conner shows how a practical missional mindset can redefine and reinvigorate the spirit and purpose of a congregation.