The Formation Of A People

"New from pastor and professor Carmichael Crutchfield, steeped in current scholarship and lifetime of experience in the African American church, this contribution to the study of Christian education expands our understanding of education to encompass the larger life and ministry of the church, from practices of testimony, worship, and preaching to more traditional classroom contexts of Sunday church school and midweek Bible study. Dr. Crutchfield further develops the concept of Christian education in light of spiritual formation, wherein our pedagogies are oriented toward forming the Christian disciple in the likeness and character of Jesus Christ. The book provides constructive definitions of Christian education and faith formation, as well as clarity about formation processes across all ages and seasons of life. The author gives particular attention to such formation as it occurs in the historic and contemporary African American church context, where those who do ministries of Christian education, faith formation, and discipleship often have a wide range of training and experience-from no formal theological education at all to specialized seminary degrees"--

This debut novel—told in interviews—spans 20 years in the rise and fall of the charismatic leader of a seductive self-help movement. In the 1990s, a talk show host leads the "personality movement," an integrative approach to radical self-transformation. Mayah, the movement's architect and celebrity advocate, adopts a curious, wild child named Masha Isle. A guinea-pig for the movement, and the key to its future, Isle is the subject of the eight interviews that comprise this book. As the interviewer's objectivity disintegrates—even as the movement's legitimacy becomes increasingly suspect—he becomes obsessed with Masha. And all of that is thrown into question when tragedy strikes. The stunning debut of a new literary talent, and a fascinating take on the cult of personality: about celebrities need to destroy and recreate themselves to stay relevant, public personalities coming to belong to everyone, and about our need to see everyone as a kind of celebrity.

“If you want to discover new ways of entering the Bible, and letting it enter you, you will find no better guide than Richard Foster.” — Lauren F. Winner, Duke Divinity School, author of Girl Meets God “Foster’s work is not for those readers who are seeking quick answers or a behavioral checklist of what the Bible says they should do. Rather, it is a deep reflective guide to spiritual rumination and growth.” — Publishers Weekly Richard Foster, the beloved, bestselling author of Celebration of Discipline, Streams of Living Water, and Prayer, shows the intimate connection between Scripture and spirituality, revealing the secrets to living the “with-God life.”

The Psychology of Effective Management combines basic psychological principles with practical recommendations for building positive and productive manager-employee relations. Each recommendation is based on real-life situations taken from respected scholars in the field, as well as the author’s own professional experiences. With particular attention to the human element of management, the practical advice presented in this book is aimed at helping managers create a positive psychological environment in the workplace and lead their employees into a productive and satisfying professional life. The content is presented in an easy-to-follow format so that any manager can put his or her knowledge immediately into practice. By striking a compelling balance between the science and practice of management, this will be an indispensable resource for managers, administrators, and business owners at all levels as well as students of business and management.

The fourteen studies included in this volume have been chosen to serve several purposes simultaneously. At a basic level, they aim to provide a general - if not wholly systematic - coverage of the emergence and evolution of law during the first three and a half centuries of Islam. On another level, they reflect the different and, at times, widely divergent scholarly approaches to this subject matter. These two levels combined will offer a useful account of the rise of Islamic law not only for students in this field but also for Islamicists who are not specialists in matters of law, comparative legal historians, and others. At the same time, however, and as the Introduction to the work argues, this collection of distinguished contributions illustrates both the achievements and the shortcomings of paradigmatic scholarship on the formative period of Islamic law.

Since the earliest period of Islamic history, Arab thought has been dominated by a reverence for tradition and textual analysis. In this groundbreaking work, the great contemporary Arab philosopher Mohammed Abed Al-Jabiri seeks to chart a route towards modernity via the proposition that respect for textualism and tradition are not inconsistent with rationalism and that both history and philosophy are key to the evolution of knowledge systems and ways of reasoning in Arab culture. This book has been an enormous influence within the Arab world on the 'Islam and Modernity' discourse. It is published here for the first time in English and provides a fascinating insight into the currents of contemporary Arab thought.

Two dozen of the most prominent clinicians and scholars in the field reflect on The Formation of Pastoral Counselors from clinical, theological, and theoretical perspectives. This unique book explores the challenges to the personal and professional formation of pastoral counselors in a cultural and historic context that's radically different from the era when the profession first emerged as a specialized ministry. Contributors examine formation from a variety of contexts and perspectives, including spirituality and gender, address theological education and intercultural issues, and present emerging models for pastoral counselors.