The Hero How The Story Of God Shapes Our Life Together

Who's your hero? We each have this propensity to view our life as our own independent story, with ourselves in the starring role. We live as our own saviour, overcoming our challenges and living for our glory. How's this working out for us?The Gospel of Jesus calls us to flip the script and find our place in the story of God. We are minor characters in his grand and glorious story. We find true meaning, forgiveness, purpose and joy as we find our place in God's story, shaped by the gospel of Jesus.Whether you have never opened a Bible or have been a Christian your entire life, The Hero calls us to truly know and be defined by the gospel story, and to experience life as God intended it to be.

So often in the Christian community we hear the question, “What do we need to do to reach the unreached?” While this appears to be a good question, perhaps it’s the wrong question. Instead of focusing on what might be best practices, our answers tend to revolve around what are best practices for us. The better question is, “How can the unreached be reached?” This takes us out of the center of the story and seeks to find the best methods and means to reach those who need to clearly hear the good news of God’s grace.

The most basic questions everyone faces in life is Why am I here? What is my purpose? Gerard Kelly presents the stories that make up the overall story of God in the world. And here we find our purpose for each of our individual Christian lives. Our purpose is as distinctive as our fingerprint and we will connect with it when we connect with our identity and origin in God. God remembers how he made us and is committed to the fruitfulness and fulfilment of our potential. We discover the importance of finding our place of service and usefulness, knowing that our lives have meaning in the purposes of God.

In this powerful book, Carol Ochs shows us how to develop apersonal theology by examining our life stories, learning torecognize God at work in them, and bringing them into conversationwith Torah. Using timeless biblical texts as lenses to see thepresent, she helps us understand who we are and who God is for usby exploring the tightly interwoven basic elements of ourlives--our love, suffering, work, bodies, prayer, community, andexperiences of death. Through the process of seeing our experiences in relation toBiblical stories, we begin to recognize our lives as part of theongoing story of the Jewish people--as Torah. This insight allowsus to see these experiences as meaningful, not accidental, andopens us to recognizing God's power in and through all that happensto us. Rather than a collection of random events, our lives arepart of the Jewish people's ongoing adventure. Armed with ourpersonally shaped theology, we can face this adventure of living inthe vanguard of history with awareness and confidence.

Nathan was different and Sally knew it. From his early childhood, Nathan was bursting with creativity and uncontainable energy, struggling not only with learning issues but also with anxiety and OCD. He saw the world through his own unique lens—one that often caused him to be labeled as “bad,” “troubled,” or someone in need of “fixing.” Bravely choosing to listen to her motherly intuition rather than the loud voices of the world, Sally dared to believe that Nathan’s differences could be part of an intentional design from a loving Creator with a plan for his life. She trusted that the things that made him different were the very things that could make him great. Join Sally and Nathan as they share their stories from a personal perspective as mother and son. If you are in need of help and hope in your own journey with an outside-the-box child, or if you’re an adult trying to make sense of your differences, you’ll find deep insight, resonance, and encouragement in the pages of this book. Dare to love and nurture the “different” one in your life.

How do we conform to the image of Jesus Christ? How do we grow in maturity as believers? How do we truly live out and experience all that God is and all that He offers to us? The Experiencing God's Story series answers these questions and more through an examination of twelve essential topics of spiritual formation. Presented through the three-step process of spiritual development--"believing, behaving, and becoming"--each topic examines a passage of Scripture, identifies and explains the theological principles of spiritual formation, and offers personal application for continued spiritual growth.

Traditional mainline churches have been in decline for fifty years as their church energy continues to seep away. What are the options to regain vitality? Pastor Luecke thought for years that better administration was the answer. But the problem is deeper. Our Reformation heritage left us with a very weak practical theology of the Holy Spirit, confining him mostly to the Creeds. We don’t have a hands-on understanding of how he makes a difference in church life today. We can find that by appreciating how central the Spirit was to Paul’s leadership. This collection of Reflections comes in two parts. The first highlights how the Spirit works today, based on Paul’s insights. It outlines how personal growth in the Spirit can happen. Church leaders cannot take others to where they personally have not been before. The second part is organized around Martin Luther’s explanation of the four functions of the Holy Spirit. He calls, gathers, enlightens and sanctifies God’s people. The Spirit is the leader of ministry teams. We need to learn how to follow.

Your mind has a mission. Sometimes it might seem like Christians just want your body—to serve or go. Or it might seem like they just want your heart—to emote in worship or commit to a cause. But that's not all. God invites us to love him with our minds as well. Being holistic, global Christians means that we need to think well about the world around us. Greg Jao roots our pursuit of the discipleship of the mind in our allegiance to and love for Jesus. Because Jesus is Lord of all, our intellectual engagement is a way we can bring all things under Christ. Jao addresses common myths that result in a passive engagement of our intellect with our faith. He provides key disciplines for Christian discipleship of the mind, how we can love God with our minds in community, obedience and humility. With practical application and formational activities throughout, this guide offers concrete ways to integrate the life of the mind into a life of mission and ministry. The Christian mind is a missional mind. Discover how you can use your mind to extend the glory of God throughout the world. Includes questions for group discussion.