The Spiritually Vibrant Home

What does it take to have a spiritually vibrant household? Original research from the Barna Group and Lutheran Hour Ministries shows that some of the healthiest homes extend beyond the nuclear family. Don Everts shows how these households practice spirituality, hospitality, and community that make them delightful places to live and thrive.

We all long for homes where we can thrive and flourish. What does it take to have a spiritually vibrant household? Don Everts invites us to contemplate what the Bible says about households and consider what a new research project has revealed by pulling back the curtains on everyday households of faith. Original research from the Barna Group and Lutheran Hour Ministries shows that some of the healthiest, most vibrant homes extend beyond the nuclear family and include people that may not be biologically related but feel like family. These households have vital practices of spirituality, hospitality, and community that make them delightful places for living and thriving. In the end you might just be surprised by how God wants to work in and through your household. And you’ll have practical steps for nurturing a vibrant household of faith, no matter what stage of life you are in.

Discover your gifts! All of us have gifts that can be used for the common good. The Discover Your Gifts Workbook has sessions on twelve different kinds of gifts, from artistic and technical gifts to entrepreneurial and civic gifts. Every session defines and describes what each gift looks like and gives examples of how the gift can be used in four distinct vocations of life: church, family, work, and society. By using this workbook alongside the Discover Your Gifts book and the EveryGift online inventory, you can grow in your understanding and use of your gifts. And you will be better equipped to recognize the gifts of others and unleash them for use in all areas of life.

We all live somewhere. And we all want our neighborhoods to flourish. Many of us hope (and even pray) for our neighborhoods' well-being. But how do we actually pursue that? This field guide answers this question by walking you through a simple, powerful process for blessing your own neighborhood. Tony Cook and Don Everts offer six sessions for discovering the gifts of your community, imagining the possibilities, and pursuing the common good. Exercises and assessments provide practical tools for bringing your hopes into concrete reality. Join with others so that together you can increase the well-being of your local neighborhood.

Many children today are growing up in the midst of adversity, whether brought on by family difficulties or larger societal crises. All children need to be able to deal with stress, cope with challenges, and persevere through disappointments. While we cannot protect children from all hardships, we can promote healthy development that fosters resilience. In this interdisciplinary work, Holly Catterton Allen builds a bridge between resilience studies and children's spiritual formation. Because children are spiritual beings, those who work with them can cultivate spiritual practices that are essential to their thriving in challenging times. This book equips educators, counselors, children's ministers, and parents with ways of developing children's spirituality to foster the resilience needed to face the ordinary hardships of childhood and to persevere when facing trauma. It offers particular insight into the spiritual experiences of children who have been hurt by life through chronic illness, disability, abuse, or disasters, with resources for healing and hope.

Discover simple habits and easy-to-implement daily rhythms that will help you find meaning beyond the chaos of family life as you create a home where kids and parents alike practice how to love God and each other. You long for tender moments with your children--but do you ever find yourself too busy to stop, make eye contact, and say something you really mean? Daily habits are powerful ways to shape the heart--but do you find yourself giving in to screen time just to get through the day? You want to parent with purpose--but do you know how to start? Award-winning author and father of four Justin Whitmel Earley understands the tension between how you long to parent and what your daily life actually looks like. In Habits of the Household, Earley gives you the tools you need to create structure--from mealtimes to bedtimes--that free you to parent toddlers, kids, and teens with purpose. Learn how to: Develop a bedtime liturgy to settle your little ones and ground them in God's love Discover a new framework for discipline as discipleship Acquire simple practices for more regular and meaningful family mealtimes Open your eyes to the spirituality of parenting, seeing small moments as big opportunities for spiritual formation Develop a custom age chart for your family to more intentionally plan your shared years under the same roof Each chapter in Habits of the Household ends with practical patterns, prayers, or liturgies that your family can put into practice right away. As you create liberating rhythms around your everyday routines, you will find your family has a greater sense of peace and purpose as your home becomes a place where, above all, you learn how to love.

Different generations communicate differently. If you are speaking across generations, you need to understand how different generations hear. Pastor Darrell Hall (a millennial) harnesses the insights of generational science to explore how generations are distinct people groups with their own cultures and languages. With fresh research from the Barna Group on how generations communicate, Hall sheds light on how each generation receives verbal messages, from boomers and Xers to millennials and Gen Z and those not yet named. Discover how generational science can equip you to communicate effectively. Bridge the communication gap between speaker and listener so people of all generations can hear clearly.

Are you tired of hearing people dismiss the church as an irrelevant relic? (Do you secretly wonder if they are right?) Don Everts explores an exciting reality that is revealed in Scripture, shown throughout history, and confirmed in the latest research: when Christians pursue the common good of the neighborhood, the world stands up and notices. It turns out this is exactly what we're called to do. When Christians make good things, we bring blessings and hope to our local community. With original research from the Barna Group and Lutheran Hour Ministries on how Christians relate to our neighborhoods, this book is filled with constructive, practical ways that Christians and churches bless those around us. As Christians join together for the common good, we bring hope to the world, credibility to the church, and glory to God.