Upward Outward Inward

This book is about discovering together how to understand and live the Greatest Commandment. We’re not after the “art of thinking about God a little differently.” We’re here to uncover the needs God created within us—needs for meaning, intimacy, honesty, humility, justice, compassion, and more—and how he designed us to find those needs fulfilled in him. This is the art of living Jesus’ spirituality. God gives us the key in the Greatest Commandment, but we’ve got to do this stuff in the right order. Imagine I invite you to my sweet cabin by the lake. To start hanging out in that cabin, you need to get the key from me, pack your car, follow the GPS, and so on. There’s a natural order to it. It’s the same with the Greatest Commandment. We begin upward, with loving God. The God. God of the Old Testament, God of the New Testament. God the Trinity—Father, Son, Holy Spirit. We continue inward, with understanding our true identities in Jesus. And when we get those things right, God’s Spirit sends us outward, on mission into the world. These three movements—upward, inward, and outward—mirror the Greatest Commandment and help us learn the art of living harmoniously together in a chaotic world.

What would happen if God were to bring ten new believers into the Church in a single day? Would we be able to disciple them? What if it were a hundred people in a week? Do you think it's possible to receive a thousand new believers a month? If a million people were saved, would the Church be ready to disciple them? The Lord wants us to prepare workers for the harvest - people with a simple message of love and service, who can pass that message on. If we want to see many, many people come to Christ, then we will need to find a way for them to be discipled and to become disciplers. This book from the Japanese house church provides one way for any Christian to become a discipler: it gives simple, practical ways to live out the Gospel, to explain the Gospel, and to pass the baton of discipleship on to others.

The four dynamics that form the basis of thriving, life-giving small groups. This workbook is the syllabus for a one-day workshop that include the whole small group, not just your leaders. During the workshop, group members work as a team to develop a four-month calendar of events to dramatically increase the levels of prayer, community, evangelism, and discipleship.

Learn the revolutionary way to talk with God! Like millions of Christians, Dr. larry Crabb has always considered his prayer life a weakness – "dull, intense only in crisis, occasionally meaningful and passionate but mostly lifelessly routine." But for everyone who struggles to pray in a way that matters, who is bored with prayer and doesn't know where else to turn, this groundbreaking book whispers of hope for change. Something new and real and deep started happening in him, Crabb says, when he began practicing the four steps of what he calls the PAPA prayer – a revolutionary conversational approach to talking with and enjoying God. As this fellow seeker shares his journey and education in the mysteries of prayer, he guides us to see ourselves and God in a different light . . . which will alter the way we talk – and listen – to Him.

In this concise guide to Christian spirituality, Brian Albert explains the upward, inward, outward, and onward dimensions of the Christian faith.

Is it crazy to want a happy life? The host of Jesus Is Real Radio and Hillsong Channel’s Real with Daniel Fusco unlocks the happiness we long for in the most famous teachings of Jesus and the apostle Paul. “Don’t just skim through this book quickly. Savor it and discuss it with a friend. Your personal happiness is at stake.”—Rick Warren, author of The Purpose Driven Life, from the foreword Dissatisfied with your life? Yeah, most of us have been there. There’s no shame in wanting to be happy, but real satisfaction often eludes us. At best, what fleeting happiness we find tends to dribble away in never-ending debts, stressful deadlines, and mindless scrolling. At worst, it’s chased away by anxiety, depression, or fallout from our selfishness. Here’s the truth: whether we hunt for happiness in parties, bars, the workplace hustle, or even in church pews, we’ll wind up shortchanged. Why? Because we don’t see our lives as beautiful. But God wants something better for you—happiness so real this world might think it’s too good to be true. In Crazy Happy, Daniel Fusco unpacks fresh connections in two of the Bible’s most familiar passages—secrets of happiness that can really, truly, honest-to-goodness change things. If you stick around for the ride, you’ll find the kind of God-given beauty that can change your life for good—even in our sometimes-crazy world.