Grab your Bible, a cup of something warm, and settle in with this diverse collection of classic and contemporary poetry, meant to stir your imagination and deepen your experience of scripture in the season ahead.Corresponding with the Revised Common Lectionary Year A (November 2025-May 2026), this volume includes 4 classic and 4 contemporary poems for every week of the church year, from Advent through Pentecost Sunday.Poets include Paul Laurence Dunbar, Emily Dickinson, Mar...

A moving account of how one church learned to center their life together around the practice of conversation and became a beacon of hope along the way.Englewood Christian Church was once a thriving megachurch, but as its surrounding urban neighborhood declined, so did the church.Today, both the church and neighborhood are thriving, and ECC's impact far outweighs the size of its congregation. The ECC story upends the common wisdom ab...

High-speed internet. Rapid rewards. Quick thinking. Fast food. Fast . . . church?Slow Church by Chris Smith and John Pattison has been eagerly received by a people who are ready to be invited out of franchise faith and back into the kingdom of God. This eleven-session study guide provides an opportunity to reflect on the message of this groundbreaking book both individually and in community. Each session featuresA guide to lectio divinaSuggested vi...

Readers' Choice Award WinnerBest Books About the Church from Byron Borger, Hearts and Minds BookstoreFast food. Fast cars. Fast and furious. Fast forward. Fast . . . church?The church is oftenidealized (or demonized) as the last bastion of a bygone era, dragging our feet as we're pulled into new moralities and new spiritualities. We guard our doctrine and our piety with great vigilance. But we often fail to notice how quickly we're ...

In today's highly charged social and political environment, we often don't know how to talk well with others--especially with people whose backgrounds differ from our own. C. Christopher Smith, coauthor of the critically acclaimed and influential Slow Church, addresses why conversation has become such a challenge in the 21st century and argues that it is perhaps the most-needed spiritual practice of our individualistic age. Smith likens practicing conversation to the working of the human b...

2014 Readers' Choice Award Winner 2014 Best Books About the Church from Byron Borger, Hearts and Minds Bookstore Fast food. Fast cars. Fast and furious. Fast forward. Fast . . . church? The church is often idealized (or demonized) as the last bastion of a bygone era, dragging our feet as we're pulled into new moralities and new spiritualities. We guard our doctrine and our piety with great vigilance. But we often fail to notice how quickly we're capitulating, in the structures and practice...

Many young idealists, after a few failures, burn out and return to status quo lives. Not so with the seven radicals in this book, who met in an interracial house church and intentional community on Chicago's West Side during the civil rights era. Here you will make the acquaintance of a Church of the Brethren pastoral couple who tried to bring communal life to the black ghetto; a fashionable socialite who trashed her curlers and joined the simple life; an elite Stanford graduate who cast h...