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Are you ready to reclaim our inheritance as United Methodist Wesleyans? Our communities and the world are crying out for empathy, authenticity, and integrity. This book helps us choose ways of living that are grace-filled and redeeming. Cultivating Christlikeness is about the bold adventure of United Methodists celebrating and living into a grand vision that includes everyone in God’s extravagant embrace. Jesus invites us to partner in the work of transformation, new birth, and resurrection in every aspect of our lives. Together we can step into a future showered by God’s multiplying love. Paul Chilcote mines his decades of study, prayer, and devotion to Christian practices to share his vision for how we partner with God to make the world more loving and just. In Cultivating Christlikeness, he weaves the threads of insight and appreciation with special attention to Wesleyan ways of loving God and neighbor that can change us and change the world. With his gentle direction, we discover with new appreciation how 18th-century John and Charles Wesley illumine our 21st-century quest to befriend Jesus, who frees us to live into and by the grace of God. Chilcote’s book is a practical guide. He guides us with a mentor’s insightful nudge as we explore essential Wesleyan teachings about God and the beloved community. He helps us know how to share these understandings with our families and neighbors, and more importantly, he points us to ways to live out our commitments with purpose, courage, and joy. The framework and flow of Cultivating Christlikeness make it easily adaptable for group discussion and individual use. It includes a plan for a two-day retreat for those eager to join in a more intensive experience of mutual engagement to renew their spirits and discover fresh ways to grow in love and grace. The book is a companion to Chilcote’s, Multiplying Love (Abingdon Press), which casts the theological vision that animates this practical spiritual guide. And it is an updated and expanded revision of an earlier work entitled, Wesley Speaks on Christian Vocation, originally published by Discipleship Ministries, then reissued by Wipf & Stock.
How should Christians live? Some Christians stress the importance of keeping all the rules, while others see the Christian faith as setting us free from religious burdens. Inviting us to live a life in step with the Spirit, Christopher Wright teaches us how to feed on the Word of God, grow in Christlikeness, and live a fruitful life.
Being is greater than doing. We all come into the world with a certain emptiness in our lives—an emptiness that leads to a search for meaning. And the world tells us that search for meaning can be solved by doing. Unfortunately, an overemphasis on doing has led many people away from cultivating an interior life that allows them to sustain their exterior life. This explains the many failures we continuously see in day-to-day life. When a person’s inner life—who he or she is—is not prepared, that person's character does not have the maturity or the strength to sustain them in the long run. In this book, Miguel Núñez points us to Scripture and experience to show us how being is more important than doing. He teaches us how to cultivate the foundations of our lives, so that we can be what we need to be, in order to do what we need to do.
In the last sermon he ever preached, John Stott echoed the Apostle Paul when he said that God’s greatest desire and plan for us is to become like his Son, Jesus Christ. BUT HOW? Stott prayed daily that God would bear the fruit of the Holy Spirit in his own life; a prayer clearly answered and evident in his Christlikeness. Chris Wright, a close friend of John Stott, reflects on all nine qualities that the Apostle Paul includes in the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians. He shows how they are rooted in the character of God, first revealed in the Old Testament, and modelled and taught by Jesus. With applications to encourage biblical growth with depth, and questions at the end of each chapter, this is an ideal resource for preachers, study groups and personal reflection. Many people rightly stress the importance of the gifts, power and ministries of the Holy Spirit, but easily neglect Paul’s command to live and walk by the Spirit and cultivate the fruit that only he can bear in our lives. Paying close attention to the beautiful and robust qualities that Paul includes in the fruit, and seeking daily to cultivate them with God’s help, is surely one way we can become more and more like Jesus.
Philip Kenneson digs into the fruit of the Spirit listed in Galatians 5:22-23, combining rich, theologically grounded reflection on Christian life and practice with analysis of contemporary culture. He explores what each fruit means in its biblical context, then investigates how key traits of late modern Western culture inhibit the development and ripening of each fruit.
Most books on spiritual formation focus on the individual. But spiritual formation is at the heart of the church's whole purpose for existence. It must be a central task for the church to carry out Christ's mission in the world. This book offers an introduction to spiritual formation set squarely in the local church. The first edition has been well received and widely used as a textbook. The second edition has been updated throughout, incorporates findings from positive psychology, and reflects an Augustinian formation perspective. Foreword by Dallas Willard.
Mothering is messy. Our joy and hope in raising children doesn’t change the reality that being a mom can be frustrating, stressful, and tiring. But just as God is using us to shape our children, God is using our children and motherhood to shape us. In The Better Mom, author Ruth Schwenk, herself a mother of four children, encourages us with the good news that there is more to being a mom than the extremes of striving for perfection or simply embracing the mess. We don’t need to settle for surviving our kids’ childhood. We can grow through it. With refreshing and heartfelt honesty Ruth emboldens moms to: Find freedom and walk confidently in purpose Create a God-honoring home environment Overcome unhealthy and destructive emotions such as anger, anxiety, and more Avoid glorifying the mess of mom-ing or idolizing perfection Cultivate life-giving friendships At the heart of The Better Mom is the message that Jesus calls us to live not a weary life, but a worthy life. We don’t have to settle for either being apathetic or struggling to be perfect. Both visions of motherhood go too far. Ruth offers a better option. She says, “It’s okay to come as we are, but what we’re called to do and be is far too important to stay there! The way to becoming a better mom starts not with what we are doing, but with who God is inviting us to become."
A Clear Outline of Basic Christianity from Theologian J. I. Packer Followers of Christ grow spiritually by learning and living out the essentials of their faith, which are often taken for granted or overlooked in daily life. Renowned theologian J. I. Packer believed that Christianity is not automatic and must be learned by new believers and mature Christians alike. In Growing in Christ, Packer offers readers an easy-to-follow road map for studying theological topics, including the Apostles' Creed, the Lord's Prayer, the Ten Commandments, and baptism. Each chapter helps both new and lifelong believers examine what Packer calls "the intellectual ABCs" of the gospel so they can grow in faith. Covers Christian Themes in Depth: Including Christian convictions, communion with God, and code of conduct Great for Individual or Group Study: Each chapter ends with study questions and Bible passages Accessible: Written for Christians of all backgrounds and denominations, as well as the newly converted
After we've come to faith in Christ, God leaves us in this world for a very clear purpose: His own glory. But how are we to glorify God for the rest of our lives? The Bible reveals that God has laid before every Christian two infinite journeys which we