This book explores philosophical questions that have important implications for the truth and rationality of the Christian faith.

Voted a 2000 Book of the Year by the Academy of Parish Clergy!In today's fragmented and frenetic world, families face all kinds of pressures. Accordingly, those ministering with families need a multifaceted, well-informed sense of both the Christian purpose of family and the complex world our families inhabit. Writing out of years of experience in the church and academy, Diana Garland here offers just such a broad and comprehensive introduction to this crucially important subject.Family Ministry begins with several chapters placing the family in its modern context, then considers the history of families and their interaction with the church. Having thoroughly contextualized the family and its concerns as they are now understood, Garland dedicates three chapters to biblical understandings of the family. The remaining ten chapters of her book are devoted to the practice of family ministry, including guidance on promoting strong families and dealing with crises such as divorce and spousal abuse.All this, based on careful research and seasoned reflection, makes Family Ministry not only a key text for students of family ministry but also an indispensable guide and resource for pastors and those in the helping professions.

Every church and Christian organization has a leadership and administrative team. But how well is that team functioning? Feeding and Leading, now available in paperback, addresses this key component to effective ministry.

Kenneth O. Gangel begins with the foundations of the administrative process and then focuses on the vocational Christian leader-pastor, president, principal, mission executive-targeting such issues as spiritual leadership, style, organization of work, goal setting, and long-range planning. The book also covers topics such as:

€ recruiting and training volunteers € motivating workers € delegating responsibility € making decisions € building good working relationships € communicating € chairing business meetings

Feeding and Leading contains over forty figures that illustrate the practical principles outlined by the author. Self-evaluation questions, sample job descriptions, and other helpful tools for Christian administrators are also included.

Just for guys…

the inside scoop on girls

from the girls themselves.

Okay, the authors aren't girls. But to bring you the facts they surveyed more than 1,000 of them. Every teen guy wants to know how girls are wired, what they want, and how they really think… 

Or at least how to talk to a girl without feeling like an idiot.

Here's your chance to find out.

A thoughtful and provocative collection of sermons by a group of preachers from across the international church spectrum who have been moved to theological reflection on the art and work of U2.

The heart was there, the vision was set, the motives were genuine . . . but no one showed up. The book will help youth workers program to an audience that they’re not used to reaching. Programming an outreach event is much more than booking a band and a speaker. Unfortunately, most people don’t know that—and the students they wanted to reach aren’t making it there . . . they don’t show up.

With first-chapter allusions to martial arts, "flow,""mind like water," and other concepts borrowed from the East (and usually mangled), you'd almost think this self-helper from David Allen should have been called Zen and the Art of Schedule Maintenance.

Not quite. Yes, Getting Things Done offers a complete system for downloading all those free-floating gotta-do's clogging your brain into a sophisticated framework of files and action lists—all purportedly to free your mind to focus on whatever you're working on. However, it still operates from the decidedly Western notion that if we could just get really, really organized, we could turn ourselves into 24/7 productivity machines. (To wit, Allen, whom the New Economy bible Fast Company has dubbed "the personal productivity guru," suggests that instead of meditating on crouching tigers and hidden dragons while you wait for a plane, you should unsheathe that high-tech saber known as the cell phone and attack that list of calls you need to return.)

As whole-life-organizing systems go, Allen's is pretty good, even fun and therapeutic. It starts with the exhortation to take every unaccounted-for scrap of paper in your workstation that you can't junk, The next step is to write down every unaccounted-for gotta-do cramming your head onto its own scrap of paper. Finally, throw the whole stew into a giant "in-basket"

That's where the processing and prioritizing begin; in Allen's system, it get a little convoluted at times, rife as it is with fancy terms, subterms, and sub-subterms for even the simplest concepts. Thank goodness the spine of his system is captured on a straightforward, one-page flowchart that you can pin over your desk and repeatedly consult without having to refer back to the book. That alone is worth the purchase price. Also of value is Allen's ingenious Two-Minute Rule: if there's anything you absolutely must do that you can do right now in two minutes or less, then do it now, thus freeing up your time and mind tenfold over the long term. It's commonsense advice so obvious that most of us completely overlook it, much to our detriment; Allen excels at dispensing such wisdom in this useful, if somewhat belabored, self-improver aimed at everyone from CEOs to soccer moms (who we all know are more organized than most CEOs to start with). —Timothy Murphy

Targeted for high school freshmen and sophomores, Girls presents 10 lessons dealing with what it means to be a young woman in Christ—in the midst of a confusing, image-driven society.

Ward combines theologically-based theory and practical application to encourage youthworkers to meet kids where they're at, befriend them, and then begin to introduce them to Christ. Helpful discussion questions follow each chapter.

"Ward's passion for God's word and youth is evident. He has a unique uncompromising ability to maintain an integrity and consistency in theology while making ministry to teenagers practical and culturally relevant."
-Steve Gerali, Judson College

" . . . A fresh perspective. . . . [Ward] integrates the theology, sociology, and missiology of youthwork in a way that will force church leaders to rethink youth ministry and youthworkers to rethink the church."
-Paul Borthwick, Director, World Evangelical Fellowship Commission

"Too much of today's youth ministry is shaped by a thin brew of pragmatism and panic that talks about 'how' without ever talking about 'why.' The end result is a generation of youthworkers who have been well trained in general to do nothing in particular. In God at the Mall, Pete Ward's keen mind and warm heart offer us that rare combination of thoughtfulness and passion that asks not only 'how do we get there?' but also 'where are we going?' and 'what kind of cultural landscape are we passing through to get there?' I don't know of any youth ministry thinker who has done more to translate in-depth sociological research into the world of everyday, real-life youthwork. Don't read this book unless you're ready to think, and pray, and rethink the way you do youth ministry."
-Duffy Robbins, Chair, Department of Youth Ministry, Eastern College

"Pete Ward is uniquely gifted as a cultural observer, . . . as one who can relate especially to rebellious young people, and as a leader of leaders as well as of youth."
-Dean Borgman, Charles E. Culpeper Professor of Youth Ministries, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary (from the foreword)