Emmy Kegler has a complicated relationship with the Bible. As a queer woman who grew up in both conservative Evangelical and progressive Protestant churches, she knows too well how Scripture can be used to wound and exclude. And yet, the stories of Scripture continue to captivate and inspire her - both as a person of faith and as a pastor to a congregation. So she set out to fall in love with the Bible, wrestling with the stories inside, where she met a God who continues to seek us out - appearing again and again as a voice, a presence, and a promise.

In Kate Bowler’s bestselling memoir Everything Happens for a Reason, listeners witnessed the ways she, as a divinity-school professor and young mother, reckoned with a Stage IV cancer diagnosis; in her follow-up memoir, No Cure for Being Human, she unflinchingly and winsomely unpacked the ways that life becomes both hard and beautiful when we abandon certainty and the illusion of control in our lives.

We live in a world that demands relentless perfection. Happy marriages and easy friendships. Bucket list–level adventures and matching family photos. But what if our actual lives don’t feel very #blessed? Might our everyday existence be worthy of a blessing too? Even an average Tuesday?

Rachel Held Evans is widely recognized for her theologically astute, profoundly honest, and beautifully personal books, which have guided, instructed, edified, and shaped Christians as they seek to live out a just and loving faith. At the time of her tragic death in 2019, Rachel was working on a new book about wholeheartedness. With the help of her close friend and author Jeff Chu, that work-in-progress has been woven together with some of her other unpublished writings into a rich collection of essays.

Children who are introduced to God, through attending church or having loved ones who speak about God, often have a lot of questions, including this ever-popular one: What is God like? The late Rachel Held Evans loved the Bible and loved showing God’s love through the words and pictures found in that ancient text. Through these pictures from the Bible, children see that God is like a shepherd, God is like a star, God is like a gardener, God is like the wind, and more. God is a comforter and support.

Transforming: The Bible and the Lives of Transgender Christians provides access into an underrepresented and misunderstood community and will change the way listeners think about transgender people, faith, and the future of Christianity. By introducing transgender issues and language and providing stories of both biblical characters and real-life narratives from transgender Christians living today, Hartke helps listeners visualize a more inclusive Christianity, equipping them with the confidence and tools to change both the church and the world.

The stories of girls of color are often overlooked, unseen, and ignored rather than valued and heard. In Parable of the Brown Girl, minister and youth advocate Khristi Lauren Adams introduces listeners to the resilience, struggle, and hope held within these stories. Instead of relegating these young women of color to the margins, Adams brings their stories front and center where they belong.

Many First Nations tribes communicate with the cultural and linguistic thought patterns found in their original tongues. The First Nations Version (FNV) recounts the Creator's Story—the Christian Scriptures—following the tradition of Native storytellers' oral cultures. This way of speaking, with its simple yet profound beauty and rich cultural idioms, still resonates in the hearts of First Nations people. Whether you are Native or not, you will experience the Scriptures in a fresh and new way.

In this classic theological treatise, the acclaimed theologian and religious leader Howard Thurman (1900-1981) demonstrates how the gospel may be read as a manual of resistance for the poor and disenfranchised. Jesus is a partner in the pain of the oppressed and the example of His life offers a solution to ending the descent into moral nihilism. Hatred does not empower—it decays. Only through self-love and love of one another can God's justice prevail.

From early on, children are looking to discover their place in the world and longing to understand how their personalities, traits, and talents fit in. The assurance that they are deeply loved and a unique creation in our big universe is certain to help them spread their wings and fly.

What if the solution for the decline of today's church isn't more money, people, programs, innovation, or busyness? What if the answer is to stop and wait on God? In When Church Stops Working, ministry leaders Andrew Root and Blair Bertrand show how actively watching and listening for God can bring life out of death for churches in crisis today. Using clear steps and practices, they invite church leaders to stop the endless cycle of doing more and rather to simply "be" in God's presence.

Like millions of her millennial peers, Rachel Held Evans didn't want to go to church anymore. The hypocrisy, the politics, the gargantuan building budgets, the scandals - church culture seemed so far removed from Jesus. Yet despite her cynicism and misgivings, something kept drawing her back. And so she set out on a journey to understand the Church and to find her place in it.

Much of the church has forgotten that we worship a disabled God whose wounds survived resurrection, says Amy Kenny. It is time for the church to start treating disabled people as full members of the body of Christ who have much more to offer than a miraculous cure narrative and to learn from their embodied experiences. Written by a disabled Christian, this book shows that the church is missing out on the prophetic witness and blessing of disability.

Sixty-five million adults in the US have dropped out of active church attendance, and about 2.7 million more are leaving every year. Faith After Doubt is for the millions of people around the world who feel that their faith is falling apart. Using his own story and the stories of a diverse group of struggling believers, Brian D. McLaren, a former pastor and now an author, speaker, and activist, shows how old assumptions are being challenged in nearly every area of human life, not just theology and spirituality.

Here is a riveting story of seeking safety in another land. Here is a gripping journey of loss, alienation, and belonging. In The God Who Sees, immigration advocate Karen González recounts her family's migration from the instability of Guatemala to making a new life in Los Angeles and the suburbs of south Florida. In the midst of language barriers, cultural misunderstandings, and the tremendous pressure to assimilate, González encounters Christ through a campus ministry program and begins to follow him.

Our emotions are complex. Some of us seem able to ignore our feelings, while others feel controlled by them. But most of us would admit that we don’t always know what to do with how we feel. The Bible teaches us that our emotions are an indispensable part of what makes us human―and play a crucial role in our relationships with God and others. Exploring how God designed emotions for our good, this book shows us how to properly engage with our emotions.

We all experience moments when God's love and presence are tangible. But we also experience feeling utterly abandoned by God. Why? The answer is found when you take a deep look at the other important relationships in your life and understand your attachment style. Through his years working in trauma recovery programs, extensive research into attachment science, and personal experiences with spiritual striving and abuse, licensed therapist Krispin Mayfield has learned to answer the question: Why do I feel so far from God?

Is real friendship too risky? We live in a world where real friendship is hard to find. Suspicious of others and insecure about ourselves, we retreat into the safety of our small, self-made digital worlds. Tragically, even the church can become a place that reinforces this isolation. Jesus models a much richer vision of friendship. Scott Sauls, pastor and teacher, invites you to see the breadth of Christ's love in this audiobook, Befriend.

We all experience stuckness in our lives. We feel stuck in our relationships, career paths, body struggles, addiction issues, and more. Many of us know what we need to do to move forward—but find ourselves unable to take the leap to make it happen. And then we blame and shame ourselves, and stay in a loop of self-doubt that goes nowhere. The good news is you’re not lazy, crazy, or unmotivated. In this empowering and action-oriented guide, you’ll discover why we can’t think our way forward—and how to break through what’s holding us back.

In this powerful healing journey, Linda Barrick applies the words Jesus spoke during his time of greatest pain to help listeners transform their deepest wounds into their highest purpose. In one second, Linda Barrick's life changed when a drunk driver slammed into her family's van, nearly killing her daughter and leaving Linda, her husband, and their son critically injured. Barrick draws on her remarkable story of loss and hope to lead listeners toward emotional, physical, and spiritual restoration.

Why do we think, feel, and act in ways we wish we did not? For decades, New York Times best-selling author Dr. David A. Kessler has studied this question with regard to tobacco, food, and drugs. Over the course of these investigations, he identified one underlying mechanism common to a broad range of human suffering. This phenomenon - capture - is the process by which our attention is hijacked and our brains commandeered by forces outside our control.

Forgiveness is an essential part of being a Christian, but that doesn't make it easy. What do we do when confronted with the unforgivable - an act that shakes our moral foundations to their roots, often committed by someone trusted and loved? Murder, sexual abuse, adultery - all leave lifelong wounds. Thankfully, they are all trespasses that, through the grace of God, can be forgiven.

In this revised best-selling book, Peter Scazzero outlines a road map for discipleship with Jesus that is powerfully transformative. He unveils what's wrong with our current definition of "spiritual growth" and offers not only a model of spirituality that actually works, but seven steps to change that will help you experience authentic faith and hunger for God.

How do we live out the message of Jesus in today’s ever-changing culture? The church is facing its greatest challenge - and its greatest opportunity - in our postmodern, post-Christian world. God is drawing thousands of spiritually curious “imperfect people” to become his church - but how are we doing at welcoming them? No Perfect People Allowed shows you how to deconstruct the five main barriers standing between emerging generations and your church by creating the right culture.

In Love Is a Choice, best-selling doctors Robert Hemfelt, Frank Minirth, and Paul Meier walk you through their 10 proven stages to recovery from codependency that results from external circumstances. Humans are susceptible to codependency because of our sinful tendency to use defense mechanisms to fool ourselves. In codependent relationships, deceitful games are played, and important Christian principles are often taken out of context and abused.

In You Are More Than You Know, Patsy's trademark humor spills out as she answers the question she is most often asked: How did you overcome your own debilitating fears? Along the way she helps listeners face their own anxieties, dismay, worries, and despair. Through honest and intimate glimpses into a heart changed by the power of hope, this audiobook is a guide for the journey to find more of you...and much more of what God has for you.

Events in our lives, both good and bad, form rings in us like the rings in a tree. Each ring records memories that affect our feelings, our relationships, and our thoughts about God. In this classic work, David Seamands encourages us to live compassionately with ourselves as we allow the Holy Spirit to heal our past. As he helps us name hurdles in our lives - such as guilt, poor self-worth, and perfectionism - he shows us how we can find freedom from our pain and enjoy the abundant life God wants for us.

Insights from Philip Yancey's personal pilgrimage away from and back to the church. Why are there so many more professing Christians than churchgoing Christians? Is it because something is wrong with the church? In his candid, thought-provoking manner, award-winning author Philip Yancey reveals the reasons behind his own journey back from skepticism to wholehearted participation in the church, and weighs the church's human failings against its compelling worth as the body of Christ.

We all suffer from unhealthy dependencies that we continually return to in hopes of having a better life. But after yet another TV show is streamed or another drink is swallowed, we find we once again feel worse, not better, than we did before. Where is the hope for that fully awakened life we long to live?

In this groundbreaking book, one of America's premier religion writers revives ancient expressions through cultural commentary, vulnerable personal narratives, and surprising biblical insights. Both provocative and liberating, Learning to Speak God from Scratch will breathe new life into your spiritual conversations and lure you into the embrace of the God who inhabits them.