In our frenzied culture, the possibility of living in balanced rhythms of work and rest often feels elusive. This rings especially true for pastors and leaders who carry the weight of nonstop responsibility. Most know they need rest but might be surprised to find within themselves a deep resistance to letting go and resting in God one day a week, let alone for longer seasons of sabbatical.

"I'm tired of helping others enjoy God―I just want to enjoy God for myself." With this painful admission, Ruth Haley Barton invites us to an honest exploration of what happens when spiritual leaders lose track of their souls. Each chapter includes a spiritual practice to ensure your soul gets the nourishment it needs. Forging and maintaining a life-giving connection with God is the best choice you can make for yourself and for those you lead.

In this audiobook, Transforming Center founder and seasoned spiritual director Ruth Haley Barton gently and eloquently leads us into an exploration of retreat as a key practice that opens us to God. Based on her own practice and her experience leading hundreds of retreats for others, she will guide you in a very personal exploration of seven specific invitations contained within the general invitation to retreat. You will discover how to say "Yes" to God's winsome invitation to greater freedom and surrender.

As you journey deeper in the Christian pilgrimage, you come to realize that the Christian life is more than merely replicating particular spiritual disciplines or practices. You begin to understand that at the core of Christian faith is the transformation of your very identity. M. Robert Mulholland Jr. exposes the false selves that you may be tempted to hide behind and helps you to instead discover the true self that comes from being hidden with Christ in God.

Ruth Haley Barton describes how she has discovered the real presence of God, the God who is present through the practice of solitude and silence. Her audiobook invites you to meet God deeply and fully outside the demands and noise of daily life. It is a call to the adventure of spiritual transformation, an adventure that will lead you to freedom and authenticity, allowing you to become the person God created you to be.

What if the longing we feel is a sign of God’s longing for us? Thirsting is a deeply spiritual exploration of a life-changing truth: only when we learn to live in the ache of our thirst instead of running from it will we know the joy of receiving God in every part of our lives. We may be able to imagine God saving us, using us, and even loving us—but wanting us? Pursuing us? Longing for us? And yet, as spiritual director Strahan Coleman teaches, God’s greatest desire is to commune with us in the depths of our souls.

Masterminded by Michael Christensen, PhD, and Rebecca Laird, MA, DMin, The Nouwen Trilogy compiles Nouwen’s unpublished homilies, interviews, classes, and speeches, as well as excerpts from his published writings. Available as an audiobook for the first time ever, Spiritual Formation: Following the Movements of the Spirit is part of this trilogy. These convenient audio sessions move you through the five classical stages of spiritual development: Awakening, Purgation, Illumination, Dark Night, and Unification.

We live in a culture that wants it all. More is seen as better. For those chasing this way of life, “narrow” seems negative. Who wants to narrow their options . . . or be seen as narrow-minded? Which is why the most well-known talk in the history of the world—the Sermon on the Mount—is also the most paradoxical one. In it, Jesus holds up the narrow path as the most spacious . . . and the broader path as the more confining one. Rich Villodas, bestselling author of The Deeply Formed Life, explores what today’s broad and narrow paths look like so you can discern which one you’re on.

The last command Jesus gave the church before he ascended to heaven was the Great Commission, the call for Christians to "make disciples of all the nations.

"But Christians have responded by making "Christians", not "disciples". This, according to brilliant scholar and renowned Christian thinker Dallas Willard, has been the church's Great Omission.

Dallas Willard, one of today's most brilliant Christian thinkers and the author of The Divine Conspiracy ( Christianity Today's 1999 Book of the Year), presents a way of living that enables ordinary men and women to enjoy the fruit of the Christian life.

How can time with God be a source of peace in a loud and distracting world? In Beholding, spiritual director and poet Strahan Coleman invites listeners to discover the joy of being with God, not just working for Him. As they inhabit the art of resting in God’s presence, prayer becomes not only a place of seeking, but becoming.

In his acclaimed books, renowned writer, speaker, and philosophy professor Dallas Willard explored the nature of Christian life in God's Kingdom. Yet one topic remained undisclosed: Willard's understanding of heaven and eternal life. In the months before his death, Willard engaged in moving and insightful conversations about the meaning of life and the life to come with close friend and theologian Gary Black, Jr. These inspiring dialogues were steeped in biblical theology as well as practical wisdom grounded in the here-and-now.

The American church faces a discipleship crisis. Instead of following the values of Jesus, many Christians are chasing after what our culture prizes: power, money, and political influence. In Your Jesus Is Too American, Baptist pastor Steve Bezner invites Christians to rediscover what Jesus treasured and incorporate those kingdom values into the church's witness. Bezner shows that Jesus's vision of discipleship points the way toward a different way of being in the world.

Dallas Willard spent his life making eternal living concrete for his friends. After his unexpected passing in 2013, the kaleidoscope of memories and the diversity of the lives he had touched could not be confined to one or even two memorial services but three. It is this wide breadth of impact that inspired friends, family, colleagues, students, and leaders of the church to gather their reflections on this celebrated yet humble theologian and philosopher.

The Intentional Year is an invitation to stop right now, right where you are, and choose to live on purpose. This isn’t just about aspirations or self-improvement―a flourishing life is tangible and possible. With stories, practices, and a road map into intentionality, Holly and Glenn Packiam will guide you into simple ways to grow personally. Experience freedom to invest time and energy into the people you value most and into the purpose you were made for.

Ruth Haley Barton describes how she has discovered the real presence of God, the God who is present through the practice of solitude and silence. Her audiobook invites you to meet God deeply and fully outside the demands and noise of daily life. It is a call to the adventure of spiritual transformation, an adventure that will lead you to freedom and authenticity, allowing you to become the person God created you to be.

In this audiobook, Transforming Center founder and seasoned spiritual director Ruth Haley Barton gently and eloquently leads us into an exploration of retreat as a key practice that opens us to God. Based on her own practice and her experience leading hundreds of retreats for others, she will guide you in a very personal exploration of seven specific invitations contained within the general invitation to retreat. You will discover how to say "Yes" to God's winsome invitation to greater freedom and surrender.

In our frenzied culture, the possibility of living in balanced rhythms of work and rest often feels elusive. This rings especially true for pastors and leaders who carry the weight of nonstop responsibility. Most know they need rest but might be surprised to find within themselves a deep resistance to letting go and resting in God one day a week, let alone for longer seasons of sabbatical.

"I'm tired of helping others enjoy God―I just want to enjoy God for myself." With this painful admission, Ruth Haley Barton invites us to an honest exploration of what happens when spiritual leaders lose track of their souls. Each chapter includes a spiritual practice to ensure your soul gets the nourishment it needs. Forging and maintaining a life-giving connection with God is the best choice you can make for yourself and for those you lead.

Hailed by many as the best modern book on Christian spirituality, Celebration of Discipline has helped more than one million seekers discover a richer spiritual life infused with joy, peace, and a deeper understanding of God.

Dallas Willard, one of today's most brilliant Christian thinkers and the author of The Divine Conspiracy ( Christianity Today's 1999 Book of the Year), presents a way of living that enables ordinary men and women to enjoy the fruit of the Christian life.

Logos Book of the Year. Meetings can sap our energy, rupture community and thoroughly demoralize us. They can go on forever with no resolution. Or they can rush along without consensus just to "get through the agenda." What if there was another way? Church boards and other Christian leadership teams have long relied on models adapted from the business world. Ruth Haley Barton, president of the Transforming Center, helps teams transition to a much more suitable model—the spiritual community that discerns God's will together.

Much is said in Christian circles about knowing God. But Christians throughout the ages have agreed that there cannot be deep knowledge of God without deep knowledge of the self. Discerning your true self is inextricably related to discerning God's purposes for you. Paradoxically, the more you become like Christ, the more you become authentically yourself. In this profound exploration of Christian identity, psychologist and spiritual director David G. Benner illuminates the spirituality of self-discovery.

As you journey deeper in the Christian pilgrimage, you come to realize that the Christian life is more than merely replicating particular spiritual disciplines or practices. You begin to understand that at the core of Christian faith is the transformation of your very identity. M. Robert Mulholland Jr. exposes the false selves that you may be tempted to hide behind and helps you to instead discover the true self that comes from being hidden with Christ in God.

Stigmatized by scandal, the church in North America and throughout Europe has been branded as useless and irrelevant. To stem the tide of nominal Christianity, we need to get serious about making disciples who can make other disciples. There is an urgent need today for church services that are substantive and purposeful.

Being close to God means communicating with him—telling him what is on our hearts in prayer and hearing, and understanding what he is saying to us. But how do we hear God's voice? How can we be sure that what we think we hear is not our own subconscious? What role does the Bible play? What if what God says to us is not clear? The key, says bestselling author Dallas Willard, is to focus not so much on individual actions and decisions as on building our personal relationship with our Creator.

In an era in which many Christians consider Jesus a beloved but remote savior, Willard argues compellingly for the relevance of God to every aspect of our existence. Masterfully capturing the central insights of Christ's teachings in a fresh way for today's seekers, he helps us to explore a revolutionary way to experience God by knowing him as an essential part of the here and now, rather than only as part of the hereafter.

Most Christians - including pastors - struggle to talk about their faith in a way that applies the power of the Christian Gospel to change people's lives. Timothy Keller is known for his insightful, down-to-earth sermons and talks that help people understand themselves, encounter Jesus, and apply the Bible to their lives. In this accessible guide for pastors and laypeople alike, Keller helps listeners learn to present the Christian message of grace in a more engaging, passionate, and compassionate way.

M. Robert Mulholland Jr. defines spiritual formation as "the process of being formed in the image of Christ for the sake of others." Compact and solid, this definition encompasses the dynamics of a vital Christian life and counters our culture's tendency to make spirituality a trivial matter or reduce it to a private affair between "me and Jesus." In Invitation to a Journey, Mulholland helps Christians new and old understand that we become like Christ gradually, not instantly.

We are constantly being formed by the world around us. To be formed by Jesus will require us to become his apprentice. To live by what the first Christian disciples called a Rule of Life—a set of practices and relational rhythms that slow us down and open up space in our daily lives for God to do what only God can do—transforms the deepest parts of us to become like him.