This sparkly board book features clever word illustrations.

This is what pastors reach for when planning worship services, including baptisms, weddings, funerals, and the Lord's Supper. Over 200 articles by well-known ministry leaders.

A bright star. A lowly manger. Shepherds keeping watch over their flocks. Everyone knows at least something about the first Christmas. But there’s more to the story than what can be contained on a greeting card. Investigating the social, cultural, and political background to the New Testament narratives, this prequel to The Final Days of Jesus: The Most Important Week of the Most Important Person Who Ever Lived explores the real meaning of Christ’s birth in a fresh and compelling way. Perfect for those looking for something to read during Advent, this book combines scholarly insights with warm reflections in order to inform the mind and stir the soul.

To quote John Lennon, "Imagine." Imagine eighteen-year-old Holden Caulfield, Richie Cunningham, Otter, Bluto, Archie McNally, and Kramer all thrown backward or forward in time to the summer of 1969. Imagine if, unknown to one another, they each blindly pledge to a ruckus fraternity house at a conservative and highly respected Midwestern university. Imagine their metamorphosis from innocent and naive high school graduates with lofty aspirations to rude, crude, and socially unacceptable frat rats. Imagine their creative, illogical, and often just plain stupid adventures as they fully take advantage of their newfound freedom and the total lack of respect and responsibility of college life. Imagine a pledge class that suffers together and sticks together until visited by the Grim Reaper. Imagine Marlo Thomas, Mary Tyler Moore, Ann-Margret, Shelley Fabares, Sandra Dee, and Annette Funicello as prudish and scholastically focused coeds attempting to cohabitate the same campus as the men of Sigma Mu. Imagine their potential transformation during the age of Aquarius into respectable and successful young adults. You may say I'm a dreamer, but what you are about to read is based on actual events (kind of). Enjoy!

The Oxford Handbook of Christmas provides a comprehensive, interdisciplinary account of all aspects of Christmas across the globe, from the specifically religious to the purely cultural. The contributions are drawn from a distinguished group of international experts from across numerous disciplines, including literary scholars, theologians, historians, biblical scholars, sociologists, anthropologists, art historians, and legal experts. The volume provides authoritative treatments of a range of topics, from the origins of Christmas to the present; decorating trees to eating plum pudding; from the Bible to contemporary worship; from carols to cinema; from the Nativity Story to Santa Claus; from Bethlehem to Japan; from Catholics to Baptists; from secularism to consumerism. Christmas is the biggest celebration on the planet. Every year, a significant percentage of the world's population is drawn to this holiday—from Cape Cod to Cape Town, from South America to South Korea, and on and on across the globe. The Christmas season takes up a significant part of the entire year. For many countries, the holiday is a major force in their national economy. Moreover, Christmas is not just a modern holiday, but has been an important feast for most Christians since the fourth century and a dominant event in many cultures and countries for over a millennium. The Oxford Handbook of Christmas provides an invaluable reference point for anyone interested in this global phenomenon.

Based on the Revised Common Lectionary and broadly ecumenical, this addition to the Just In Time! series provides creative liturgies, sermon helps, and prayers for Easter Vigil, Easter Sunday, and the 40 days of Easter.

This flexible worship planner can be used as a supplement to your regularly scheduled services or as an independent and complete Christmas Eve celebration. Traditional Advent wreath and candles, familiar hymns and scriptures, insightful prayers, and a colorful banner punctuate thoughtful reflections on the meaning of Advent and the birth of the Christ Child. Sharonn Davis Halderman, a native of Vienna, West Virginia, received her Master of Divinity degree magna cum laude from Lancaster Theological Seminary in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. She has served rural parishes in the Central Pennsylvania Conference of the United Methodist Church, where she is an ordained elder and presently pastor of the Juniata United Methodist Parish. She and her husband, also a United Methodist pastor, are the parents of two children.

This book is a Christian devotional that uses Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol as a tool to teach the ancient Advent lessons of Hope, Faith, Peace, Love and Joy. Each week's devotion begins with a section from A Christmas Carol which dramatizes the Advent Lesson and is followed with a scriptural Advent lesson from the Church of England's Book of Prayer-- back cover.