The conditions, beliefs, and practices that shape the churches and the lives of America's urban poor are explored in this collection of photographs and interviews with pastors, church officials, and congregation members.

A New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age: How do you define family? Jenny Fitzgerald is an artist who never fit in with her sports-obsessed parents and siblings. Still, she loves her family—even if she doesn’t relate to them. Even if, unlike her younger siblings, Jenny’s father is Donor 142. She’s always known the truth, but before now, it hasn’t seemed to matter much. But this summer—her sixteenth—is different. Where does Jenny really belong? Her parents don’t understand her artwork (and her boss at the studio isn’t even convinced she has talent), her twin sisters are so close it hurts (and it’s good at hurting Jenny), and she’s not entirely sure why she has a crush on jock Tate Brodeur (not that he’s noticed her . . . yet). To find her true self, Jenny begins to search for the one person who might really understand her—someone biologically connected. With Tate’s help, Jenny consults the Donor Sibling Registry, and before she knows it, she has discovered a half sibling. Alexa is witty, impulsive, and desperate to meet. Jenny’s convinced her genetic other half is the key to having a family, but when Alexa shows up unannounced, Jenny’s world changes in ways she never could have predicted.

Kimball guides church leaders on how to create alternative services from start to finish in a very conversational narrative full of anecdotes about his own experiences at Graceland.

Malls, stadiums, and universities are actually liturgical structures that influence and shape our thoughts and affections. Humans--as Augustine noted--are "desiring agents," full of longings and passions; in brief, we are what we love. James K. A. Smith focuses on the themes of liturgy and desire in Desiring the Kingdom, the first book in what will be a three-volume set on the theology of culture. He redirects our yearnings to focus on the greatest good: God. Ultimately, Smith seeks to re-vision education through the process and practice of worship. Students of philosophy, theology, worldview, and culture will welcome Desiring the Kingdom, as will those involved in ministry and other interested readers.

The definitive guide to the meaning of today's most popular praise and worship songs. Few things influence Christians' understanding of the faith more than the songs they sing in worship. The explosion of praise and worship music in the last fifteen years has profoundly affected our experience of God. So what are those songs telling us about who God is? In what ways have they made us more faithful disciples of Jesus Christ? In what ways have they failed to embody the full message of the gospel? Working with the lists of the most frequently sung praise and worship songs from recent years, the authors of this book offer an objective but supportive assessment of the meaning and contribution of the Christian music that has been so important in the lives of contemporary believers.

As long as there has been a church, there has been Christian communication - people of the book bearing the good news from one place to another, persuading, teaching and even delighting an ever-broadening audience with the message of the gospel. Amid ongoing advances in technology and an ever-more-multicultural context, however, the time...

For more than a century, Harlem has been the epicenter of black America, the celebrated heart of African American life and culture—but it has also been a byword for the problems that have long plagued inner-city neighborhoods: poverty, crime, violence, disinvestment, and decay. Photographer Camilo José Vergara has been chronicling the neighborhood for forty-three years, and Harlem: The Unmaking of a Ghetto is an unprecedented record of urban change. Vergara began his documentation of Harlem in the tradition of such masters as Helen Levitt and Aaron Siskind, and he later turned his focus on the neighborhood’s urban fabric, both the buildings that compose it and the life and culture embedded in them. By repeatedly returning to the same locations over the course of decades, Vergara is able to show us a community that is constantly changing—some areas declining, as longtime businesses give way to empty storefronts, graffiti, and garbage, while other areas gentrify, with corporate chain stores coming in to compete with the mom-and-pops. He also captures the ever-present street life of this densely populated neighborhood, from stoop gatherings to graffiti murals memorializing dead rappers to impersonators honoring Michael Jackson in front of the Apollo, as well as the growth of tourism and racial integration. Woven throughout the images is Vergara’s own account of his project and his experience of living and working in Harlem. Taken together, his unforgettable words and images tell the story of how Harlem and its residents navigated the segregation, dereliction and slow recovery of the closing years of the twentieth century and the boom and racial integration of the twenty-first century. A deeply personal investigation, Harlem will take its place with the best portrayals of urban life.

From 1991 to 2012, Nathan D. Mitchell was the author of the "Amen Corner" that appeared at the end of each issue of Worship. Readers of Worship grew accustomed to Nathan's columns as invitations to rethink the practice of Christian worship through a liturgical theology that was interdisciplinary, aesthetic, and attentive to history. With the soul of a poet, Nathan was always on the lookout for the turn of phrase, image, stanza, or metaphor from other classic wordsmiths that could capture the liturgical insight he wanted to explore. For the first time, this volume assembles some of the most important of these columns around the themes of body, Word, Spirit, beauty, justice, and unity. In addition, Nathan's former students offer substantive commentary through essays that invite the reader to consider how the themes raised by Nathan might develop in the coming years. This collection is a must-read both for those who admired Nathan's contribution to liturgical studies and for a newer generation of scholars seeking to discern the frontiers of liturgical theology. Nathan D. Mitchell is an emeritus professor of liturgy in the Department of Theology at the University of Notre Dame. In 1998, Mitchell was presented with the Berakah Award from the North American Academy of Liturgy for his contribution to the field. His many publications include the following books: Meeting Mystery: Liturgy, Worship, Sacraments, and The Mystery of the Rosary: Marian Devotion and the Reinvention of Catholicism.

The past several decades have seen a renaissance in Christian philosophy, led by the work of Alvin Plantinga, Nicholas Wolterstorff, William Alston, Eleonore Stump, and others. In the spirit of Plantinga s famous manifesto, Advice to Christian Philosophers, James K. A. Smith here offers not only advice to Pentecostal philosophers but also some Pentecostal advice to Christian philosophers. In this inaugural Pentecostal Manifestos volume Smith begins from the conviction that implicit in Pentecostal and charismatic spirituality is a tacit worldview or social imaginary. Thinking in Tongues unpacks and articulates the key elements of this Pentecostal worldview and then explores their implications for philosophical reflection on ontology, epistemology, aesthetics, language, science, and philosophy of religion. In each case, Smith demonstrates how the implicit wisdom of Pentecostal spirituality makes unique contributions to current conversations in Christian philosophy.