Your church is dying! Should you just give up and close the doors? Dr. Robert LaRochelle thinks there are more answers and more options. In this book, he draws from a lifetime of experience as a teacher, pastor, counselor, and writer to offer ideas and strategies to make the church a caring presence in your community and to revive and sustain what many may have regarded as a dying church. From worship to Christian education, from the elderly members to the youngest, and with consideration and concern from multiple denominations and communities, Dr. LaRochelle builds a case for a continuing caring presence of the church in our communities. This book will be encouraging to those who seek new strategies to meet the changing needs of their 21st century congregations. With that encouragement, it will provide practical advice. If a church must close, it will help congregants work together to continue in their work of sharing, ministry, and service to one another and to their community. This book is designed for anyone who is interested in keeping the ministry of the many churches in America alive and helping them grow and change. Church leaders and pastors will be especially blessed.

(Lyric Library). An unprecedented collection of popular lyrics that will appeal to all music fans! Includes songs from yesterday and today, from Broadway to Rock 'n' Roll. Highlights include: American Pie * Bennie and the Jets * Blueberry Hill * Brown Eyed Girl * Come What May * Don't Cry for Me Argentina * Dream Weaver * Fame * Free Bird * Fun, Fun, Fun * The Girl from Ipanema * Goodnight, Irene * Green River * Hakuna Matata * Have I Told You Lately * Heart of Glass * I Can't Stop Loving You * I Love Paris * I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For * Jessie's Girl * Jump * Kansas City * Killer Queen * Last Kiss * Livin' La Vida Loca * MacArthur Park * A Matter of Trust * My Cherie Amour * Now You Has Jazz * Oh Sherrie * Popular * Photograph * Proud Mary * The Rain in Spain * Rocket Man * Runaway * Sixteen Candles * Smells Like Teen Spirit * Somebody to Love * Tears in Heaven * That's Life * These Dreams * Under the Sea * Venus * Walk on the Wild Side * We Are Family * You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin' * Your Mama Don't Dance * Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah.

This book of poetry was partly inspired by Tupac Shakur’s book of poetry entitled: THE ROSE THAT GREW FROM CONCRETE, I am not as poetic as he, but I try my best. Just as Tupac has written a song dedicated to his mother entitled: DEAR MAMA, I have also written a song dedicated to my mother which I turned into a poem called RIVER, in the song DEAR MAMA Tupac sung: and even as a crack fiend, mama, you always was a black queen mama. I view my mother as a black queen as well. This is the first time that I have written a book consisting only of poetry. I hope you enjoy and choose one or many of the poems within this book that you can relate to and appreciate, and one or many that represents you, please accept this gift I give to you.

"The history, development, and future directions of evaluation in various European and Asian countries are described and examined. Chapter topics include international organizations or associations that influence this global direction."--Business Horizon Evaluation of public policy has changed considerably in the past decade. This is especially true in Europe, where evaluation is now an institutional part of public sector governance, but it is also characteristic of other parts of the world. The International Atlas of Evaluation describes individual country as well as global trends and developments in the application and impact of evaluation. It also explains underlying forces affecting the contour of evaluation in different national contexts and their consequences for the diffusion of evaluation. The International Atlas of Evaluation describes and examines the history development and future directions of evaluation in twenty-two countries: Australia, Canada, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Switzerland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Zimbabwe, the United Kingdom, and the United States. It includes chapters on international organizations or associations that heavily influence the global direction of evaluation-the European Union, the World Bank, and Development Assistance Evaluation. The volume includes a historical overview of supply and demand in relation to evaluation; shifts in institutional settings; university programs and other sources of training; descriptions of its applications in the executive and legislative branches of government; and observations on the status and future of national systems of evaluation. The Atlas explores whether those countries where evaluation "took off" some years ago are expanding its use, or whether its development has stabilized or even decreased. It explores factors supporting the development of evaluation in a number of developing countries. This volume in the Comparative Policy Analysis series is an essential tool for policy makers, government officials, and scholars interested in the contemporary status of evaluation. Jan-Eric Furubo is head of the Secretariat for Strategic Analyses in the National Audit Office in Sweden. Ray C. Rist is a senior evaluation officer with the Operations Evaluation Department of the World Bank. He has held senior positions in both the legislative and executive branches of the United States government as well as teaching positions at Cornell University, The John Hopkins University, and George Washington University. Rolf Sandahl is an expert in evaluation at the National Financial Management Authority in Sweden, and author of many books and articles in the area of policy instruments, results analysis, and management by results.

The Congressional Record is the official record of the proceedings and debates of the United States Congress. It is published daily when Congress is in session. The Congressional Record began publication in 1873. Debates for sessions prior to 1873 are recorded in The Debates and Proceedings in the Congress of the United States (1789-1824), the Register of Debates in Congress (1824-1837), and the Congressional Globe (1833-1873)

The story is centered on a young man named Dylan Roberts. Dylan comes from a home where his parents are alcoholics and his father is abusive. Acting as a parent to his mother and younger brother, Dylan also becomes dependent on alcohol and heroin. In the midst of addiction, pregnancy, a web of lies, and his mother finally getting clean Dylan tries to change his life to be with the girl he believes to be his soul mate, Sydney Manchester. There are many twists and turns along the way and young love has to fight to survive the pains of growing up. The Storm Before my Calm is written in the first person and takes place in the Northern California small town of Benicia. Up until the last few pages the reader will wonder whether young love can only exist in stories like Romeo and Juliet or will it survive and flourish.

Musical theatre choreography has indisputably evolved over the years and choreographers develop methods of working and philosophical approaches that should be documented but rarely are. Textual information is limited, and what has been written is generally more practical than theoretical, and is minimal compared to those books written for choreographers of modern and contemporary dance. By pointing out the similarities and dissimilarities between concert dance genres and theatre dance, and by identifying the specialized demands of crafting artistic and script-serving theatre dance and staging, this text differentiates musical theatre choreography as a separate and bona fide art form and suggests that 1) universities recognize it as such by offering training possibilities for future musical theatre choreographers, and 2) established choreographers of musicals begin to write down their own artistic processes to help fill the choreographic toolbox for young choreographers wanting to work in this field. In 1943, a light switch was flipped with the musical Oklahoma! when Rodgers' and Hammerstein's mission to keep the book absolutely central to the making of a musical was established. After that, other musical theatre artists followed suit causing standards to change. Now, no other artistic element in a musical makes a move without first ensuring that it serves the script. By creating original material that is integral to the telling of a story, composers and lyricists came to be thought of as dramatists. Likewise, Oklahoma! choreographer Agnes de Mille seamlessly integrated her dances and staging into the action and created character and situation-specific movement that actually helped forward the plot. Because of her groundbreaking advances, choreographers are now also expected to create dances that serve the script and help to tell the playwright's story. The choreographer, like the librettist, composer, and lyricist, is now positioned as dramatist, as well. In Part 1, the choreographer as dramatist is stressed as the author uses each chapter to reflect upon ways she analyzes librettos and scores to determine the function of each song in a musical and the stories that should be told through dances and staging created for each song. Drawing from her own experiences as a musical theatre director/choreographer, she reflects upon and shares her artistic process, not in a linear way, but anecdotally, to illustrate the kind of thinking that will lead her to effectively tackle the job at hand. At the end of each chapter, assignments are suggested that may be useful to aspiring choreographers and directors of musicals. This text is a valuable resource for teachers designing a course in theatre choreography on either the undergraduate or graduate level, as well as for professional directors and choreographers who want to think more deeply about their own work. Students of choreography will be asked to reflect upon and to work with techniques that are sometimes similar to, but also often oppositional to those learned in modern dance choreography courses. Part Two offers an overview of the scope of literature and representative articles that have been published on both topics, modern dance composition and musical theatre choreography, as it concisely traces the history of modern dance choreographic pedagogy, aligning it with concurrent trends happening within the American musical theatre since the mid-19th century.

What happens when a long-dead uncle gets permission to visit his family on earth as an instructing angel? The Portman family is about to find out! Overwhelmed by the death of a beloved grandfather, the Portmans escape to the wilderness to grieve on an extended camping trip. There, they come face-to-face with their own "inner wilderness" of anger, pain, and despair. Their angel, Michael, helps them see what is at stake in their spiritual crisis. The father, Steve, is forced to make painful confessions to his family, connected to his brother Michael's mysterious death in a boating accident at Cape Desperate some twenty years earlier. His wife Abby is able to pour out her anxieties about motherhood and marriage. Son Jake needs dating advice, and daughter Becca is a victim of cyberbullying and needs lessons in forgiveness. The angel patiently counsels them all, answering their questions about the meaning of suffering, the realities of heaven and hell, the existence of Satan, the hidden secrets of Armageddon, the authority of the Bible, the role of non-Christian religions, the seeker's pathway to inner peace, and how to discover God's will for their lives. Then, a terrible accident brings their journey to an abrupt climax!

Author James David Parkers once thriving professional career was in a nosedive to disaster. His once-profitable investments dragged him to the precipice of financial ruin. The stress of the battle for survival wasted his will. Mental depression trashed his intellect. As a nominal, but skeptical, Christian, he asked: Can Jesus rescue me? Will Jesus deliver me from my earthly hell? And thus began his journeya search for truth. In The Fire Will Not Consume YouIsaiah 43:2b, Parker shares his progression from successful engineer to cynicism, to financial disaster and stress-induced illness, to the spirit-led process of prayer and recovery, and finally, to acknowledgement of his intimate relationship with his creator God. Each chapter in the core of the book begins with a prayer addressing a specific deficit in character or perception. The Fire Will Not Consume YouIsaiah 43:2b chronicles Parkers recovery from mental depression through introspective prayer and Bible study. He offers a guidebook to unleash the unlimited power of God to bring personal peace in prayerful communication with him.