Psychologist, physician and preacher Richard Cox calls on the best modern neuroscience to prove that a better understanding of the brain can transform your preaching. Arguing that the sermon is a highly charged cognitive event, Cox explains the role of brain stimuli in such crucial pastoral tasks as delivering comfort and provoking moral action.

MORE THAN 500,000 COPIES SOLD! Are your thoughts out of control--just like your life? Do you long to break free from the spiral of destructive thinking? Let God's truth become your battle plan to win the war in your mind! We've all tried to think our way out of bad habits and unhealthy thought patterns, only to find ourselves stuck with an out-of-control mind and off-track daily life. Pastor and New York Times bestselling author Craig Groeschel understands deeply this daily battle against self-doubt and negative thinking, and in this powerful new book he reveals the strategies he's discovered to change your mind and your life for the long-term. Drawing upon Scripture and the latest findings of brain science, Groeschel lays out practical strategies that will free you from the grip of harmful, destructive thinking and enable you to live the life of joy and peace that God intends you to live. Winning the War in Your Mind will help you: Learn how your brain works and see how to rewire it Identify the lies your enemy wants you to believe Recognize and short-circuit your mental triggers for destructive thinking See how prayer and praise will transform your mind Develop practices that allow God's thoughts to become your thoughts God has something better for your life than your old ways of thinking. It's time to change your mind so God can change your life.

This book and the essays contained within are dedicated to Dr. Chuck Sackett in recognition of his thirty-two years of teaching at Lincoln Christian University. He currently serves as Professor at Large but has held a variety of roles and titles during his thirty-two years there. These essays are written by current colleagues and former students who have had the privilege of studying hermeneutics, homiletics, and ministry with Dr. Sackett. Each essay covers a topic of scholarly or contemporary interest in the fields of hermeneutics or homiletics. Hermeneutics and homiletics remain topics of discussion in the academy and the church. These essays continue that discussion. The essays overlap the two fields. Some essays focus heavily on hermeneutical issues with an eye towards proclamation, while others start with homiletics and hermeneutical issues are echoed in the background. The essays found in this book offer unique perspectives and approaches to interpretation and preaching. Though homiletics and hermeneutics are the fields of the study, the church remains the arena where the fruit of each discipline is observed most clearly, as Dr. Sackett instructed his students throughout his years of teaching.

What does a theologian say to young preachers in the early 1930s, at the dawn of the Third Reich? What Karl Barth did say, how he said it, and why he said it at that time and place are the subject of Angela Dienhart Hancock's book. This is the story of how a preaching classroom became a place of resistance in Germany in 1932 33 -- a story that has not been told in its fullness. In that emergency situation, Barth took his students back to the fundamental questions about what preaching is and what it is for, returning again and again to the affirmation of the Godness of God, the only ground of resistance to ideological captivity. No other text has so interpreted Barth's "Exercises in Sermon Preparation" in relation to their theological, political, ecclesiastical, academic, and rhetorical context.

This book has a target audience of scholars working in Practical Theology, especially scholars interested in the functioning of attitudes, cognition, and remembrance. In understanding this book, it will be vital to realize that the author is connecting liturgy's face, interface, and outlook to the concepts of attitude, cognition, and remembrance. The book embarks on the importance of a liturgy that should connect with everyday life and a liturgy that enables its participants to make divulgences that can enhance its meaningfulness to its participants. This book is directed to an audience interested in an interdisciplinary approach to liturgics, liturgists in congregations and people concerned with liturgy's meaningfulness.

C. S. Lewis excelled at plumbing the depths of the human heart, both the good and the bad, the beautiful and the corrupt. From science fiction and fantasy to essays, letters, and works of apologetics, Lewis has offered a wealth of insight into how to live the Christian life. In this book, Rigney explores the center of Lewis's vision for the Christian life—the personal encounter between the human self and the living God. In prayer, in the church, in the imagination, in our natural loves, in our pleasures and our sorrows, God brings us into his presence so that we can become fully human: alive, free, and whole, transformed into the image of Jesus Christ.

All followers of Jesus Christ are called to become people transformed by the Holy Spirit so we can live out Gods heart for the world in terms of Christs great commission. To do that often requires Christians to move against cultural sameness, familial expectations, secular norms, religious boundaries, and even personal emotional issues. Obedience to God in todays world requires the lifestyle of a Salmon Swimmera Christian equipped to overcome whatever obstacles keep them from fulfilling Gods global agenda. Such commitment has intriguing parallels to the journey of Atlantic salmon in their effort to swim upstream to spawn the next generation of salmon.

No function of the pastor is as visible and stress inducing as preaching. But few pastors feel adequately prepared for this high-stakes responsibility when they begin their ministries. Forged by her experiences as a pastor, preaching professor and college chaplain, Mary Hulst provides practical tips for all pastors, whether ministry newcomers or seasoned professionals.

The Jesus everybody likes, says Mark Strauss, is not the Jesus found in the Gospels. He preached about hell far more than the apostle Paul. He told his followers to hate their families. Not one of his twelve apostles was a woman. When we unpack these puzzling paradoxes and more, we gain greater insight into Jesus' countercultural message and mission.

The Mosaic of Atonement offers a fresh and integrated approach to historic models of atonement. While modern treatments of the doctrine have tended toward either a defensive hierarchy, in which one model is singled out as most important, or a disconnected plurality, in which multiple images are affirmed but with no order of arrangement, this book argues for a reintegration of four famous "pieces" of atonement doctrine through the governing image of Christ-shaped mosaic. Unlike a photograph in which tiny pixels present a seamless blending of color and shape, a mosaic allows each piece to retain its recognizable particularity, while also integrating them in the service of a single larger image. If one stands close, one can identify individual squares of glass or tile that compose the greater picture. And if one steps back, there is the larger picture to be admired. Yet in the great mosaics of age-old Christian churches, the goal is not for viewers to construct the image, as in a puzzle, but to appreciate it. So too with this mosaic of atonement doctrine. While no one model is set above or against the others, the book notes particular ways in which the "pieces"--the feet, heart, head, and hands--mutually support one another to form a more holistic vision of Christ's work. "This is my body," Jesus said to his followers, and by reintegrating these oft-dismembered aspects of atonement, we will note fresh ways in which it was given for us.