Presenting a rich account of women's faith lives and, mapping women's meanings in their own right, this book offers an alternative to dominant accounts of faith development which failed to account for women's experience. Drawing on Fowler's faith development theory, feminist models of women's faith and social science methodology, the text explores the patterns and processes of women's faith development and spirituality in a group of thirty women belonging to, or on the edges of, Christian tradition. Integrating practical theological concern with Christian education and pastoral practice, this book will be of interest to all concerned with women's faith development, spirituality, education and formation, and those working in the fields of practical theology, pastoral care, adult theological education, spiritual direction and counselling.

Many churches, even those that are well-intentioned, are often girl-denying places. Weaving together theological, psychological, and biblical sources. Hess examines how theologies of self-sacrifice thwart both the spiritual and the psychological development of women by subverting their necessary self-assertion. The importance of self-differentiation and cognitive autonomy and of caring and connection are discussed, using as illustrations biblical stories, excerpts from novels, and an in-depth look at eating disorders.

Women have been central to the work of Christian ministry from the time of Jesus to the twenty-first century. Yet the story of Christianity is too often told as a story of men. This accessibly written book tells the story of women throughout church history, demonstrating their integral participation in the church's mission. It highlights the legacies of a wide variety of women, showing how they have overcome obstacles to their ministries and have transformed cultural constraints to spread the gospel and build the church.

Patricia Cooney Hathaway concentrates on helping women understand the relationship between faith and human experience during the middle years within the context of the whole life cycle. She explores the wrenching and puzzling questions women in their middle years need to ask. With wisdom and a nurturing voice, Patricia Cooney Hathaway provides insights about how our Christian faith can help women grow in a personal relationship with God and how our falling in love with God can find practical expression in the way we choose to live.

In this companion volume to her best-selling Enduring Grace, Flinders profiles the lives of four contemporary women of faith. Contending that her modern subjects are spiritual heirs to saints and mystics she draws parallels between her modern subjects and their historical predecessors.

The most enduring success principles for the workplace have roots in Scripture. In a world that increasingly endorses moral relativism, secular humanism, political correctness, and anti-Christian bias, employers still cry out for personnel who are honest, dependable, selfless, and diligent—personnel who solve problems rather than cause them, prevent conflict rather than incite it, seek responsibility instead of running from it, work to improve the team rather than pursuing their own agendas, prevent stress rather than instigate it, and win the trust and respect of their coworkers in spite of differences in worldviews. Christian Women on the Job provides twelve specific strategies that will help women excel by overcoming the hindrances they face at work. Karen Moore, bestselling author of devotional and prayer books, shares encouraging words and inspiring prayers and thoughts.

The world tries to undermine your faith, but God wants to purify and strengthen it. These nine Bible studies from the books of 1 and 2 Peter will help you examine your faith -- first in salvation and then in the Christian life. 9 lessons

Identifying, illuminating and enhancing understanding of key aspects of women and girls' faith lives, The Faith Lives of Women and Girls represents a significant body of original qualitative research from practitioners and researchers across the UK. Contributors include new and upcoming researchers as well as more established feminist practical theologians. Chapters provide perspectives on different ages and stages of faith across the life cycle, from a range of different cultural and religious contexts. Diverse spiritual practices, beliefs and attachments are explored, including a variety of experiences of liminality in women’s faith lives. A range of approaches - ethnographic, oral history, action research, interview studies, case studies and documentary analysis - combine to offer a deeper understanding of women’s and girls' faith lives. As well as being of interest to researchers, this book presents resources to enhance ministry to and with women and girls in a variety of settings.

Feminist practical theology has emerged in the gap between wider feminist and wider practical theology. It celebrates distinctive concerns, arguments, emphases, and questions – unafraid to re-form practical theology in shape and substance, and to guide feminist theology towards the silences and stories of human lives that some professional theologies (including those shaped by feminist commitments) sometimes overlooks. Feminist practical theology is bold in exploration of doctrinal themes in poetic and prayerful modes, characteristically collaborative and in search of alliances with other advocacy perspectives. In the UK, such commitments have been exemplified by Nicola Slee, whom this volume honours. Chapters invite readers into wide ranging conversations that flow from young women’s experiences at university, poetic practice as theology, queer priesthood, theologies of critical masculinities, women presiding in worship, Black and decolonial theologies adjacent to feminist convictions, confrontations with sexual violence, rest and rewilding, and a post-menopausal Mary. Contributors are: Al Barrett, Gavin D’Costa, Deborah Kahn-Harris, Michael N. Jagessar, Sharon Jagger, Rachel Mann, Jenny Morgans, Eleanor Nesbitt, Karen O’Donnell, Mark Pryce, Anthony G. Reddie, Ruth Shelton, Anne Phillips and Alison Wooley.

Dissident Women, Beguines, and the Quest for Spiritual Authority focuses on the responses of a group of twenty-first-century women to the lives and writings of thirteenth-century beguine mystics, and reveals how the struggle to discover their own inner spiritual authority connects two groups of women across centuries. For contemporary women who are disenchanted with the institutional church and who seek spiritual direction, models deeply rooted within the tradition may not be the most helpful. The author explores the value of exemplars from the fringes, ushering Hadewijch of Brabant, Mechthild of Magdeburg, and Marguerite Porete into the spotlight. The contemporary women studied developed a relationship with the beguines that transformed and influenced their own journeys. Their encounters underline the importance of re-membering the beguine mystics, the value of contemplative engagement with historical mystics, and the need for explicit validation of the richness of the edges of tradition within spiritual direction. Dissident Women, Beguines, and the Quest for Spiritual Authority will be of particular interest to scholars of mysticism and spirituality as well as practical, pastoral, and feminist theology.