A 52-week devotional for ministry leaders and worship teams to prepare their hearts and minds for the service and make the worship experience of their church more meaningful. Anyone involved in organized worship has probably seen what worship can be, and they've wondered: How can we tap into that transformative spirit more often? How can we overcome the problems of urgency, fatigue, and the temptation to just go through the motions? How can we gather before God, consistently ready to receive his presence? In Before We Gather, Zac Hicks—author of the best-selling book The Worship Pastor—provides a unique, year-long devotional that focuses the attention of worship teams and individuals on God. This book offers biblical reflection in a simple, engaging style, helping worship teams set the tone of a gathering by developing a rich theology of worship through the practice of prayer. Full of field-tested devotionals specifically designed for pre-service prayer times, each entry has a simple, three-part format: read a passage, reflect on it, and then spend time in focused prayer that will propel worshipers into the service. The 52 entries can be used once a week over the course of an entire year and are also indexed according to themes, individual Scripture verses, and the church calendar, allowing you to adapt and use this resource in the way that best fits your context.

"Hosts of all kinds, this is a must-read!" --Chris Anderson, owner and curator of TED From the host of the New York Times podcast Together Apart, an exciting new approach to how we gather that will transform the ways we spend our time together—at home, at work, in our communities, and beyond. In The Art of Gathering, Priya Parker argues that the gatherings in our lives are lackluster and unproductive--which they don't have to be. We rely too much on routine and the conventions of gatherings when we should focus on distinctiveness and the people involved. At a time when coming together is more important than ever, Parker sets forth a human-centered approach to gathering that will help everyone create meaningful, memorable experiences, large and small, for work and for play. Drawing on her expertise as a facilitator of high-powered gatherings around the world, Parker takes us inside events of all kinds to show what works, what doesn't, and why. She investigates a wide array of gatherings--conferences, meetings, a courtroom, a flash-mob party, an Arab-Israeli summer camp--and explains how simple, specific changes can invigorate any group experience. The result is a book that's both journey and guide, full of exciting ideas with real-world applications. The Art of Gathering will forever alter the way you look at your next meeting, industry conference, dinner party, and backyard barbecue--and how you host and attend them.

When We Gather is an essential resource for pastors, worship committees, and others who plan weekly congregational worship. For every Sunday in the church year, James Kirk provides contemporary, theologically solid prayers and other elements for use in worship. Included are prayers of praise and adoration, confession and pardon, dedication, thanksgiving and petition, as well as concise comments on the lectionary Scripture readings for each Sunday. Now expanded and updated to conform to the Revised Common Lectionary, this revised edition of When We Gather combines the original three-volume set into a single handy volume covering all of the Sundays in lectionary cycles A, B, and C.

Everyone worships. But Jesus tells us that God is seeking a particular kind of worshiper. In True Worshipers, a seasoned pastor and musician guides readers toward a more engaging, transformative, and biblically faithful understanding of the worship God is seeking. True worship is an activity rooted in the grace of the gospel that affects every area of our lives. And while worship is more than just singing, God’s people gathering in his presence to lift their voices in song is an activity that is biblically based, historically rooted, and potentially life-changing. Thoroughly based in Scripture and filled with practical guidance, this book connects Sunday worship to the rest of our lives—helping us live as true worshipers each and every day.

On the outside, many women are well-put-together Christians with trendy shoes, beautiful children, and wide, white smiles. On the inside, those same women are little girls cowering at the edge of the playground, hoping no one notices them, yet still wishing they could join in. They've professed faith and know the right things, but they struggle to truly take hold of the "life more abundant" that Jesus offers. Instead they settle for a life that's less than what God has promised them. In this liberating book, Sharon Jaynes reveals the most common reasons women get stuck with a mediocre, mundane faith. Then she shows women how to break free and move forward, leaving behind the feelings of inferiority, inadequacy, and insecurity that are holding them hostage. She uncovers untapped sources of confidence and courage, equipping women to move from knowing the truth to actually believing it--and living it out boldly in a life marked by true freedom.

Christianity Today 2023 Book Award Finalist (Bible & Devotional) Sheltering Mercy helps us rediscover the rich treasures of the Psalms--through free-verse prayer renderings of their poems and hymns--as a guide to personal devotion and meditation. The church has always used the Psalms as part of its prayer life, and they have inspired countless other prayers. This book contains 75 prayers drawn from Psalms 1-75, providing lyrical sketches of what authors Ryan Whitaker Smith and Dan Wilt have seen, heard, and felt while sojourning in the Psalms. While each prayer corresponds to a particular psalm and touches on its themes and ideas, it is not a new translation of the Psalms or an attempt to modernize or contextualize their content or language. Rather, the prayers are responses to the Psalms written in harmony with Scripture. These prayers help us quiet our hearts before God and welcome us into a safe place amid the storms of life. This artful, poetic, and classic devotional book features compelling custom illustrations and beautiful hardcover binding, offering a fresh way to reflect on and pray the Psalms.

Grow your audience, shrink your footprint, change the world Events can help educate, inspire, and connect us to our community, but all too often they escalate into resource-intensive glorifications of excess and exclusivity. How We Gather Matters is an invitation to reimagine the modern events industry as a powerful vehicle for change. This practical guide will enable and inspire festival, conference, trade show, wedding, concert, and sporting event planners to: Develop the financial and human resources required to implement green, sustainable gatherings Collaborate effectively with diverse teams and stakeholders Design events with impact and purpose, while supporting marketing and strategic goals Engage participants authentically while aligning with positive and progressive values Lead the shift towards net-zero emissions and zero waste by leveraging best practices and accepted international standards. Packed with personal insights, behind-the-scenes stories, and case studies, How We Gather Matters is required reading for event professionals who want to decrease risk, increase profitability, and meaningfully contribute to a more just, inclusive, and sustainable society.

Tracing the interactions among evangelicals, Catholics, and Mormons from the 1950s to the present day, We Gather Together recasts the story of the emergence of the Religious Right, showing that it was not a brilliant political strategy of compromise and coalition-building hatched on the eve of a history-altering election. Rather, it was the latest iteration of a much-longer religious debate that had been going on for decades. Evangelicals, Catholics, and Mormons found common cause and pursued similar ends in debates about abortion, school prayer, the Equal Rights Amendment, and tax exemptions for religious schools, but they were far from a unified bloc, cracks in the alliance shaped the movement from the very beginning. This provocative book will reshape our understanding of the most important religious and political movement of the last 30 years.

Touching on ten themes essential to Christian life, these 150 prayers are designed to help begin or end a meeting, a community event, or any other type of gathering.

This Romeo/Juliet story set in the mountains of Virginia in the 1870s depicts a life and time largely forgotten now. Jimmie Sue, a white farm boy, and Madeleen, a colored sharecropper girl, although mutually attracted to each other, must deal with a greater obstacle than having different family names, such as the Capulets and Montagues in Shakespeare. Jimmie Sue was not so interested in a sheet of paper to certify their relationship, but Madeleen would have no part of an arrangement that was not "blessed of the Lord." Their shared experiences in the fields, the churches, the baptism creek give them many contact opportunities, which are duly celebrated yet constantly thwarted. Although the focus is on these two teenagers, the story gives some insight into the post-civil war racial relationships in the mountains... quite different from the more normally accepted tales of the plantations.