Proceedings of a conference held in May 2009 at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Deerfield, Ill.

Transcending Generations is a guide for church leaders seeking to communicate and collaborate with adults of all ages—beyond generations. In this new guide to being and doing church, sociologist and culture critic Meredith Gould focuses on issues shared by people of faith, regardless of chronological age, psychosocial development, or generational cohort. In short, easy-to-read chapters and with her characteristic wit, Gould challenges readers to think in more nuanced ways about age to remove false barriers. Readers are guided through practical ways to move forward together while honoring authentic differences. Includes questions for individual inquiry and group discussion.

Move over Boomers, Xers, and Millennials; there's a new generation--making up more than 25 percent of the US population--that represents a seismic cultural shift. Born approximately between 1993 and 2012, Generation Z is the first truly post-Christian generation, and they are poised to challenge every church to rethink its role in light of a rapidly changing culture. From the award-winning author of The Rise of the Nones comes this enlightening introduction to the youngest generation. James Emery White explains who this generation is, how it came to be, and the impact it is likely to have on the nation and the faith. Then he reintroduces us to the ancient countercultural model of the early church, arguing that this is the model Christian leaders must adopt and adapt if we are to reach members of Generation Z with the gospel. He helps readers rethink evangelistic and apologetic methods, cultivate a culture of invitation, and communicate with this connected generation where they are. Pastors, ministry leaders, youth workers, and parents will find this an essential and hopeful resource.

One of NPR's Best Books of the Year “Straight’s memoir is a lyric social history of her multiracial clan in Riverside that explores the bonds of love and survival that bind them, with a particular emphasis on the women’s stories . . . The aftereffect of all these disparate stories juxtaposed in a single epic is remarkable. Its resonance lingers for days after reading.” —San Francisco Chronicle In the Country of Women is a valuable social history and a personal narrative that reads like a love song to America and indomitable women. In inland Southern California, near the desert and the Mexican border, Susan Straight, a self–proclaimed book nerd, and Dwayne Sims, an African American basketball player, started dating in high school. After college, they married and drove to Amherst, Massachusetts, where Straight met her teacher and mentor, James Baldwin, who encouraged her to write. Once back in Riverside, at driveway barbecues and fish fries with the large, close–knit Sims family, Straight—and eventually her three daughters—heard for decades the stories of Dwayne’s female ancestors. Some women escaped violence in post–slavery Tennessee, some escaped murder in Jim Crow Mississippi, and some fled abusive men. Straight’s mother–in–law, Alberta Sims, is the descendant at the heart of this memoir. Susan’s family, too, reflects the hardship and resilience of women pushing onward—from Switzerland, Canada, and the Colorado Rockies to California. A Pakistani word, biraderi, is one Straight uses to define a complex system of kinship and clan—those who become your family. An entire community helped raise her daughters. Of her three girls, now grown and working in museums and the entertainment industry, Straight writes, “The daughters of our ancestors carry in their blood at least three continents. We are not about borders. We are about love and survival.” “Certain books give off the sense that you won’t want them to end, so splendid the writing, so lyrical the stories. Such is the case with Southern California novelist Susan Straight’s new memoir, In the Country of Women . . . Her vibrant pages are filled with people of churned–together blood culled from scattered immigrants and native peoples, indomitable women and their babies. Yet they never succumb . . . Straight gives us permission to remember what went before with passion and attachment.” ––Los Angeles Times

Do you want your home to be an environment of growth where each member finds forgiveness, love, acceptance, and honor? Renowned counselor Dr. Gary Smalley reveals ways to build a marriage and a family that honors each family member. Filled with personal stories that will make you laugh and cry, Smalley shares wisdom from his many years of experience as a husband, father, grandfather, and counselor. He offers both spiritual depth and practical insight, and he helps you enjoy a home filled with harmony for today and for generations to come.

A compelling history of radical transformation in the fourth-century--when Christianity decimated the practices of traditional pagan religion in the Roman Empire. The Final Pagan Generation recounts the fascinating story of the lives and fortunes of the last Romans born before the Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity. Edward J. Watts traces their experiences of living through the fourth century’s dramatic religious and political changes, when heated confrontations saw the Christian establishment legislate against pagan practices as mobs attacked pagan holy sites and temples. The emperors who issued these laws, the imperial officials charged with implementing them, and the Christian perpetrators of religious violence were almost exclusively young men whose attitudes and actions contrasted markedly with those of the earlier generation, who shared neither their juniors’ interest in creating sharply defined religious identities nor their propensity for violent conflict. Watts examines why the "final pagan generation"—born to the old ways and the old world in which it seemed to everyone that religious practices would continue as they had for the past two thousand years—proved both unable to anticipate the changes that imperially sponsored Christianity produced and unwilling to resist them. A compelling and provocative read, suitable for the general reader as well as students and scholars of the ancient world.

Leaving a Godly Legacy The steps forward you take today leave footprints for generations after you to follow. Are you walking in the right direction? This ground-breaking book challenges the Body of Christ to connect the past, present, and future by thinking and acting generationally. You are encouraged to enter into a Hebraic mindset of honoring fathers and mothers as well as passing down your godly inheritance to your children’s children. Through Walk in Generational Blessings, the dominion lost at the Fall is regained by following biblical mandates and principles that are futuring, process-driven, and transgenerational. Transforming truths revealed include: How to leave a legacy of physical, relational, and spiritual blessings for your children and your children’s children. Confronting political correctness and pluralism head-on, boldly declaring that what God told us at the beginning is still true today. Strategies related to discipling and training both biological and spiritual children. Learning why some people reject spiritual authority. Realizing that true spiritual warfare and ministry begin at home—within families. Stopping cultural decline cannot be accomplished by government, with science and technology, or on the battlefields of clashing civilizations, but only in the heart of our society—the home. Begin your transgenerational, transformational journey today!

A moving family biography in which the poet traces her family history back through Jim Crow, the slave trade, and all the way to the women of the Dahomey people in West Africa. Buffalo, New York. A father’s funeral. Memory. In Generations, Lucille Clifton’s formidable poetic gift emerges in prose, giving us a memoir of stark and profound beauty. Her story focuses on the lives of the Sayles family: Caroline, “born among the Dahomey people in 1822,” who walked north from New Orleans to Virginia in 1830 when she was eight years old; Lucy, the first black woman to be hanged in Virginia; and Gene, born with a withered arm, the son of a carpetbagger and the author’s grandmother. Clifton tells us about the life of an African American family through slavery and hard times and beyond, the death of her father and grandmother, but also all the life and love and triumph that came before and remains even now. Generations is a powerful work of determination and affirmation. “I look at my husband,” Clifton writes, “and my children and I feel the Dahomey women gathering in my bones.”

Andrew wants nothing more than to see his great-grandfather honored for World War II. He learns about Honor Flights, a program that flies veterans to Washington, D.C. to visit a memorial dedicated to them, but his great-grandfather refuses to go. Andrew becomes determined to inspire him to celebrate his bravery and dedication to his country. Children and adults will appreciate this patriotic, endearing tale.

The relationship between Jewish studies and religious studies is a long and complicated one, full of tensions and possibilities. Whereas the majority of scholars working within Jewish studies contend that the discipline is in a very healthy state, many who work in theory and method in religious studies disagree. For them, Jewish studies represents all that is wrong with the modern academic study of religion: too introspective, too ethnic, too navel-gazing, and too willing to reify or essentialize data that it constructs in its own image. In this book, Aaron W. Hughes explores the unique situation of Jewish studies and how it intersects with religious studies, noting particular areas of concern for those interested in the field's intellectual health and future flourishing. Hughes provides a detailed study of origins, principles, and assumptions, documenting the rise of Jewish studies in Germany and its migration to Israel and the United States. Current issues facing the academic study of Judaism are discussed, including the role of private foundations that seek inroads into the academy.