Leaders in congregations and Christian organizations wrestle with an unraveling of the world in which they have little experience and training. While they are offered unending resources by experts on leadership, some with claims to biblical blueprints, the challenges seem mismatched to those methods. Branson and Roxburgh frame the situation as one in which “modernity’s wager”—the conviction that God is not necessary for life and wisdom and meaning—has defined the Western imagination. Because churches and leaders are colonized by this ethos, even when God is named and beliefs are claimed, approaches to leadership are blind to God’s agency. Branson and Roxburgh approach this challenge as a work in practical theology, attending to our cultural context, narratives of God’s disruptive initiatives in Scripture, and a reshaping of leadership theories with a priority on God’s agency. With years of experience as teachers, consultants, and guides, they name practices which lead to more faithful participation. Leadership, God’s Agency, and Disruption is wide-ranging in cultural and biblical scholarship, challenging in its engagement with numerous leadership studies, and practical with its focus toward the on-the-ground life of churches and organizations.

Asking if there is humor in any religious text might seem blasphemous to many readers. Religious texts are there to instruct us, not entertain us. Religious texts are serious works, not frivolous. However, if part of being human entails having a sense of humor, then it would be more surprising indeed for Scripture not to have humor. Humor instructs us as much as it entertains us. God at the Improv seeks to show that being religious and being humorous are not opposites, but actually work in tandem to enhance and enliven our faith and practice.

Top-notch biblical scholars from around the world and from various Christian traditions offer a fulsome yet readable introduction to the Bible and its interpretation. The book concisely introduces the Old and New Testaments and related topics and examines a wide variety of historical and contemporary interpretive approaches, including African, African-American, Asian, and Latino streams. Contributors include N. T. Wright, M. Daniel Carroll R., Stephen Fowl, Joel Green, Michael Holmes, Edith Humphrey, Christopher Rowland, and K. K. Yeo, among others. Questions for reflection and discussion, an annotated bibliography, and a glossary are included.

The Improv Handbook is the most comprehensive, smart, helpful and inspiring guide to improv available today. Applicable to comedians, actors, public speakers and anyone who needs to think on their toes, it features a range of games, interviews, descriptions and exercises that illuminate and illustrate the exciting world of improvised performance. First published in 2008, this second edition features a new foreword by comedian Mike McShane, as well as new exercises on endings, managing blind offers and master-servant games, plus new and expanded interviews with Keith Johnstone, Neil Mullarkey, Jeffrey Sweet and Paul Rogan. The Improv Handbook is a one-stop guide to the exciting world of improvisation. Whether you're a beginner, an expert, or would just love to try it if you weren't too scared, The Improv Handbook will guide you every step of the way.

Throughout the book Thiselton shows how perspectives that arise from hermeneutics shed fresh light on theological method, reshape horizons of understanding, and reveal the relevance of doctrine for formation and for life. --

What can preachers do to help congregants navigate everyday life with the courage, imagination, and savvy it takes to testify in action and word to God’s mercy and justice? Christianity's witness depends on credible Christian lives carried out in ordinary settings of everyday life. Sunday’s Sermon for Monday’s World helps preachers design sermons that equip believers to act with improvisational, creative courage in the ordinary settings of their Monday-to-Saturday lives. How can we who preach inspire the “ordinary prophets” of our time—those who, in Christ’s name, will act in great or small ways as agents of redemptive interruption? Sally A. Brown, with her extensive experience both in parish ministry and training others for ministry, shares preaching strategies that equip these ordinary prophets to take daring action. Brown begins by reconsidering the power and limits of the missional model of Christian witness and argues that Christian witness today must be adaptive, and therefore imaginative and improvisational. She then turns to the connection between the sermons our listeners hear on Sunday and their capacity to timely, inventive action in everyday situations. Sunday’s Sermon for Monday’s World will inspire both preachers and those who listen to them to move from sanctuary to street, week after week, eager to discern and participate in the ongoing, redemptive work of God already under way amid the ordinary scenes and settings of their Monday-to-Saturday lives.

J. Richard Middleton and Brian J. Walsh offer an introduction, evaluation and response to postmodern culture that comes straight from the heart of the gospel.

Why are there differences in the stories of the Gospels? Licona turns to Greek classicist Plutarch for an answer, assessing differences that appeared when Plutarch told the same story more than once in his Lives. He suggests the differences in the Gospels often resulted from their authors employing the same compositional devices used by Plutarch.