ENCOUNTER A RADICAL COMMITMENT TO PREACHING THAT WILL REACH THE EARS OF A NEW GENERATION OF CHURCHGOERS. People today want to connect with God; they crave spirituality. But inside the walls of the church they’re getting a 30- to 50-minute spiritual monologue. Simply put, sermons do not communicate effectively in a YouTube, Twitter, Google world. We just can’t keep doing business—preaching—as we always have in this fluid culture. Sermons Reimagined will teach you easy, practical ways to reach today’s audience, who: • Consume sound bites, not sermons • Process information visually, not verbally • Apply concepts through experiences and interaction, not passivity and lectures It’s time to reimagine the sermon to reach a new generation. This book will show you how.

This author and pastor offers an invitation to the kind of preaching that "creates followers of God who serve the world well and live the invitation to the rhythm of God."

"From pastor, scholar, and best-selling author, Marvin McMickle, comes this new volume that considers the evolution of liberation theologies in their historic and cultural contexts. Beginning with the author's own formative experiences with the Black theology of James Cone, exploring the socioeconomic implications of Latin American liberation theologies, and considering in depth the theologies of feminist scholars, womanist theologians, and women in ministry. More than a chronological history or intellectual analysis, this book breathes with lived faith and practical theology, acknowledging the contexts out of which theologies of liberation emerge and the transforming impact they have on the social and political lives of Christians today"--

Imagine for a moment...that you can forget almost everything you've ever read, ever heard, ever been taught about preaching. Somehow, everything is new; nothing is impossible. Imagine if----with the Holy Spirit's working----missional communities could be formed, vibrant stories would be told and retold for generations, in new and ever vivid manners of communication. emergentYS author and pastor Doug Pagitt offers an invitation to the kind of preaching that 'creates followers of God who serve the world well and live the invitation to the rhythm of God.' He introduces you to an approach to engaging with the Bible with a focus on three questions: * What kind of communities are we forming? (Sociology) * What story are we telling? (Theology) * How can we tell it more effectively? (Communication) These questions are engaged through the introduction of Progressional Implicatory Preaching. This insightful combination of both theory and practical advice will open the floodgates of your imagination to once again dream big dreams for your church. Envision Preaching beyond speechmaking as an agent in the creation of Christian communities and take a hopeful look toward new approaches to encouraging the spiritual formation of your church body. Includes study/discussion questions.

The expression "liturgical drama" was formulated in 1834 as a metaphor and hardened into formal category only later in the nineteenth century. Prior to this invention, the medieval rites and representations that would forge the category were understood as distinct and unrelated classes: as liturgical rites no longer celebrated or as theatrical works of dubious quality. This ground-breaking work examines "liturgical drama" according to the contexts of their presentations within the manuscripts and books that preserve them.

The standard textbook on the art and craft of preaching, with a new Foreword by Thomas G. Long.

Help the hopeless, open closed minds, and be more fully human in a world that increasingly devalues human life. How? By reimagining how things could and should be. When we take Jesus at his word, there are no limitations to what we can dream for the world. Reimagine—and change your world.

While there are many books that tell the "stories" about churches and church life, this work takes the rarely traveled path of looking directly into the lives of church members, focusing on the process of spiritual formation in each.

Many have heard of the emerging church, but few people feel like they have a handle on what the emerging church believes and represents. Is it a passing fad led by disenfranchised neo-evangelicals? Or is it the future of the church at large? Now available in trade paper, An Emergent Manifesto of Hope represents a coming together of divergent voices into a conversation that pastors, students, and thoughtful Christians can now learn from and engage in. This unprecedented collection of writings includes articles by some of the most important voices in the emergent conversation, including Brian McLaren, Dan Kimball, and Sally Morgenthaler. It also introduces some lesser known but integral players representing "who's next" within the emerging church. The articles cover a broad range of topics, such as spirituality, theology, multiculturalism, postcolonialism, sex, evangelism, and many others. Anyone who wants to know what the emerging church is all about needs to start here.