This collection of stories explores the backroads and unexpected destinations and outcomes of the journey we call life. From the unexpected visitor who joins four friends eating breakfast at Cracker Barrel to a beloved grandfather sharing a long-held secret with his grandson to a desperate single mother with two small children who meets a used car salesman, these and other stories examine the crossroads of hope and despair—where mercy and justice often meet.

Making Sense of It All invites us to experience a good God who actively woos us to himself, even (or especially) through our heartaches and setbacks. With a pastor’s heart and fifty years of pastoral ministry, Richard Hipps weaves together biblical truths, storytelling, and the wisdom of fellow strugglers to draw us closer to God’s heart. His reflections will have you affirming with him that God is trustworthy—that a good God is telling a good story that will have a good ending.

In this book I am simply offering my best guesses at understanding life with God that make sense to me. Take what helps you and forget what doesn't. My aim is not to provoke arguments but to get you to think more deeply about your own faith journey. The chapters in this book are snapshots of my basic beliefs and you will find one belief in particular that runs throughout the book - a good God is telling a good story that will have a good ending.

Tim Stafford takes us behind two-dimensional images of Jesus by unearthing the specific historical and cultural situation of Jesus' day. He claims that what Jesus said and did was profoundly influenced by these factors. In fact, he says that Jesus meant to change things far more profoundly in his day and ours than we can ever imagine.

If you can identify with: pain, stinking thinking, loss, divorce, lust, suicide, low self-esteem, rejection, a broken relationship with Jesus Christ, and much more. Look no farther. This book inspires both the Christian and Nonbeliever not to discard or despise, but embrace, and rebound from their low places in their lives. All that read this book will hopefully understand why God has allowed and elected low places in their life to reveal a greater purpose, and a higher calling in them. Keep in mind all you have to do is be willing to read this book. Study it perpetually. Practice it often. Implement what you have studied and read daily.

The standard account of early Christianity tells us that the first centuries after Jesus' death witnessed an efflorescence of Christian sects, each with its own gospel. We are taught that these alternative scriptures, which represented intoxicating, daring, and often bizarre ideas, were suppressed in the fourth and fifth centuries, when the Church canonized the gospels we know today: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The rest were lost, destroyed, or hidden. In The Many Faces of Christ, the renowned religious historian Philip Jenkins thoroughly refutes our most basic assumptions about the Lost Gospels. He reveals that dozens of alternative gospels not only survived the canonization process but in many cases remained influential texts within the official Church. Whole new gospels continued to be written and accepted. For a thousand years, these strange stories about the life and death of Jesus were freely admitted onto church premises, approved for liturgical reading, read by ordinary laypeople for instruction and pleasure, and cited as authoritative by scholars and theologians. The Lost Gospels spread far and wide, crossing geographic and religious borders. The ancient Gospel of Nicodemus penetrated into Southern and Central Asia, while both Muslims and Jews wrote and propagated gospels of their own. In Europe, meanwhile, it was not until the Reformation and Counter-Reformation that the Lost Gospels were effectively driven from churches. But still, many survived, and some continue to shape Christian practice and belief in our own day. Offering a revelatory new perspective on the formation of the biblical canon, the nature of the early Church, and the evolution of Christianity, The Many Faces of Christ restores these Lost Gospels to their central place in Christian history.

Who is Jesus? Christians have been arguing about the answer to that question since there have been Christians, and it seems unlikely that they're going to agree on an answer anytime soon. Mark Osler, always a bit uncomfortable in church, was never able to find a Jesus that seemed real to himâ€"until he put Jesus on trial. Drawing on his training as a federal prosecutor and professor of law, he and a group of friends staged the trial of Jesus for their church, as though it were happening in the modern American criminal justice system. The event was so powerful that before long Osler received invitations to take it on the road. Each time he served as Christ's prosecutor, the story of Jesus opened up to him a bit more. Prosecuting Jesus follows Osler in this extraordinary journey of discovering himself by discovering Jesus. Juxtaposing things we rarely put together, like the passion of Christ and our ideas about capital punishment, Osler explores an active engagement between Jesus and our contemporary law and culture.

Bridget Bagley, a mother struggling with the grief of losing her son, Preston, who died after a head-on collision, creates a piece of jewelry the size of a business card to manage her grief healthily and productively and keep Preston’s spirit and legacy alive. Bridget made 1,500 of Preston’s Charms and passed them to people or left them in places for people to find them. The people who received or found Preston’s Charm passed it from one person to another. Since Preston’s Charm debut in 2019, it has traveled and been found in every state in the USA, 15 different countries, and 4 islands. In this book you’ll discover the spiritual power of Preston’s Charm and how it helped Bridget come to terms with Preston’s death and move forward with her life and also how Preston’s Charm inspired people, who received or found it, to practice empathy for Preston and Bridget and how it also helped them manage the grief of losing their Loved One more healthily and productively and move forward with their life.