Church of the Wild PDF Download

Author: Victoria Loorz
Publisher: Broadleaf Books
ISBN: 1506469655
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 262

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Book Description
Once upon a time, humans lived in intimate relationship with nature. Whether disillusioned by the dominant church or unfulfilled by traditional expressions of faith, many of us long for a deeper spirtuality. Victoria Loorz certainly did. Coping with an unraveling vocation, identity, and planet, Loorz turned to the wanderings of spiritual leaders and the sanctuary of the natural world, eventually cofounding the Wild Church Network and Seminary of the Wild. With an ecospiritual lens on biblical narratives and a fresh look at a community larger than our own species, Church of the Wild uncovers the wild roots of faith and helps us deepen our commitment to a suffering earth by falling in love with it--and calling it church. Through mystical encounters with wild deer, whispers from a scrubby oak tree, wordless conversation with a cougar, and more, Loorz helps us connect to a love that literally holds the world together--a love that calls us into communion with all creatures.

Author: Brett Grainger
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780674239548
Category : RELIGION
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
Since Perry Miller's 1940 essay on the connection between Puritan theology and Transcendentalism, "From Edwards to Emerson," there has been a dominant model for thinking about the relationship between American religion and nature. According to Miller, Emerson and his fellow New England elites were the only ones during the antebellum period to turn to nature for a direct, unmediated access to spirituality; this was part of their protest against the orthodoxy of Protestantism. We would, however, misunderstand the past if we forgot that New England Transcendentalists, as important as they are to American intellectual history, were an elite minority. There were other religious groups who also turned to the field and stream, the stone and the tree, in their everyday religious practice and their theology. Evangelical Christianity was the popular religion of antebellum America. During this period, evangelical relationships to the material world, and to nature at large, were closer to Catholicism than one might expect. Brett Malcolm Grainger makes two important arguments in this book: (1) early republic Evangelicals represent an important, non-derivative, and popular strand of American religious engagement with nature, a story often ignored while focusing on Emerson and Thoreau; and (2) the everyday religion of antebellum American Evangelicals shows us that the Catholic-Protestant divide over real presence needs to be reconsidered. Evangelical enchantment can be seen in field sermons, camp meetings, water cures, outdoor baptisms, and mesmerism. Grainger sheds light on a major religious movement that swept across antebellum America from Virginia, Kentucky, and Appalachia to Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and upstate New York.--

Author: Ni'Chelle Genovese
Publisher: National Geographic Books
ISBN: 1622869702
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
What makes a good God-fearing woman go bad? And once she's gone, is there any way to get her back? Eva spends much of her life torn between the man she had and the man she has. On paper they both look like ideal husband material. But looks, as we all know, can be bought, faked, or photo-shopped. Everyone around Eva seems to keep shoveling lies to bury their secrets. As Eva starts to dig for the truth she realizes it's impossible to stay clean, especially while playing in someone else's dirt. When she finds herself framed for embezzling from her own clients, her future depends on whether this "church girl" can adapt and survive the gritty, dog eat dog reality of prison to set right the one who's wronged her.

Author: John Eldredge
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 1400200393
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description
In all your boyhood dreams of growing up, did you dream of being a "nice guy"? Eldredge believes that every man longs for a battle to fight, an adventure to live, and a beauty to rescue. That is how he bears the image of God; that is what God made him to be.

Author: Angela B. Braham
Publisher: Author House
ISBN: 1481709941
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 47

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Book Description
Harmony is the very sexy former exotic dancer who is now the Head Missionary of Destiny New Life Church. Owner of a very successful real estate firm she is very independent and successful. That is, she appears very successful. With the economy and housing market in a crisis Harmony struggles to hold on to the image of success. That is until she hooks up with the married Head Deacon of their mega church. Read on as we watch the struggle of a "church girl gone wild" in a desperate attempt to make ends meet.

Author: Juno Hollyhock
Publisher: Canterbury Press
ISBN: 184825881X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 216

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Book Description
This innovative and imaginative resource offers learning and worship activities and whole service outlines to help churches engage with the outside world and increase connectedness with the communities where they are placed, whether rural or urban. Current trends encourage us to reconnect with nature – schools are building outdoor classrooms, 11,000 organizations belong to the Wild Network which encourages children to get outside, while Forest Church, the Eco-congregation and the rewilding spirituality movements reflect this trend in the church. Definitely not just for energetic outdoorsy types, it creatively blends the Christian year with the natural seasons – such as an all-age Advent outdoor adventure, creating an outdoor Easter garden, kite flying at Ascension, building life-size David and Goliath, going on a prayer pilgrimage, autumn leaves and tree ribbons for remembrance, and much more.

Author: Mallory McDuff
Publisher: New Society Publishers
ISBN: 1550925016
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description
Stories from across North America of contemporary church leaders, parishioners and religious activists who are working to define a new environmental movement, where honoring the Creator means protecting the planet. Sacred Acts documents the diverse actions taken by churches to address climate change through stewardship, advocacy, spirituality and justice. Contributions from leading Christian voices such as Norman Wirzba and the Reverend Canon Sally Bingham detail the concrete work of faith communities such as: Englewood Christian Church in Indianapolis, IN, where parishioners have enhanced food security by sharing canning and food preservation skills in the church kitchen Georgia's Interfaith Power & Light, which has used federal stimulus funds to weatherize congregations, reduce utility bills and cut carbon emissions Earth Ministry, where people of faith spearheaded the movement to pass state legislation to make Washington State a coal-free state. Sacred Acts shows that churches can play a critical role in confronting climate change - perhaps the greatest moral imperative of our time. This timely collection will inspire individuals and congregations to act in good faith to help protect Earth's climate.

Author: JR Woodward
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
ISBN: 0830866795
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
Once upon a time, Moses had had enough. Exhausted by the challenge of leading the Israelites from slavery to the Promised Land, Moses cried out to God, "What have I done to displease you that you put the burden of all these people on me? . . . If this is how you are going to treat me, please go ahead and kill me" (Exodus 11:11, 15). If that sounds hauntingly familiar to you, you may be the senior pastor of a contemporary church. The burden of Christian leadership is becoming increasingly unbearable--demanding skills not native to the art of pastoring; demanding time that makes sabbath rest and even normal sleep patterns seem extravagant; demanding inhuman levels of efficiency, proficiency and even saintliness. No wonder pastors seem and even feel less human these days. No wonder they burn out or break down at an alarming rate; no wonder the church is missing the mark on its mission. In Creating a Missional Culture, JR Woodward offers a bold and surprisingly refreshing model for churches--not small adjustments around the periphery of a church's infrastructure but a radical revisioning of how a church ought to look, from its leadership structure to its mobilization of the laity. The end result looks surprisingly like the church that Jesus created and the apostles cultivated: a church not chasing the wind but rather going into the world and making disciples of Jesus.

Author: Leslie Wagner-Wilson
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 0595512933
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 222

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Book Description
Slavery Of Faith...the quietly kept story of a young woman's escape through the jungles of Jonestown, Guyana the morning of the massacre November 18, 1978 and her struggles to live in the aftermath. November 18, 2008 marks 30 years since the Jonestown, Guyana Massacre/Suicides and the death of its founder, the Reverend Jim Jones. Escaping Jonestown, Guyana the morning of November 18,1978 with nine others, Leslie Wagner-Wilson then twenty one years old, trekked thirty seven miles through the jungle with a 40-pound care package strapped to her back with a sheet, her son, later to be known as the youngest survivor of Jonestown. That evening, she would be told that Jonestown was gone along with her plan to escape and return with her father, Richard Wagner who was a part of the Concerned Relatives to free the rest of her family. Amongst the carnage would be her husband, mother, brother, sister, niece, nephew, sister in law, brother in law and the friends she had grown up and loved since 13. Slavery of Faith reveals the life of a thirteen year old coming of age in the heart of People's Temple Disciples of Christ Church where the pastor Jim Jones, exhorted his followers to consider him divine and to call him "Father" while he touted his extra-marital affairs from the pulpit. The world of Jim Jones was one of inverted ideals, isolation and alienation. However, what began as a church that appealed to peoples inner spirit to help others, was turned into a living hell. Yet it was a place she would go, half a continent away, to be with her 2 year old son, who'd been taken to Jonestown by Jim Jones as he made his exodus to Guyana. It shares the horrors of Jonestown - the labor punishment squads, suicide drills, sleep deprivation, drugging, and humiliations. It also takes the reader through the escape that she says was revealed to her in the spirit. Thirty years since Jonestown, Slavery of Faith also chronicles her return to the U.S. under a veil of secrecy in fear of the "death squads", her fight to maintain her faith in her most darkest hours; suffering survivors guilt, drug addiction, a family suicide, and finally redemption. It shares her journey through psychological and spiritual jungles to reach a place of remembrance-- to "live their love and not their deaths." Faith has allowed her the resiliency to as she states "tuck and roll" and discover that through pain, tragedy and joy, her life has found divine order.

Author: Steve Aisthorpe
Publisher: Saint Andrew Press
ISBN: 0715209817
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 125

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Book Description
Following on from his bestselling The Invisible Church, Steve Aisthorpe finds inspiration for his new book in the ecological concept of rewilding, an approach to the environment that allows nature to break free from the dulling effects of strategic control and bring wonder back into our lives. Applying this thinking to the Church, Steve Aisthorpe imagines what might happen if we put less faith in our strategies and plans, which inevitably depend on our own capabilities and resources, and allow the Spirit to lead us beyond our capacity to imagine. Rewilding the Church explores afresh the compelling invitation of Jesus to ‘Follow me’ and the call to ‘throw off everything that hinders and entangles’. It poses provocative questions and issues a call to contribute to the great rewilding of the Church – and to be rewilded ourselves. The same human instincts that have disrupted our natural environment have also constrained and domesticated the Church and Rewilding the Church commends a rediscovery of the adventure of faith. Steve Aisthorpe is one the freshest and most original voices in the church today.