You’ve been a lectionary preacher throughout your ministry. You like the discipline of dealing with the scripture of the week rather than just grabbing something that is easy for you to handle. You’re willing to preach on the hard stuff. But what about the rest of scripture, those passages that never appear in the weekly readings from the Revised Common Lectionary? Are you and your congregation missing something that could be of great benefit? Dr. David Ackerman, who writes the introduction to From Words of Woe to Unbelievable News, felt the need to cover more of scripture and proposed a fourth year lectionary that covered passages that are not included in the Revised Common Lectinoary. In turn, Dr. Bob Cornwall, a pastor highly qualified for the task, chose to use these texts in a series of sermons for Lent and Holy Week. He preached those sermons in 2014. We now offer these sermons in this Topical Line Drives volume. One of the stumbling blocks with new ideas is the question of how one gets started. It’s sometimes hard to find just the approach to take to a new set of texts and a new set of ideas. Bob Cornwall leads the way, finding timely and powerful applications of these difficult texts. Besides being a resource for pastors, these sermons provide meditations that can be used as the basis for a Lenten study or for small groups.
Imprint: Energion Publications
Our main Energion Imprint
-
From Words of Woe to Unbelievable News
-
Galatians; A Participatory Study Guide
How can a 1st century later speak to the needs of a 21st century audience? Galatians has been a central book of the Bible for many Christian theologians. This book brings it powerfully into the present.
With this volume on Paul’s Letter to the Galatians, Dr Bruce Epperly, author of Philippians: A Participatory Study Guide, Finding God in Suffering: A Journey with Job, and Transforming Acts: Acts of the Apostles as a 21st Century Gospel, again brings the study of a Bible book to life for a 21st century audience. Epperly founds his work in the results on modern critical scholarship, but he’s not content with reciting scholarship or discussing history. He aims to make the study of this theologically central letter a transformative experience.
He does so by never losing sight of the fact that human problems remain human problems and that human potentiality, touched by God’s grace, can accomplish great things. He finds a message of liberation in this book. Liberation from our guilt, yes, but also liberation from our self-imposed limitations. Through reading, discussion, exercises, and thought questions, he leads the reader through a study that can only be described as an adventure.
It’s an adventure you won’t want to miss.
-
God’s Promise of Victory
Love. What was created to be so beautiful that words for centuries have been unable to encompass its many facets, has now become for many a twisted and painful symbol for many who have suffered abuse of any kind. And yet in spite of that pain, we continue to seek love’s beauty once again. This book is written by one who has passed through the flames of abuse, shame, guilt, and confusion. Only by God’s grace has she come out on the other side in victory. She was given the courage to look at her pain, identify, forgive, and live again as someone new and ready to live again. Within these pages may you also find hope, courage, and healing as you take those first steps toward your own victory. May you glean some wisdom that will give you strength for today as you follow the author’s own steps through the process of revelation. May you also find daily, practical new habits of thinking and living in real love for yourself and others.
-
Gomorrah Was Religious Too
Chris Surber brings his passion for Christ again to his third book, Gomorrah Was Religious Too, as he writes “for all those who desire to follow after Christ sincerely, no pretense, no dishonesty, no self deception, and no duplicity. I wrote this book for me.” The impetus for this book came as he was reading some of the works of Dr. Leonard Ravenhill, evangelist and author of many books, including Sodom Had No Bible. “His words, etched in paper with quill and ink, speak to me on a deep level because I am, as I suspect he was, weary of religion and deeply desirous of the revelation of God to spark revival in the Church. After less than a decade in the Pastoral ministry, I have experienced, witnessed, or seen firsthand the spiritual, emotional, familial, social, and even financial havoc that religion is wreaking on the revolution that Jesus inaugurated in His own blood.” The goal of the author is not to rebuke, but encourage the Church to rebuild. He wants not to condemn for religious idolatry, but encourage to escape from the trap of religion and pick up the Cross. “The writing of Ravenhill has greatly fueled my imagination concerning what the Church can be if she will open her Bible in honesty, pray with penitent sincerity, strap on her sandals, pick up her walking stick, and follow after Jesus, rather than to sit comfortably in her pews, happily trading in the revelation of Jesus for the religion of man.”
-
Good Morning, Lord!
What are your mornings like? Rushing out the door to work, to school, to however many task a day holds? How can your to-do list be longer than the hours in the day? We know we should spend some time with God because He can help us get through this day, but where do we find the time? Help
Linda Estes invites you to join her in a “one minute devotion” each day with our LORD. Take a thought that He has laid on her heart into your day. Let it surround your thoughts, your tasks and see what God will do with it. Join Linda and say, “Good Morning, LORD “
-
Grief
“Oh it’s a jolly holiday with you ….”
Holidays, steeped in family traditions, are not always jolly when you are also experiencing a loss of a loved one through death or divorce, a job loss or any number of loss scenarios. Accepting what is does not negate the difficulties in finding a “new normal” for family traditions, whether it is in the food we eat, the locations, or the very real hole that is left in the fabric of what has always been a celebration.
Author, Jody Neufeld, brings her years with hundreds of hospice families as well as her own loss experience to share practical ways to take steps through a time of the year that is filled with emotions and expectations. Find a holiday time you can live!
Authors Jody Neufeld (this book) and Ron Higdon (Surviving a Son’s Suicide) hold a conversation on grief:
-
Habitation of Honey
Habitation of Honey can be one of the means God uses to prepare the way of the Lord.
As John the Baptist in the wilderness ate wild HONEY, he was growing strong in spirit for the day he would recognize the Messiah. He immersed himself in the Word of God, “honey” for his soul, so he could say “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” Just so, the Body of Christ should be preparing herself today, “eating the honey” of the Word of God, to be a herald like John the Baptist for the second coming of the Messiah!
May you grow strong in spirit by partaking of these biblical poems and songs.
https://www.facebook.com/nancy.petrey/posts/10207175394939513
-
Grief
Are you separated from someone you love: mother, father, sister, brother, wife, husband, child, friend, pet? Separated from a career you love? Separated from a home you love? Separated from the life you thought would continue on the road you were traveling? If you are, then you are dealing with grief.
Grief is the sorrow and suffering that must be walked THROUGH by everyone who has experienced a loss. The walk is characterized by alone-ness (no one can do it for you), timelessness (there are no short-cuts but there may be detours), and darkness (each path is unique to that person). This small, concise book will give you practical strategies to use in dealing with your particular grief.
Author Jody Neufeld says: “God gives us simple directions as we walk through the valley of grief. As He told David in Psalm 23, it was His intention that we walk through the valley, not get stuck. Walking my own roads after the death of my son, my parents, and my first marriage, I can say now that each road was different; each one had some very difficult periods and yet God was faithful.
It is my prayer as I write this book that others will also receive God’s healing, life-giving words.”
-
Healing Marks
Did Jesus really heal people? Physically heal them? Is this healing ministry relevant today?
Bruce Epperly calls Healing Marks a “very personal book” as it comes from over thirty years of experiencing the healing stories of Jesus. From his early years as a young college professor, he sought to make sense of the growing interest in complementary and alternative medicine. For seventeen years, Bruce was a chaplain and professor at Georgetown University School of Medicine, and was among the first to teach courses on spirituality and medicine at a major medical school.
While embracing Jesus’ healing ministry as a pastor, professor, reiki teacher, and spiritual guide, he has also wrestled with the meaning of Jesus’ healing ministry and God’s role in healing and sickness in a personal way as a pastor, friend, child, spouse, and parent, in hospital rooms, hospices, gravesides, and healing services. “I have heard testimonies about the power of God to cure illness, but I have also sat at the bedside of dying friends and congregants, who have done everything right, according to the principles of their faith traditions and philosophies – personal and intercessory prayers, positive thinking and affirmations, meditation and diet, complementary medical treatments, and visits to faith healers and energy workers – along with the best modern medicine has to offer in treatment and palliation,” says Bruce.
Each chapter includes a spiritual practice related to the healing story being considered that is easily shaped for the reader’s personal and spiritual needs. Rev. Epperly also includes questions and spiritual practices for group study and spiritual formation at the end of the book. Chapter titles include “Transforming Faith,” “Forgiveness and Healing,” “Healing Takes Time,” “Healing Broken Spirits,” “A Healing Lifestyle,” “Healing in a Pluralistic Age,” and “God, Why am I Sick?”.
This book is for everyone who would like to help in healing the broken in our world and in improving the health of all God’s children.
-
Holidays, Holy Days, & Special Days
What’s a preacher to do with holidays?
Some seem to almost preach themselves, especially those in the church calendar. Others are more secular or may seem to conflict with the church calendar. Some are even controversial and require a gentle, but firm touch of the preacher’s art.
William Powell Tuck is a master preacher and in this book he demonstrates his sensitivity to the issues raised by some of the holidays and special days of the year along with his grounding in biblical studies, theology, and homiletics. You can read these sermons as essays if you want, but they are not light devotionals. They are serious efforts to grapple honestly with issues and to guide a church community in learning and growing as they celebrate their lives, their families, and their communities.
For the preacher, these sermons can serve as models for how to approach these days, as well as providing insight into the various issues involved.
-
Holy Dark Places
The Christian believer routinely experiences periods in their life referred to as a dark night of the soul. In such times a person feels as if God has left him or her alone and God has distanced himself from the individual in this period of liminality. It is considered to be a time of trial and testing which only afterwards is viewed as a period of growth and maturing in Christ. In this book Daniel McGregor explores the Biblical foundation for this concept, as well as providing a historical survey of Christian theologians and authors who examine these themes and experiences.
This volume will provide an ideal introduction to the subject for the serious layperson or a suitable reading for an introductory class in religious studies.
-
Holy Smoke! Unholy Fire!
Dr. Bob McKibben shares from his heart his understanding of the work and ministry of the Holy Spirit within the local church. Combining his experience as a pastor, study as a biblical teacher, and a commitment to sound Biblical principles, Bob provides a checklist for pastors and churches to use in ministry and worship as they encounter the wonderful presence of the Holy Spirit.
This is a pastoral rather than a theological work. Sure enough, it has theology in it. The focus, however, is on caring for the Body of Christ as it experiences the abundant grace of God and the magnificent gifts of the of the Holy Spirit.
