SELF-HELP

We have never been more connected—yet we have never felt more alone.

Isolation is the great soul wound of our time. As Christians, we know that the church has a unique gift to offer a hurting world: communal life in Jesus. This gift has the power to heal our loneliness and isolation. It is good news for the lonely, the isolated, the struggling. So why does it often sound like bad news to those who need it most?

Perhaps because we have misunderstood what the good news actually is—and how we ought to be sharing it. We have collapsed evangelism into offering a golden ticket to some postmortem destiny. But the goodness of the gospel we are called to share is about so much more: shalom, wholeness, and the peaceable kingdom of Christ breaking into the world. This is the gift of communal life in Jesus....

Embrace a faith that makes room for all of us.

Where can we go when the world refuses to see us in our fullness? When culture reduces us to categories and stereotypes and even our churches make us feel like we don’t fit in? If we’re blessed to have an Auntie—someone who, like Jesus, welcomes us wholly and calls us beloved—then we have glimpsed the liberation and divine affirmation of sacred belonging.
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Time and again, Aunties have offered a model for undoing, becoming, and embracing our identities and deepest beliefs. Auntie culture, particularly in Black spaces, is immediately recognizable as an embodied experience where nieces, nephews, and “niblings” feel safe, heard, and seen. Whether we are biological or simply beloved kin, Aunties welcome us in.
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In Love, Auntie, Shantell Hinton Hill—aka Reverend Auntie—offers tender testimonies to a flock of loved ones who have...

Your kids are talking about identity. Are you part of the conversation?
 
Today’s kids and youth are talking about identity—and often very differently from the adults around them. How can we walk well with them through their questions about who they are and how they fit into the family of God? We must begin by telling a better gospel story, with an invitational posture that actually expects us to love God and love others.
 
In this engaging and disarming book that speaks to readers across the theological spectrum, author and children’s ministry expert Christie Penner Worden invites grownups along to imagine a more Jesus-centered narrative for the sake of kids who are no longer buying what the church is selling, who do not feel safe, and who have not been welcomed into the conversation that adults are having without them. The Me I Was Made...

Timeless wisdom for a simpler life

Do you feel trapped in a chaotic, relentless, demanding lifestyle? Discover the secrets to the peaceful, compelling life you long for through the skills honed by our grandmothers and lived out by the Amish. Drink from this well of timeless wisdom and gain practical skills with Brenda L. Yoder as your guide—a counselor, career woman, and busy mom who’s raised her family on a farm in the heart of Amish and Mennonite country.
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In this new book, the author of Fledge: Launching Your Kids without Losing Your Mind equips women with 10 timeless lessons drawn from generations past. Learn to overcome practical obstacles and solve daily challenges with a calm presence, authentic faith, and voice of reason. No matter where you live or your season of life, you can draw inspiration from the simpler life.

A simple invitation into a life ordered around listening and love

As we live through cycles of change and disruption, our familiar pathways crumble and we find ourselves in fragmented relationships with God, others, and our own souls. We are not the first to experience this disorientation: When Jesus offered the stunning invitation to come to him to learn how to work from a place of rest, he was talking to people weighed down by ill-fitting political, economic, and religious systems. And his life and ministry offer a glimpse of a better way.

For centuries a practice called the Rule of Life—built around rhythms of prayer, work, study, hospitality, and rest—has provided a loving pathway for anyone who desires to live out the whole gospel. More than a historic primer on an ancient practice, an aspirational overview of spiritual life, or a personal inventory focused on habits, The...

What does it mean to be a peacemaker in a polarized world?

It can feel as if the world—and the church—has never been more polarized. But when we feel worn down by the chasms dividing us, we can take hope from the early Christian vision of God uniting all things in Christ, a hope that can lead us to act. Stuck Together explores Bible stories and narratives ancient and modern that inspire us to open hearts and minds to persons with whom we disagree as we gain confidence in our own convictions.
Drawing from Scripture, from his own life journey, and from the witness of others, author J. Nelson Kraybill demonstrates how even small steps of reconciliation by confessionally grounded Christians can have big effect and give loving Christian witness in a polarized church and society.

Step into a journey toward liberation, belonging, and a faith that makes you whole again.

We need belonging to survive and thrive, but too often the church is an impediment. For Christians who know the pain, isolation, and loss of identity that comes with the ongoing struggle to be seen in churches and institutions full of barriers to belonging, you are not alone. Sometimes it can feel easier to walk away from faith completely. But there is another way. When it feels as though there’s no place left to belong, Jesus invites us into a love that knows no bounds and a community that truly liberates.

In this hope-filled book, author Rohadi Nagassar brings the margins to the center to help readers rediscover a reality of love, belonging, and beauty through the journey of deconstructing, decolonizing, and reclaiming faith. For those on the margins struggling to find belonging, for...

How can we be made well? 

From hurting bodies and souls to hurting relationships and communities, it’s clear that things are not as they should be. Some of us live with varying degrees of physical pain, and others of us harbor the emotional pain of loneliness, shame, and guilt. Looking at our culture more broadly, we see the harm of our social divisions and the unyielding reality and impact of injustice and inequity. The gospels brim with stories of Jesus healing people, but what does that mean for us today?

In To Be Made Well, author Amy Julia Becker weaves together her own story with reflections on biblical accounts of Jesus’ healing work, providing fresh insight into both the nature of healing and the pathway to healing, then and now. This book is a powerful invitation to personal, spiritual, and social healing as we reconnect to our bodies and souls, to...

Uncover the spiritual strength of your family story.

We all have a desire to learn more about where we’ve come from, and technology has made this more possible than ever. But our family stories are more than a list of DNA results on a piece of paper or a bunch of fading Kodachrome images filling old photo albums.

 In an era often marked by both fragmentation in family and culture and a hunger to discover our genetic roots, our family stories—including the difficult, complex ones—can carry great spiritual strength. The desire to trace, interpret, and pass on our family’s history is embedded in Scripture from beginning to end—there are nine genealogies found in the book of Genesis alone. When we bring together the various threads of our family stories with Scripture’s insights, they can provide the key to decoding our identity and helping us discover our...

Engage conflict to strengthen connections and build understanding.
 
Conflict is inevitable. But rather than approaching conflicts as threats or problems to be solved, what if we could see our disagreements as opportunities for personal growth? Could our differences push us toward developing healthier relationships and communities? In The Space Between Us, facilitator and mediator Betty Pries gently guides readers toward seeing discord as an opportunity for positive change and a way to build resilience. Rooted in the conviction that conflict can strengthen our relationships and deepen our self-knowledge, Pries offers practical skills for engaging conflict and casts a vision for a more joy-filled future.
 
To get here, Pries plumbs the depth of both conflict theory and contemplative spirituality, proposing a vision for engaging conflict in new and life-giving ways. Rooted in Christian practices of mindfulness, connecting with our most authentic selves, and deep listening to...