SOCIAL SCIENCE

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...

It’s getting harder and harder to get by.

Inflation. Stagnant wages. Spiraling costs of living. Even in the world’s wealthiest nation, it is too hard to earn enough money to thrive without a tremendous amount of privilege or luck. When so many people are struggling, what can we do?
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The Wages of Peace offers aspiring economic peacemakers an empathetic, informed perspective on today’s economy and the difficulty of getting by. Reporting back from his work in community development, Brian Humphreys unpacks the core needs of low-income households and communities, starting with living-wage jobs. He then offers practical steps to address complex socioeconomic challenges and become equipped to talk about money, work, and well-being. This includes confronting where our theologies of wealth and work have come up short and naming that when we put profits over people, we pay the price in despair and violence.
Jesus calls...

Christ is present and at work in rural communities. How do we lead from that reality?

The temptation to operate from a scarcity mindset is stronger than ever. The tensions unleashed over the past few years—which led to skepticism, breakdowns of trust, declining church attendance, and uncertainty around community ministry—continue to linger in and among our rural churches. Yet God’s loving, redemptive work is happening in all places, no matter how small or far-flung.

In Flyover Church, Brad Roth, the author of God’s Country, describes how rural ministry shares soul-deep commonalities with the church in every place. And he speaks a hopeful message into the distinct challenges—and promises—faced by rural communities. Tracing Jesus’ ministry and bountiful work among the small-town people and places in the gospel of Mark, this book offers a vision for ministry tailored to rural settings. Pastors and leaders everywhere will be encouraged to approach ministry from the...

Conversations that matter for men

Do you wonder what it means to be a man? Do you desire to grow? Want something more? Long for a life that matters? Seek to make a difference in the world? If so, Living That Matters may be for you or your group. This practical handbook is a guide to help individuals and groups engage in honest conversations on what matters most for men—with a focus on following Jesus, forming community, and building peace.

With over 60 years of combined experience in pastoral ministry and social work geared toward men, authors Steve Thomas and Don Neufeld offer many short reflections to help individuals and groups deepen relationships with one another, with ourselves, with our families and communities, and with God as we seek to live into God’s shalom—a peaceable order with abundance, security, and justice for all and well-being throughout creation.

On any given night, more than half a million Americans and Canadians find themselves sleeping on the streets, in shelters, cars, and other places not meant for human habitation. Yet as this crisis continues to grow, it remains one of the least talked about—especially in churches. Even where compassion and empathy exist, the complexities around homelessness can make us feel stuck, overwhelmed, or numb to the existence of unhoused people in our cities and neighborhoods.  

Reporting back from his work in homeless services, minister and advocate Kevin Nye introduces readers to the Christ he’s met in tents, shelters, and drop-in centers. He demystifies homelessness by journeying into complex issues like affordable housing, mental illness, addiction, and more, while reimagining our theological approach to these matters and educating us on how they intersect with homelessness.  

This thorough and intimate book shows us that from the margins, Jesus has something to teach us all...

A fresh view into a life that is anything but simple. 

What does the life of an Amish woman really look like? Over the course of a decade, author Judy Stavisky, a curious outsider, spent hundreds of hours getting to know the women of Pennsylvania’s Lancaster County Amish community to find out the answer to this question. She joined mothers and grandmothers, unmarried women and teens, on their shopping excursions for household items, fabric, and groceries. They drove miles between undulating fields and shared hundreds of hours of conversation on everyday topics—laughing together about sneaking healthier entrees into their family’s evening meals, sharing concerns about their children, and trading family remedies for persistent coughs. As relationships evolved into enduring friendships, she grew to understand firsthand how Amish women bind their families and communities together.  

In Plain View draws the reader inside a community governed by faith and separated by time, taking a closer look at the roles...

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...

Jesus sides with the oppressed. Will you?

In a world divided by left and right, red and blue, many Christians have upheld a “third way” approach in pursuit of moderation, harmony, and unity. But if Christians are more concerned with divisiveness than with faithfulness, we have failed to grasp the gospel’s political demands. We do not see Jesus taking a “third way” between oppressor and oppressed. And as followers of Jesus, neither should we.

For the sake of our faith, for the sake of the least of these among us, and for Christ’s sake, Christians need to stand firmly for truth, peace, and justice. In Jesus Takes a Side, author Jonny Rashid lays out the political demands of following Jesus and offers strategies for how to engage politics practically and prophetically—even if it means taking a side.
 

The work of dismantling racism doesn’t happen overnight.

Been in the Struggle nurtures, challenges, and fosters the work and witness of dismantling racism for the long haul. Filled with wisdom and insight from nearly three decades of partnering across racial lines in this work, authors Regina Shands Stoltzfus and Tobin Miller Shearer offer a powerful mix of practical direction and poignant reflection to empower and sustain those working to dismantle racism, regardless of their stage on the journey.

Stoltzfus and Shearer draw on the power and promise of interracial relationships to offer a vision for an anti-racist spirituality. Together this Black woman and White man address the spirituality of conflict and crisis, embracing Blackness amid an anti-Black culture, and the importance of spiritual disciplines in the work of antiracism. Whether working to dismantle racism in our own lives or inside institutions, their words on transformation, historical trauma,...

#MeToo. #ChurchToo. #GodToo?

What if survivors of sexualized violence experience the Bible as a powerful spiritual resource rather than an oppressive tool in the hands of those seeking to dismiss or justify abuse? Bible scholar Susannah Larry leads fellow survivors and those who care for them in a journey toward reclaiming the Bible amid the trauma of sexualized violence.

Leaving Silence: Sexualized Violence, the Bible, and Standing with Survivors is an unflinching examination of sexualized violence in the Bible and the God who stands steadfastly with survivors. Larry addresses biblical experiences of coercion, familial betrayal, and self-blame while also illuminating God’s constant care and concern.

​By centering the experiences of survivors in Scripture, Larry opens new insights into some of the Bible’s most difficult texts and releases its ancient stories to serve as a powerful healing witness to the God who has shared in the...