Home > Crossway Blog > Faith Category

Archive for the ‘Faith’ Category

Weekly Ebook Deals: Popular Mark Driscoll Titles

Pastor Mark Driscoll is slated to speak at Catalyst Dallas today—a regional convergence of next generation leaders. Whether or not you’re able to listen to his preaching live at Catalyst, you can still get your hands on some of Pastor Mark’s published content today.

Crossway is pleased to offer the ebook editions of several titles at reduced prices—scroll down to take a look.

To learn more about each book, click on the covers below to find them at Crossway.org. Find them at their reduced prices on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshout, Christianbook.com, eChristian, Vyrso, or your participating independent bookstore’s site. Discounted prices available through 5/6/2013.

Featured Ebooks:

Doctrine

Doctrine: What Christians Should Believe By Mark Driscoll & Gerry Breshears

$13.99 $5.99

A comprehensive and accessible resource that helps believers clarify and articulate their beliefs and provides seekers with a solid introduction to Christianity’s central doctrines.
Religion Saves

Religion Saves: And Nine Other Misconceptions By Mark Driscoll

$13.99 $5.99

Inspired by 1 Corinthians, in which Paul answers a series of questions posed by the people in the Corinthian church, Pastor Mark Driscoll sets out to determine the most pressing questions among visitors to his church’s website. Here he tackles the top nine questions, first confronting the idea that religion saves.
Vintage Jesus

Vintage Jesus: Timeless Answers to Timely Questions By Mark Driscoll & Gerry Breshears

$12.99 $4.99

Some two thousand years after he walked the earth, Jesus Christ is still a hot topic. Conspiracy theories and lies about him have permeated popular culture in recent years, causing many to ask, What is the truth about Jesus? This popular-level book answers that question in a relevant, accessible way.
Vintage Church

Vintage Church: Timeless Truths and Timely Methods By Mark Driscoll & Gerry Breshears

$14.99 $4.99

Vintage Church defines a biblical church as one that properly balances the eternal truths of Scripture with timely, relevant methods-such as multi-campus churches and the latest technology-to engage the culture and reach people with the gospel.
Death by Love

Death by Love: Letters from the Cross By Mark Driscoll & Gerry Breshears

$15.99 $3.99

Real people. Real sin. Transformed lives. Deep theology meets gritty pastoral experiences as Death by Love explains the practical implications of what Jesus accomplished on the cross. This compilation of heartfelt letters written from a pastor to his people is for all those who have sinned and have been sinned against.
Community

Community: Taking Your Small Group off Life Support By Brad House, Foreword by Mark Driscoll

$12.99 $4.99

While Driscoll only wrote the foreword, this Re:Lit title is in line with Driscoll’s teaching on community, and worthy of promotion. This guide brings wisdom and practical insight into growing a healthy, gospel-centered, small-group ministry. With wisdom and candor, House helps churches think carefully about the state of their own small groups.

Happy reading!

May 3, 2013 | Posted in: Books,Conferences,Digital,Discipleship,Faith,Hope,Leadership,Ministries | Author: Ted Cockle @ 7:42 am | (4) Comments »

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Books, Conferences, Digital, Discipleship, Faith, Hope, Leadership, Ministries | 4 Comments »

Weekly Ebook Deals: Featuring Titles from Gospel Coalition Breakout Speakers

It’s hard to believe it’s already been a week since the end of the Gospel Coalition conference! For this week’s ebook deals, we’ve selected titles from several of the conference breakout speakers to help you in your life and ministry.

To learn more about each title, click on the covers to find them at Crossway.org. You can also find these at the reduced price at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshout!, Christianbook.com, eChristian, Vyrso, or your participating independent bookstore’s site.

Discounted prices available through 4/22/2013.

Featured eBooks:

Loving the Way Jesus Loves

Loving the Way Jesus Loves

By Phil Ryken

$11.99 $4.99

Seasoned pastor and college president Phil Ryken offers a unique exploration of 1 Corinthians 13, showing how every aspect of this famous chapter is perfectly illustrated in the life of Jesus Christ.
Work Matters

Work Matters: Connecting Sunday Worship to Monday Work

By Tom Nelson

$12.99 $4.99

Connects Sunday worship to Monday morning by engaging the theological basis of God’s plan for everyday work and giving readers practical tools for understanding their own gifts.
The Joy of Calvinism

The Joy of Calvinism: Knowing God’s Personal, Unconditional, Irresistible, Unbreakable Love

By Greg Forster

$12.99 $4.99

A positive guide to the principles of Calvinism. Forster shows how God’s love and our joy lie at the heart of this often misunderstood theology by systematically deconstructing negative misconceptions and positively reshaping the truths they reflect.
Dangerous Calling

Dangerous Calling: Confronting the Unique Challenges of Pastoral Ministry

By Paul David Tripp

$15.99 $5.99

Recognizing the widespread struggles facing pastors today, Tripp exposes and exhorts the cultures that train and support our church leaders so that they can lead well and our churches can be healthy.
The Lamb of God

The Lamb of God: Seeing Jesus in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy

By Nancy Guthrie

$13.99 $5.99

This ten-week Bible study in the popular Seeing Jesus in the Old Testament series completes Guthrie’s coverage of the Pentateuch, showing how to see the person and work of Jesus in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.

Happy reading!

April 17, 2013 | Posted in: Books,Conferences,Digital,Discipleship,Faith,Leadership,Loving Others,Ministries,Preaching and Teaching | Author: Ted Cockle @ 11:00 am | 0 Comments »

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Books, Conferences, Digital, Discipleship, Faith, Leadership, Loving Others, Ministries, Preaching and Teaching | No Comments »

Video: Zack Eswine on Significance in the Ordinary

Listen in as Zack Eswine, author of Sensing Jesus: Life and Ministry as a Human Being, gives us a behind-the-scenes look at his own life and ministry. Eswine touches on a variety of topics, from struggling to work through the death of a friend, to dealing with the breakdown of his marriage, to learning how to be a single dad. He encourages us to learn to rest in Jesus—and not our ministry or our good works—in the midst of the ups and downs of life.

Endorsements for Sensing Jesus:

“C. S. Lewis wrote that friendship is born when one man says to another, ‘What! You too? I thought that no one but myself . . . .’ Many pastors will find a new friend in this remarkable book. What makes this book both approachable and powerful is its honesty—that rare treasure we pastors are sometimes afraid to make our own. Zack Eswine gives us a front row seat to his heart. In seeing him, we see ourselves. But far better, we also see Jesus in his all-sufficiency for us. To everyone who wants to serve the Lord with a heart set free from pretense, I commend Sensing Jesus.”
—Raymond C. Ortlund Jr., Lead Pastor, Immanuel Church, Nashville, Tennessee

“This is one of the finest books on being a pastor written in this generation. I plan to use Sensing Jesus as required read for our pastoral theology students here at Covenant Seminary. The book is heart-wrenchingly honest about Zack’s own hopes and dreams and about the challenges of dealing with the praise that is heaped on a gifted young communicator of God’s Word. It is this rare honesty that makes the book a must read for anyone called to a life of ministry. . . . This will be an outstanding addition to the library of every pastor and teacher, indeed of anyone committed to ministry.”
—Jerram Barrs, Resident Scholar of the Francis A. Schaeffer Institute at Covenant Theological Seminary; author, Freedom and Discipleship and The Heart of Prayer

January 18, 2013 | Posted in: Books,Church and Ministry,Faith,Identity in Christ,Leadership,Video | Author: Lindsay Tully @ 8:53 am | 0 Comments »

Posted in Books, Church and Ministry, Faith, Identity in Christ, Leadership, Video | No Comments »

A Challenge from John Piper in the New Year

“If our single, all-embracing passion is to make much of Christ in life and death, and if the life that magnifies him most is the life of costly love, then life is risk, and risk is right. To run from it is to waste your life.” — John Piper, Risk is Right

Comfort is an oftentimes acceptable and encouraged idol, even in the lives of Christians.

While it is true that Jesus’s yoke is easy and his burden is light (Matt. 11:30), that does not mean that we’ve been promised our best life now. No, this is a life in which we have been promised difficulty if we choose to follow Christ (Luke 6:22-23; John 16:33; James 1:2-4; 1 Peter 4:12-14). But this life is not without hope, and it is not without joy. Sometimes, we need a faithful brother or sister in Christ to remind us of the brevity and purpose of this life, calling us to something greater than the elusive American Dream. In Risk is Right, John Piper is that faithful brother.

If you’re stuck in a rut and can’t remember the last “courageous” thing you’ve done for Christ, or are in a season of life where everything seems uncertain, or just need a good kick-start to start living intentionally in 2013, Piper is writing to you:

“Are you caught in the enchantment of security, paralyzed from taking any risks for the cause of God? Or have you been freed by the power of the Holy Spirit from the mirage of. . . safety and comfort? Do you men ever say with Joab, ‘For the sake of the name, I’ll try it! And may the Lord do what seems good to him’? Do you women ever say with Esther, ‘For the sake of Christ, I’ll try it! And if I perish, I perish’? . . . .

“On the far side of every risk—even if it results in death—the love of God triumphs. This is the faith that frees us to risk for the cause of God. It is not heroism, or lust for adventure, or courageous self-reliance, or efforts to earn God’s favor. It is childlike faith in the triumph of God’s love—that on the other side of all our risks, for the sake of righteousness, God will still be holding us. We will be eternally satisfied in him. Nothing will have been wasted.”

 

January 11, 2013 | Posted in: Discipleship,Evangelism,Faith,Fear and Anxiety,Missions,Persecution and Martyrdom,The Gospel,Worship | Author: Lindsay Tully @ 8:00 am | (2) Comments »

Posted in Discipleship, Evangelism, Faith, Fear and Anxiety, Missions, Persecution and Martyrdom, The Gospel, Worship | 2 Comments »

How Do We Grow in Holiness? (Part 1)

The difference between the person who grows in holiness and the one who doesn’t is not a matter of personality, upbringing, or gifting; the difference is what each has planted into the soil of his or her heart and soul. So holiness isn’t a mysterious spiritual state that only an elite few can reach. It’s more than an emotion, or a resolution, or an event. Holiness is a harvest.

What does Paul mean by sowing to the sinful nature and sowing to the Spirit?

“Walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh” (Galatians 5:16–17).

We sow to the flesh whenever we do something that strengthens or provokes our sinful desires. We sow to the Spirit whenever we strengthen our Spirit-inspired desire for holiness.

We can’t change ourselves

We’ve seen that we can’t change ourselves. It’s God who changes us. But we participate in the process through faith and repentance. It’s important to see not sowing to the sinful nature and sowing to the Spirit in this context. They’re not rules or disciplines, reentering by the back door. They address our heart and its desires. Not sowing to the sinful nature is all about reinforcing repentance. Sowing to the Spirit is about reinforcing faith. This means saying no to whatever reinforces the sinful nature and strengthens my sinful desires. And saying yes to whatever reinforces the Spirit and strengthens my Spirit-inspired desires.

On Friday we will explore 7 elements of a reinforced faith that cultivates a love for God.

 

Adapted from You Can Change: God’s Transforming Power for Our Sinful Behavior and Negative Emotions, by Tim Chester

Tim Chester (PhD, University of Wales) is pastor of the Crowded House in Sheffield, United Kingdom, and director of the Porterbrook Seminary, which provides integrated theological and missional training for church leaders. Chester coauthored Total Church and Everyday Church (Re:Lit), and has written more than a dozen books, including A Meal with Jesus.

RELATED POSTS:

 

January 2, 2013 | Posted in: Faith,Pursuit of Holiness,Sanctification/Growth | Author: Crossway Author @ 9:25 am | 0 Comments »

Posted in Faith, Pursuit of Holiness, Sanctification/Growth | No Comments »