Making All Things New

Too many discipleship books are written for clean, perfect people who know all the right Sunday school answers. The Imperfect Disciple is for the rest of us - people who screw up, people who are weary, people who are wondering if it's safe to say what they're really thinking. For the believer who is tired of quasi-spiritual lifehacks being passed off as true, down-and-dirty discipleship, here is a discipleship book that isn't afraid to be honest about the mess we call real life.

God's grand plan for the redemption of creation has been in motion since before time began. The book of Ephesians lays out this glorious vision, highlighting the coming of Christ's kingdom on earth - a kingdom that will soon arrive in full. In Alive in Him, Gloria Furman leads us deep into the biblical text, exploring the main themes in Ephesians and showing us how the blessings we have received in Christ empower us to walk in a new way.

In Gay Girl, Good God, author Jackie Hill Perry shares her own story, offering practical tools that helped her in the process of finding wholeness. Jackie grew up fatherless and experienced gender confusion. She embraced masculinity and homosexuality with every fiber of her being. She knew that Christians had a lot to say about all of the above. But was she supposed to change herself? How was she supposed to stop loving women, when homosexuality felt more natural to her than heterosexuality ever could?

Your God is too small. We like God small. We prefer a God who is safe, domesticated, who thinks like we think, likes what we like, and whom we can manage, predict, and control. A small God is convenient. Practical. Manageable. The truth: God is big. Bigger than big. Bigger than all the words we use to say big. Ironically, many today seem turned off by the concept of an awesome, terrifyingly great God. We assume that a God you would need to fear is guilty of some kind of fault. For us, thinking of God as so infinitely greater and wiser than we are and who would cause us to tremble in his presence is a leftover relic.

Many Christians feel bombarded by the messages they hear and the trends they see in our rapidly changing world. How can we resist being conformed to the pattern of this world? What will faithfulness to Christ look like in these tumultuous times? How can we be true to the gospel in a world where myths and false visions of the world so often prevail? In This is Our Time, Trevin Wax provides snapshots of 21st-century American life in order to help Christians understand the times.