Showing results by narrator "Brandon Batchelar" in All Categories

In Pressure Points, J. D. Payne gets to the heart of 12 of the most important challenges we face today, raising awareness of realities that will influence the church for decades to come. J. D. helps us understand how we can prevent these global issues from pushing the church off her biblical moorings. Pressure Points gives us the tools to absorb the pressures of society while responding in a way that remains faithful to the church’s calling and mission.

When you're ready for something truly extraordinary, consider living life unleashed! Jesus promised us a full and abundant life. But if we’re honest, most of us feel as if we’re missing out. Every one of us - that includes you - has been custom designed with a purpose and a plan beyond imagination. Yet for some reason, we fill our days with normalcy, complacency, and predictability. In Unleash!, Perry Noble challenges us to grab on to God’s promise of full and complete living.

Only God could weave a story that would captivate people all over the world, bring thousands of people from 17 countries to a free-throw line, raise over a million dollars in international AIDS relief, and build a school and medical clinic in Zambia. And only God could do it through the hands of a nine-year-old boy. Austin made a difference by shooting hoops. Take Your Best Shot captures Austin’s amazing adventure and challenges listeners to make a difference.

You believe God can still do miracles, but how do you know which stories are true? A blind man suddenly sees. A lame man gets up and walks. A little boy is raised from the dead. You believe the Biblical accounts that these miracles happened, but do you believe eyewitness reports that miracles still happen today? Between shady faith healers, weeping madonnas, and gimmicks like holy land water, it’s difficult - even foolish - to believe every miracle account we hear.

See yourself, your church, your world...differently. Ed Stetzer turns conventional Christian living on its head with this inspiring, instructional guide to life in the kingdom of God - not just church, not just check marks, but a full, everyday, out-there adventure of worship, lifestyle, relationships, and service. It’s about living so confident in God’s eternal promises that you can live every moment at His complete disposal, deployed by His Spirit to make creative, courageous inroads into the heart of a dying culture.

When Beth Thompson’s only son, James, goes missing in action in Afghanistan, she is left with her prayers, hopes, fears... and letters. Mother and son have been writing since boot camp. James writes of his struggle to become a confident soldier and of his concern for his young wife and their unborn child. Beth, like any mom, praises her son’s courage even as she frets for his safety. Even after James disappears, Beth is comforted by a daily ritual of writing him about her feelings, faith, and attempts to maintain a normal life when nothing is really normal but the waiting.

Domesticated Jesus. Or “DJ”. It’s a horrible name—but a name that accurately reflects what each of us has done in our own lives. “I can hear your protests,” says author Harry Kraus, “and believe me, they are my own. Jesus Christ cannot be domesticated! I’m talking about the way I make myself big. And in the process, I've domesticated the Almighty. Tamed him. Advised him. Put him in a box. Expected him to function like a divine vending machine. That sickens me. Shocks me. And it should.”

Whether you are on a church staff or leading a small group, you will find that the insights from the enneagram that have helped many grow in self-awareness can be applied to life in our faith communities. The enneagram can help us to become better teachers. It can influence how we develop worship and Christian education. And it can guide us in building and leading teams. It's time to take the enneagram to church - and to allow it to shape our life together.

In the first devotional from David Platt, Follow Him equips and empowers you to bring people to know Jesus Christ through your life. To be a disciple of Jesus is to make disciples of Jesus. This has been true since the first century, when Jesus invited four men to follow him. More than searching for fish all over the Sea of Galilee, these men would spread the gospel all over the world. They would give their lives by not simply being disciples of Jesus, but by sacrificially making disciples of Jesus. And God’s design for 21st-century disciples is the same.

There comes a time in every man’s journey with God where tips and techniques simply do not work. The Restored Man is a practical, life-changing path for every man to take for a deeper and healthier relationship with God and others. This process helps explore four key areas of restoration in a man’s life: know God as father, know yourself, live in brokenness, and walk with God. The results of this process are measurable. Stop trying to change a behavior, and let God buff out the rough edges of the heart. He’ll take care of the rest.