Our spiritual life can be a huge source of comfort and encouragement, guiding us in both good times and bad. Even more, our faith can help us connect deeply with the world around us, build a world where all humans are valued, and find the sacred in the ordinary moments and objects. These books are overflowing with wisdom and guidance for your spiritual journey, offering enrichment regardless of where you are or may be going.
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Prayer, Contemplation, and Mindfulness
Beginning in around the third century CE, a group of monastics known as the desert mothers and fathers retreated to the deserts of northern Egypt, Syria, and Palestine to pursue lives of silence and prayer. A key phrase, repeated often among the sayings of the desert mothers and fathers, is "Give me a word." Fast-forward many centuries to the present day, and we find the practice of seeking a word being reclaimed by the spiritually minded in new ways. Give Me a Word will gently lead you through the process of receiving your word, testing its resonance, and embracing its meaning.
Prayer has long sustained movements for social change. Ritual gives shape to our desire for justice, and liturgy lends power to our work. With more than fifty resources from eighty contributors, We Pray Freedom is useful for individual reflection, corporate worship, and protest and action. Through liturgies of liberation, join a movement that bears witness to the justice of God and to human faith, suffering, protest, and love.
Can the Bible be saved? More and more Christians are troubled by how difficult passages in the Bible can be used to promote sexism, homophobia, hostility to other faiths, and other problems—but a sterile, "academic" reading of the sacred text seems spiritually unfulfilling. Carl McColman reminds us that there is an ancient "third way" of approaching the Bible: reading scripture like a mystic. Read the Bible like a Mystic will help Christians find an expanded relationship with their sacred textbook, and it will also invite all people to bring together the wisdom of the written word with the wisdom of the contemplative life and the call to foster peace, justice, and equality in our world.
Also available from Carl McColman is The New Big Book of Christian Mysticism: An Essential Guide to Contemplative Spirituality.
Pray and meditate along with saints through this luminous collection of one hundred block prints by artist Kreg Yingst, curator of the Instagram account @psalmprayers. Mystics like Teresa of Avila, Howard Thurman, Black Elk, and Fannie Lou Hamer come alive. Everything Could Be a Prayer is a rich resource for private prayer and communal reflection.
Sometimes we imagine prayer as a magical incantation—a way to change our circumstances. We try to pray our way toward success, safety, health, or love. But what if true prayer is more about undoing our desires for power and profit than indulging them? Prayed through millennia by believers in groups and alone, the Lord's Prayer speaks precisely to our age. With stories from scripture, whimsical anecdotes, and pastoral wisdom, The Prayer of Unwanting guides us into profound interaction with each line of the Lord's Prayer.
Mindfulness can help you live more joyfully and wholeheartedly in the world God created. The Mindful Christian provides readers with an overview of mindfulness practice through the lens of faith, showing how the ancient healing practice of mindfulness can help them live more joyfully and wholeheartedly. Complete with easy-to-do mindfulness practices that will impact daily activities and relationships, this book empowers readers with the benefits of mindfulness for their emotional, spiritual, and relational health within the Christian life.
Building a New Kind of Faith
Embracing the Old Witch in the Woods
Christian patriarchy teaches that women are dangerous, manipulative, and untrustworthy. Whether painting women as the archetypal old witch in the woods or the biblical temptress, toxic religion vilifies their wisdom and uses fear to maintain male power. And these harmful stereotypes aren't just historical; they persist in modern religious, societal, and political rhetoric, where confident women are called "nasty" or "radical." Embracing the Old Witch in the Woods is a road map for readers to challenge limiting beliefs, confront systemic injustices, untangle from patriarchal Christian attitudes toward women, and tap into the deep well of feminine wisdom.
The Christian industrial complex teaches us that whatever is centered, celebrated, and large is a movement of God, and that Jesus is at work in existing structures. So why are we surprised that many churches are obsessed with power, size, and reputation—and that people are leaving them in droves? Lost, Hidden, Small, a stirring book of spiritual formation, asks us to consider: What if the abundant life lies in finding what's been lost, uncovering what is hidden, and learning to hope in what is small?
Roasted marshmallows, campfire stories, shaving cream battles—for some of us, Christian summer camp is where we felt most at home. But for campers at white Evangelical church camps in particular, camp was also often the place to inherit a toxic image of God and of each other. In Church Camp, longtime camp speaker Cara Meredith exposes the ways in which white Evangelical camps sold individualized versions of Jesus to impressionable youth. Church Camp peels back the layers, holds the powerful accountable, and helps you envision a more vibrant, loving, and inclusive faith.
Disillusioned by narrow theology and constricted dogma, people are leaving Christianity in droves. But Jesus describes the reign of God as a house with many rooms. What if there are nooks and crannies of faith we have yet to explore? In A Faith of Many Rooms, Debie Thomas claims that the space where God dwells is expansive and full of belonging.
Everything Good about God Is True
You know what you don't believe: about the Bible, the church, and God. But what if someone asked: "What do you believe?" In Everything Good about God Is True, Bruce Reyes-Chow helps us consider what it means to choose faith and how to create one's own "faith montage." What if we could articulate the gospel of love, humility, and justice? What if everything good about God is true?
Spiritual Formation
Rocks. Cast iron skillets. Portraits. Calendars. Shoes. The regular objects of our lives can be conduits of God's love and grace—if we notice them. In Souvenirs of the Holy, join Laurie M. Brock on a journey of spiritual direction through everyday things, and discover the sacred in the ordinary. Reflect on the items in your life that connect you to a God who dwells within and beyond the material world. With creative ideas for praying with objects, this book is ideal for book clubs, church circles, and small groups seeking deeper, more tangible spiritual experiences.
Too many of us are stuck on the treadmill of consumer spirituality, clinging to the illusion that we are in charge of our own spiritual growth and development. But the path of true transformation isn't in doing more, but in doing less—in letting go of control and adopting a contemplative posture that will naturally lead us to our true self. Letting Go, Finding You will show how a contemplative spiritual path, informed by the Enneagram, will allow you to finally stop striving after false promises and start surrendering to the truest version of yourself.
Prince is beloved by millions worldwide, and a true legend of the pop genre. Yet most of his fans don't recognize the spiritual messages coded within his work, nor understand the connections between Prince's own religious devotion—which evolved over time—and the sexualized messages of his music. In Dearly Beloved, Pamela Ayo Yetunde decodes the spiritual and sexual messages behind Prince's work. For anyone who loves Prince, is inspired by him, is confused by his lyrics, or is curious about what his music means, Dearly Beloved is an essential spiritual guide.
Becoming Spiritually Intelligent
What is spiritual intelligence? How do you gain it? And what if it looks a lot like love? In Becoming Spiritually Intelligent, Paul M. Burns helps us cultivate spiritual intelligence—the capacity to love God, ourselves, and others—by way of nine paths rooted in attachment theory, Christian formation, and the science of spirituality. Each chapter offers a practice, reflection questions, and a prayer.
For books specifically about faith deconstruction, click here to view our resources.
Searching for faith and spirituality resources for kids? Click here to view resources from our sister imprint, Beaming Books.
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