"God calls you to a life of servanthood as a disciple of Jesus Christ. …Lay Servant Ministries is the first step for many laypersons toward their faith journey as they strive for a closer relationship with the Lord," the authors write in the introduction. The Lay Servant Ministries Basic Course is a foundational course designed to equip new church leaders and renew current leaders in The United Methodist Church. It explores personal spiritual gifts servant leadership each leader's role in d...

Worldwide scholarship has established the fact that Africa is the cradle land of humanity. Dr. Kurewa promotes the theory that African Religion could very easily have been the proto-religion of humanity, and a religion from which other monotheistic religions, such as Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and Islam have their roots. The author shifts the traditional African historical studies stance of looking at Africa from Egypt alone, and instead looks at Africa from inside Africa. Dr. Kur...

Is your congregation living up to its mission? After all, making disciples is what churches are supposed to do. So how do churches go about making disciples? What is a disciple, anyway? And how do congregations know whether they are actually helping people to grow in their faith? Charting a Course for Discipleship provides a step-by-step plan that will help any congregation design a disciple formation process that is effective for its particular context. It will help your church to: identif...

What kind of fruit are you bearing for Christ? The apostle Paul uses the term "fruit of the Spirit" to describe traits of the Holy Spirit that should be evident in every Christian. The fruit we bear indicates how much we resemble Jesus, our model and mentor. The fruit of the Spirit, listed in Galatians 5:22-23, include: love joy peace patience kindness goodness gentleness self-control The fruit of the Spirit should characterize each Emmaus or Chrysalis team, Board of Directors or standing...

Why is it important to prepare your heart for Holy Communion? Holy Communion (also known as the Lord's Supper, service of Word and Table, or Eucharist) is an act of worship that Christians are called to offer to God, Robert Benson believes. "[The observance of Communion] is a critical part of our life together," he notes. "It seems critically important that we approach this act of praise and thanksgiving with some measure of reverence." Benson invites us to take a fresh look at this central p...

This book is the second of two volumes on Preaching in African Context. For both seasoned preachers and beginners, including students in seminaries, Bible colleges, and universities, this second volume explores how we preach and the practice of contextual preaching in Africa. The two volumes go hand-in-hand and Nhiwatiwa demonstrates that the principles need good practice to become contextual preaching, and our practice needs principles to ensure integrity. Read these volumes to see why preac...