Hospitality

New Tricks

Fri, 02 May 2025 16:18:16 GMT

Pets make us better people.

In the United States today, two out of every three households have at least one pet. No longer just companions, pets are a full-fledged part of the family. For some, a pet may be the only family member living in their house. What if faith communities saw this growing reality as an opportunity to create meaningful ministries of care and outreach for millions of people and the animals they love?

New Tricks is a groundbreaking guide to bringing pet ministry into your faith community, offering practical steps and inspiring ideas to serve those who have pets, promote animal well-being, and embrace the unconditional love that animals bring into our lives. Written by a popular pastor and author and a lay leader who has helped train therapy dogs for decades, both of whom are passionate about animals, New Tricks is filled with heart-warming stories of how animals of all kinds minister to us and how we, in turn, can serve them and their families.

Weaving biblical and theological insight with real stories of healing and support, the authors provide a compelling case for and reasons why a pet ministry has an important place among other transformative ministries in your community — and how it can attract people to your faith community.

Drawing from nearly twenty years of pet ministry experience, authors Betsy and Gayle outline six ways churches can introduce animal programs into their faith community:

Care & Support for Pet Parents — Emotional and spiritual support for those experiencing pet loss, illness, or transitions.
Training Therapy Animals to Prepare for Certification — Training and deploying certified therapy animals to visit people in healthcare facilities, schools and libraries, and participate in faith community activities.
Community Service Projects — Pet food drives, shelter and veterinarian partnerships, and fostering initiatives.
Pet-focused Educational Programs — How to prevent separation anxiety, addressing pet behavioral problems, and taking the perfect pet photo!
Community Events — Blessings of the Animals, World Pet Memorial Day, National Dog Day.
Animal Advocacy — Championing ethical treatment and welfare, conservation, and justice for animals in your community and beyond.

New Tricks also includes practical resources for your pet ministry including pet loss resources (grief rituals, how to write a pet obituary, and a pet remembrance service), a template for your pet/animal ministry launch, and much more.

Whether you're a pastor, lay leader, or a friend of animals big and small, New Tricks provides everything you need to integrate pet ministry into the mission of your church or faith group. Full of real-life stories, step-by-step guidance, and creative ideas, this book will inspire and equip you to make an impact with the pet people in your community and the animals they love — through hands and paws together.

READ A SAMPLE

New Tricks

Fri, 29 Aug 2025 15:51:39 GMT

Pets make us better people.

Drawing from nearly twenty years of pet ministry experience, authors Betsy and Gayle outline six ways churches can introduce animal programs into their faith community:

Care & Support for Pet Parents — Emotional and spiritual support for those experiencing pet loss, illness, or transitions.
Training Therapy Animals to Prepare for Certification — Training and deploying certified therapy animals to visit people in healthcare facilities, schools and libraries, and participate in faith community activities.
Community Service Projects — Pet food drives, shelter and veterinarian partnerships, and fostering initiatives.
Pet-focused Educational Programs — How to prevent separation anxiety, addressing pet behavioral problems, and taking the perfect pet photo!
Community Events — Blessings of the Animals, World Pet Memorial Day, National Dog Day.
Animal Advocacy — Championing ethical treatment and welfare, conservation, and justice for animals in your community and beyond.

READ A SAMPLE

Lanzar una nueva comunidad de adoración

Fri, 29 Sep 2023 14:09:44 GMT

«En una época en la que la religión organizada se asocia a menudo con un pensamiento obsoleto, una gran parte de la población ha renunciado a la iglesia. No creen que la iglesia pueda ofrecer algo interesante y relevante para ellos», escribe Paul Nixon. «Por lo tanto, ahora es necesario un trabajo mayor para construir la comunidad de adoración y cultivar la confianza antes de que la gente se comprometa con nosotros. En el mundo actual, las comunidades de adoración nuevas e innovadoras son más necesarias que nunca».

En el libro Lanzar una nueva comunidad de adoración, los autores Paul Nixon y Craig Gilbert junto con un equipo de otros catorce expertos en plantación de iglesias, ofrecen consejos valiosos a los líderes del ministerio — tanto al clero como a los laicos — para alcanzar a nuevas personas con el evangelio.

Lanzar nueva comunidad de adoración contiene 32 capítulos cortos que profundizan en los detalles más prácticos a los que se enfrentan los equipos de lanzamiento de comunidades de adoración hoy en día.

Los temas incluyen lo siguiente:

¿Por qué iniciar una nueva reunión?
Enfocarse en un grupo particular de personas
Desarrollar una cultura de invitación
Promover la diversidad étnica
Conectar bien en un mundo digital
Reunir a su equipo de lanzamiento
Ofrecer una hospitalidad de primera clase

Lanzar una nueva comunidad de adoración

Wed, 01 Nov 2023 16:35:33 GMT

Los temas incluyen lo siguiente:

¿Por qué iniciar una nueva reunión?
Enfocarse en un grupo particular de personas
Desarrollar una cultura de invitación
Promover la diversidad étnica
Conectar bien en un mundo digital
Reunir a su equipo de lanzamiento
Ofrecer una hospitalidad de primera clase

Launching a New Worship Community

Wed, 18 May 2022 15:15:21 GMT

For many churches, the call to make disciples comes with a realization that the church's current worship opportunities do not reach certain groups in their surrounding community. New worship services offer the most promising strategy for renewing established churches and planting new worship communities. In a post-pandemic world, churches will be challenged to reach new people with the gospel and to help them meet in a way that is meaningful to them.

Accessible to ministry professionals and lay leaders, Launching a New Worship Community is a comprehensive guide to starting a new worship community—whether that means an established church beginning a new worship service or a church startup designing its first worship offering. The authors, writing with a team of church planting experts, provide practical advice rooted in solid academics, theology, and real-world experience. With this guide, readers will have the tools they need to begin and sustain a new worship community.

Launching a New Worship Community

Fri, 20 May 2022 15:29:54 GMT

Five Loaves, Two Fish, Twelve Volunteers

Tue, 24 May 2022 18:19:20 GMT

Five Loaves, Two Fish, Twelve Volunteers

Thu, 05 May 2022 20:07:36 GMT

Sixty-two percent of food pantries and meal programs in the United States are faith-based. Most of these ministries are transactional; people needing food interact with church volunteers to earn access to direct service.

Elizabeth Magill advocates relational ministry as a better model for food ministry. People donating food or money eat with the people who need food and get to know them as they serve alongside them. Those needing food share all aspects of the ministry, including planning, setting up, leading, serving, and cleaning. As volunteers become better acquainted with those they serve, they can form deep, meaningful relationships, creating a new way to be the church.

Five Loaves, Two Fish, Twelve Volunteers tells the stories of eight churches that share food ministry with people who need their services. Full of practical advice, this book emphasizes that building relationships and offering radical welcome is more important work for churches than efficiency or order. It helps congregations evaluate their outreach and advises them on how to do it differently.

Five Loaves, Two Fish, Twelve Volunteers

Sat, 14 May 2022 04:10:35 GMT

A Mile in My Shoes

Sat, 14 May 2022 02:15:04 GMT

We can be quick to pray for people around the world in times of trauma, but has prayer become a way to avoid taking real action? Are we reluctant to be fully aware of the suffering around us?

Trevor Hudson challenges us to see, hear, and respond to the needs of others, recognizing the living Christ in all things.

Hudson designed an 8-day program—a pilgrimage—to help all Christians cultivate the depth of compassion Jesus demonstrated. Through this program, pilgrims learn to be present wherever they are and with whomever they meet.

"We seldom become more compassionate without working at it," writes Hudson. "One practical way to cultivate compassion involves building the pilgrimage experience into our lives. …The risen Christ meets us in the lives of those who suffer."

Join Trevor Hudson in this exploration of how to love your neighbor as yourself and choose compassion as part of your daily life.

The Soulmaking Room

Sat, 14 May 2022 01:13:19 GMT

In this personal story, Dee Dee Risher weaves experiences from her life with the biblical story of the prophet Elisha and the Shunammite woman. Risher is captivated by this spiritually attuned, generous, hospitable, honest, and bold woman. The woman from Shunem extends radical hospitality to the prophet, expecting no reward. But when disaster strikes, she does not hesitate to hold Elisha accountable or talk back.

Hidden in the story, Risher believes, are the questions that lead to a more authentic life:

What does it mean to build a holy room in our lives?
How honestly do we confront our inevitable losses and griefs? As we work to transform our world, how do we grapple with failure?
Do we have the kind of faith that can ask bold questions in the face of death?
What openings does radical hospitality create in our lives?

"Every human being goes through so much," Risher reflects, "and there is some heartbreakingly beautiful fruit we are to shape from that. That is our own unique, authentic gift to the world." Her book encourages each of us to find a holy room in which we are in community with others and where we can shape our souls into their unique dimensions. We each need a space for this work-a soulmaking room.

"If we cannot deal with failure, if we do not know how to put our deepest losses in our holy room, and if we do not know who our people are, we can never fully join the joy and power of God's story," Dee Dee Risher asserts. Embark with her on the adventure of creating and discovering the joys of The Soulmaking Room.

The Soulmaking Room

Sat, 14 May 2022 01:13:31 GMT

Hidden in the story, Risher believes, are the questions that lead to a more authentic life:

What does it mean to build a holy room in our lives?
How honestly do we confront our inevitable losses and griefs? As we work to transform our world, how do we grapple with failure?
Do we have the kind of faith that can ask bold questions in the face of death?
What openings does radical hospitality create in our lives?

The Soulmaking Room

Thu, 05 May 2022 20:37:16 GMT

Hidden in the story, Risher believes, are the questions that lead to a more authentic life:

What does it mean to build a holy room in our lives?
How honestly do we confront our inevitable losses and griefs? As we work to transform our world, how do we grapple with failure?
Do we have the kind of faith that can ask bold questions in the face of death?
What openings does radical hospitality create in our lives?

Room at My Table

Sat, 14 May 2022 01:00:02 GMT

In this delightful collection of 52 devotions, Evelyn Bence reflects on gatherings at her table that have brought together friends, family, and neighbors. The anecdotal meditations ease the door ajar, gently inviting you to welcome others to your table. You see her planning a gathering, choosing recipes, thinking about how to make guests feel at ease.

For seasoned hosts, Bence provides encouragement and camaraderie. For novices, she offers gentle instruction laced with humor, realistic expectations, and recipes to try.

Many readers will remember Evelyn Bence as a frequent contributor to Daily Guideposts. Known for her warm, personal writing, she offers devotional gems and recipes in Room at My Table that will appeal to a wide range of Christian women. The book makes a thoughtful hostess gift.

Come along, Bence gracefully urges — you, too, can make room at your table for others to share a meal or even just a cup of coffee and dessert. Whether your table is humble or grand, you can reach out to others and enjoy offering hospitality.

Room at My Table

Sat, 14 May 2022 01:00:14 GMT

For seasoned hosts, Bence provides encouragement and camaraderie. For novices, she offers gentle instruction laced with humor, realistic expectations, and recipes to try.

Come along, Bence gracefully urges—you, too, can make room at your table for others to share a meal or even just a cup of coffee and dessert. Whether your table is humble or grand, you can reach out to others and enjoy offering hospitality.

Room at My Table

Thu, 05 May 2022 20:06:06 GMT

For seasoned hosts, Bence provides encouragement and camaraderie. For novices, she offers gentle instruction laced with humor, realistic expectations, and recipes to try.

Interruptions

Thu, 05 May 2022 20:45:08 GMT

Life is full of interruptions. You have a flat tire on the way to work. Your phone buzzes, signaling yet another text or e-mail. Or a major interruption blindsides you—the death of a loved one, a job loss, a family member in crisis, or a shattering diagnosis. Where is God in all these situations?

Interruptions: A 40-Day Journey with Jesus provides a chance for you to set aside your stress for a bit and refocus on God. Jacob Armstrong looks at the life of Jesus and gives insights on how you might respond to all the interruptions in your life. The scripture-based meditations guide you to think about interruptions from various angles:

Interruption as an opportunity
Living in a culture of interruptions
Jesus' response to interruptions
Jesus as an interrupter

Armstrong weaves together biblical and contemporary stories in these short, effective devotions. His book will encourage you and remind you that God wants to meet you in all the interruptions of your life.

Interruptions

Sat, 14 May 2022 00:58:03 GMT

Interruption as an opportunity
Living in a culture of interruptions
Jesus' response to interruptions
Jesus as an interrupter

Interruptions

Sat, 14 May 2022 00:58:18 GMT

Interruption as an opportunity
Living in a culture of interruptions
Jesus' response to interruptions
Jesus as an interrupter

Not Just a One-Night Stand

Thu, 05 May 2022 20:40:52 GMT

The story of how a church dying for more than two decades found its soul—and a new identity.

In the foreword to this book, Tex Sample says: "The Christ who is Lord of the Church stands at the margins of the world. To forget either Christ as Lord or the Christ at the margins is to lose our ways as the church…In this faith-inspiring book, John Flowers and Karen Vannoy call the church again to the Christ who is Lord who appears at the margins of established, respectable life."

Not Just a One-Night Stand is based on the ministry experience at Travis Park United Methodist Church in San Antonio, Texas. When you read the chapter titled "You're Under Arrest," you'll gain insight into the personality of Flowers and the ways in which he and Vannoy engage in ministry. Far more than a memoir, Not Just a One-Night Stand offers creative approaches to ministry with those who are marginalized.