‘I wanted to change the world, but I couldn’t find a babysitter.’ School runs, packed lunches, play-dates, date night, nappy changes, homework, football, deadlines, bedtime stories, supermarket runs, peace-keeping, juice and biscuits, park trips, the runs, toddler groups, coffee drinking, mum’s taxi, potty training, kiss-it-better. These are our lives. Like you, we are busy mums who want to follow God. We want to be part of his mission to the world. Perhaps you had big dreams of how you’d make a difference to the world, how you’d change it for the better. But now all you can think about is the next feed. Or perhaps you think mission is only for ‘special Christians’ who are extra holy and know their Bible backwards - and you feel that just ticking off each day on the calendar is an achievement. Wherever you are, whatever you feel, we hope this book will renew your passion to serve God in your own situation. We’d like to share some stories from women who have begun to do just that. And we want to invite you to explore what mission looks like for a normal mum. Because however ordinary we are, we serve an extraordinary God, and he calls us all to be a part of his mission to transform the earth, bring his kingdom, redeem a new humanity and build his church.

What does it mean to grow up as an evangelical Christian today? What meanings does 'childhood' have for evangelical adults? How does this shape their engagements with children and with schools? And what does this mean for the everyday realities of children's lives? Based on in-depth ethnographic fieldwork carried out in three contrasting evangelical churches in the UK, Anna Strhan reveals how attending to the significance of children within evangelicalism deepens understanding of evangelicals' hopes, fears and concerns, not only for children, but for wider British society. Developing a new, relational approach to the study of children and religion, Strhan invites the reader to consider both the complexities of children's agency and how the figure of the child shapes the hopes, fears, and imaginations of adults, within and beyond evangelicalism. The Figure of the Child in Contemporary Evangelicalism explores the lived realities of how evangelical Christians engage with children across the spaces of church, school, home, and other informal educational spaces in a de-christianizing cultural context, how children experience these forms of engagement, and the meanings and significance of childhood. Providing insight into different churches' contemporary cultural and moral orientations, the book reveals how conservative evangelicals experience their understanding of childhood as increasingly countercultural, while charismatic and open evangelicals locate their work with children as a significant means of engaging with wider secular society. Setting out an approach that explores the relations between the figure of the child, children's experiences, and how adult religious subjectivities are formed in both imagined and practical relationships with children, this study situates childhood as an important area of study within the sociology of religion and examines how we should approach childhood within this field, both theoretically and methodologically.

This book is an emotionally vulnerable and real journey through motherhood. It documents an ordinary mum's journey through life with two young children and the lessons she's learnt along the way. Expect tears, laughter and a real look at how we're all winging it and how being imperfect is just perfect. We are bombarded by rules on how to raise our children but the secret to raising happy children (and enjoying it along the way) is simple. If you're sick of being told what to do and want to raise your children your way, then read on...

Out of the generation that grew up in the Great Depression and World War II, thousands of young Christians felt called by God to the ends of the earth. Pauline A. Brown, with her husband Ralph, and two other families, went to the Sindh Province in southern Pakistan in 1954 -- their goal, to share God's message love with Muslim Sindhis. This book is not just about North Americans abroad, but about a fellowship of ordinary people crossing cultural and linguistic barriers to take on the extraordinary challenge of establishing the Church in the Sindh desert. Jars of Clay is a story of laughter and tears, of danger and deliverance, of despair and hope, of victory and defeat. Above all, it is a story of perseverance in the face of great odds. The story of how the Church of Jesus Christ, small and fragile as it is, is taking root in the barren desert soil of Sindh in Pakistan, an Islamic Republic, is relevant more than ever in our post 9/11 world.

Achieve brand success with smarter change management and seamless transformation Seamless is a guide for transforming your brand and heroically taking your business into the future. Customers are sick and tired of the inconvenience, friction, arrogance and grating seams they experience on their customer journeys caused by brands undergoing awkward and haphazard change. This book shows you how to remove the external and internal seams for a smooth transition between marketing channels, to provide a transformative customer journey. Anders Sörman-Nilsson, futurist and author of Digilogue (Wiley 2013), reveals the key factors to designing a cohesive and agile brand that is fit for the future. This book looks at on-the-ground implementation of Digilogue ideas, giving you a first-hand account of how emerging technology has evolved and disrupted the business landscape since 2013. You'll learn the trials and tribulations of omnichannel marketing, change leadership, start up thinking versus a heritage (and family) business legacy and why there has never been a better time to implement seamless technologies in your business. The future doesn't unfold neatly — in fact, it's often a disruptive slap in the face. Seamless is the key to a successful business future, and this book shows you how to make seamlessness work for your company, starting today. Design away the friction with transformative customer experiences Weave disparate channels and parts of a brand together into a seamless whole Take an integrative, rather than additive, approach to communications Achieve the highest level of customer intimacy, the key to customer loyalty Drive seamless change inside your organisation by designing journeys of constant adaptation Communication channels continue to proliferate, and simply adding every new flash in the pan is a sure path to ruin. You need to bring together every part of your brand into a cohesive whole, one with deliberate, strategic structure and wholeheartedly gather all your stakeholders around it. Seamless shows you how to remove the scar tissue, reveal your brand's fresh edge and meet the future curious, agile and open-minded.