Do you long for adventure? Do you want your life to have a profound and far-reaching effect? Then, you are longing for the Holy Spirit's work in your life! In this study of the book of Acts, you will see the fire of the Spirit erupting through the lives of believers. This will spark in you an appreciation, longing, and expectation for the Holy Spirit's work in your own life. Are you willing for God to get you fired up and ready for adventure?

'Insightful, wise and life-affirming' Observer 'Turns death into life, despair into hope, sorrow into joy' Stephen Fry In Radical Acts of Love, Janie Brown, oncology nurse and counsellor, offers a sensitive and wise insight into our final moments by recounting twenty conversations she has had with people who were dying.

Drawing on activist campaign literature and materials, broadcast media, and new oral history interviews, Severs reconstructs and discusses the overlooked world of radical AIDS activism in England. This book provides one of the first detailed histories of the radical HIV/AIDS movement in England, following ACT UP's travels from New York to London via prominent queer intellectuals, and reconstructing the vibrant theatrical campaigns staged by ACT UP groups across England. Radical Acts explores expressions of activism that were far more common than demonstrations and marches. Manifestations of a political commitment to ameliorating the injustices facing people living with HIV permeated most aspects of everyday life. These forms of 'everyday activism' played out in workplaces, universities and church halls across England, as well as through networks that stretched across Europe and North America. This book breaks new ground by studying the radical alongside the everyday, presenting a diverse constellation of activist responses to the epidemic.

An original argument that the answer to mass incarceration lies not with experts and pundits, but with ordinary people taking extraordinary actions together—written by a leading authority on bail reform and social movements From reading books on mass incarceration, one might conclude that the way out of our overly punitive, racially disparate criminal system is to put things in the hands of experts, technocrats able to think their way out of the problem. But, as Jocelyn Simonson points out in her groundbreaking new book, the problems posed by the American carceral state are not just technical puzzles; they present profound moral questions for our time. Radical Acts of Justice tells the stories of ordinary people joining together in collective acts of resistance: paying bail for a stranger, using social media to let the public know what everyday courtroom proceedings are like, making a video about someone’s life for a criminal court judge, presenting a budget proposal to the city council. When people join together to contest received ideas of justice and safety, they challenge the ideas that prosecutions and prisons make us safer; that public officials charged with maintaining “law and order” are carrying out the will of the people; and that justice requires putting people in cages. Through collective action, these groups live out new and more radical ideas of what justice can look like. In a book that will be essential reading for those who believe our current systems of policing, criminal law, and prisons are untenable, Jocelyn Simonson shows how to shift power away from the elite actors at the front of the courtroom and toward the swelling collective in the back.

"With Radical Acts of Love, Janie Brown demonstrates the power of a book to transform, in fact to turn things upside down. She turns death into life, despair into hope, sorrow into joy, and pain into love with these twenty astonishing encounters with the dying. We all know somewhere in the back of our minds that a deeper understanding and acceptance of death is supposed to release us into an even fiercer embrace of life—this wonderful book made me, for the first time, truly feel and believe it." —Stephen Fry In this profound and moving book, oncology nurse Janie Brown recounts twenty conversations she has had with the dying, including people close to her. Each conversation uncovers a different perspective on, and experience of death, while at the same time exploring its universalities. Offering extremely sensitive and wise insight into our final moments, Brown shows practical ways to facilitate the shift from feeling helpless about death to feeling hopeful; from fear to acceptance; from feeling disconnected and alone, to becoming part of the wider, collective story of our mortality. As Janie Brown writes, "Most people now under sixty have never seen a person die, and so have become deeply fearful about death, their own and the deaths of their beloved others. They have had no role models to show them how to care for a dying person, and therefore no confidence in being able to do so. My hope is that the baby boomer cohort who pushed for the return of the midwives to de-medicalize birth will also be instrumental in reclaiming the death process. This book is my contribution to the re-empowerment of all of us to take charge of our lives and our deaths, remembering that we know how to die, just as we knew how to come into this world. We also know how to heal, and to settle our lives as best we can, before we die. In my view, this is the greatest gift we could give our loved ones: to be prepared and open and accepting when the time comes for us to leave this world."

Intro -- Contents -- Part One: How to Create and Produce a Community Storytelling Series -- Voices Uncensored -- What It's About -- In the Beginning -- A Bit of Storytelling History -- Getting Started -- Finding a Venue -- Finding a Name -- Finding Storytellers -- Finding Themes -- Finding an Audience -- The Rehearsal -- Opening Night -- Guest Curators -- Finding Volunteers -- When Things Go Wrong -- Creating a Business Plan -- Becoming a 501(c)(3) -- Teaching Workshops -- Storytelling Projects -- Moving and Growing -- Part Two: Why Everyone Can Benefit from Community Storytelling -- Overcoming the Fear of Public Speaking -- Storytelling vs. Therapy -- Diversity -- Dispelling Prejudice -- Building Bridges -- Healing -- Making Connections -- Community Awareness and Fundraising -- Ripple Effect -- Teaching Lessons -- Creativity -- Part Three: Keeping It Organized -- Forms, Timelines, Contracts -- Curator and Producer Agreement and Timeline -- Storyteller and Curator Agreement and Timeline -- Show Timeline Checklist -- Rehearsal notes -- Photo/Video/Audio Release Agreement -- 11 Things to Do If You Are Nervous About Going Onstage -- Tips for Tellers -- Story Outline List of Things to Take -- Script for Curator -- Guest List -- Program -- Email list -- Sign, 2 yellow -- Sign, 5 green -- Sign, WRAP IT UP red -- Resources -- Acknowledgements

Militant Acts presents a broad history of the concept and practice of investigations in radical political struggles from the nineteenth century to the present. Radicals launched investigations into the conditions and struggles of the oppressed and exploited to stimulate their political mobilization and organization. These investigations assumed a variety of methodological forms in a wide range of geographical and institutional contexts, and they also drew support from the participation of intellectuals such as Marx, Lenin, Mao, Dunayevskaya, Foucault, and Badiou. Marcelo Hoffman analyzes newspapers, pamphlets, reports, and other source materials, which reveal the diverse histories, underappreciated difficulties, and theoretical import of investigations in radical political struggles. In so doing, he challenges readers to rethink the supposed failure of these investigations and concludes that the value of investigations in radical political struggles ultimately resides in the possibility of producing a new political "we."