Resurrecting Excellence aims to rekindle and encourage among Christian leaders an unselfish ambition for the gospel that shuns both competition and mediocrity and rightly focuses on the beauty, power, and excellence of living as faithful disciples of the crucified and risen Christ. Drawing on ancient traditions and on contemporary voices, L. Gregory Jones offer both a theology of excellence and portraits of pastors, lay leaders, and congregations that embody "a more excellent way."--Publisher's description.

'Be encouraged by Bishop Emma's advice and inspired by her wisdom and humour.' JUSTIN WELBY, ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY Counting things is very much on the table at the moment. But what is the theology around notions of ambition and success? Why do they sit so uncomfortably in a Christian context? After all, growth is not the preserve of big business when viewed through the lens of the story of God and his people. So, we need to ask, what is right about ambition for the Christian leader? And what were Jesus' views? Inevitably (because everything interesting is paradoxical), success and failure are close bedfellows. The single most successful event in the history of humankind - the victory of love over sin and death - looked very much like one man, naked, shamed and abandoned by most of his followers, hanging on a cross. If we keep a vision of the Kingdom of God at the centre of all we do, we cannot go far wrong. This lively and liberating book includes a brilliant take on Jesus' teaching in 'The Beatitudes for Ambitious Leaders'. Here Emma Ineson describes key spiritual dispositions that will enable us - whether in the church or living out our vocation elsewhere - to do just that.

This work is composed of memoirs, lessons, and scriptures that led me away from toxic fundamentalism and caused me to embrace progressive theology.

A study of the resurrection of the Hebrew language from extinction focuses on the role of Eliezer ben Yehuda in the nineteenth-century revival of Hebrew, as well as the part language plays in Jewish survival, the origins of Israel, Zionism, the Diaspora, and the idea of a promised land. 20,000 first printing.

In the apostolic letter Summorum Pontificum, Pope Benedict XVI made the preconciliar Mass more widely available for Catholics who seek it, designating it the extraordinary form of the Roman Rite. The Mass as revised after Vatican II thus received the designation of ordinary form.

Drawing on their research involving urban pastors from across the United States, Bryan Stone and Claire Wolfteich identify and examine spiritual practices that foster excellence in urban ministry. After discussing the specific challenges facing urban pastors and presenting the kinds of excellence required of them, Stone and Wolfteich explore several practices that help sustain ministers working in urban contexts, such as cultivating holy friendships, practicing Sabbath, maintaining lives of prayer and study, and setting appropriate boundaries. Throughout, the authors weave together stories from urban pastors from a variety of denominations with insights from the history of Christian spirituality and theology to chart a theological course for the formation and renewal of pastors in diverse contemporary contexts.

The Shape of Participation is a work of constructive theology addressed to theologians, seminarians, and thoughtful pastors. Owens engages and deepens recent popular discussions of church practices by approaching practices from the church Fathers' understanding of the church's participation in God. Through a wide-ranging engagement with theologians, both ancient and contemporary--including Cyril of Alexandria, Maximus the Confessor, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Herbert McCabe--Owens argues that the embodied practices of the church are the church's participation in the life of God, making the church Jesus' own continued, peaceable embodiment in and for the world. This book is for theologians, pastors, and anyone who wants a deeper understanding of how the visible presence of God's church is extraordinarily good news in a violent world.