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Through Fire and Water presents the Mennonite faith story within the sweep of church history. This engaging text uses stories of men and women, peasants and pastors, heroes and rascals, to trace the radical Reformation from sixteenth-century Europe to today's global Anabaptist family. Written in an accessible and nonacademic style, this revised edition updates the story and incorporates new historical research and discoveries.

"A superbly written introduction to Anabaptist-Mennonite history in contexts ranging from Kansas to Congo."—Perry Bush, Bluffton University

"An accessible and engaging read for those who know little about Mennonites, and also for those who think they are familiar with this complex story of faith, culture, and action."—Marlene Epp, Conrad Grebel University College

"Captivating personal stories, set alongside an honest portrayal of the Mennonite journey."—Doug Heidebrecht, Centre for Mennonite Brethren Studies

Does the criminal justice system actually help victims and offenders? What does justice look like for those who have been harmed? For those who have done harm? Twenty-five years after it was first published, Changing Lenses by Howard Zehr remains the classic text of the restorative justice field.

Now with valuable author updates on the changing landscape of restorative justice and a new section of resources for practitioners and teachers, Changing Lenses offers a framework for understanding crime, injury, accountability, and healing from a restorative perspective.

Uncovering widespread assumptions about crime, the courts, retributive justice, and the legal process, Changing Lenses offers provocative new paradigms and proven alternatives for public policy and judicial reform.

What’s New in the Twenty-Fifth Anniversary Edition:

Does your church look and sound and feel like mission? Mission happens when congregations fully align themselves with God’s purposes. As the missional church movement matures, Anabaptists bring a time-honored theological tradition, a contemporary spiritual vitality, and practical stories of witness to the conversation. How are churches and individuals living out Christ’s call to engage locally and globally? And how is it changing them in the process?

Featuring the voices of missional Mennonite leaders, Fully Engaged offers stories and analysis about how mission is taking shape in local congregations and contexts. A diverse chorus of Anabaptist pastors and laypeople explores the roots, tools, and applications of the missional movement. From nurturing church planting to creating a missional culture to preaching for missional engagement, Fully Engaged offers insights and ideas for churches looking for direction.

What does it mean to be Mennonite in the modern world? And what is the witness of a peace church that is always at risk of splintering? C. Henry Smith—son of an Amish family, erudite historian, urbane bank president, and pioneer of Mennonite scholarship—sought answers to these questions in the middle of the 20th century, and his answers reverberate through the church to this day.

In this engaging narrative biography, historian Perry Bush chronicles Smith’s childhood in an Illinois farming community, his youthful turn toward intellectual inquiry, and his confidence that Anabaptist faith and life offer gifts to the wider world. By recounting the story of one of the foremost Mennonite intellectuals, Bush surveys the storied terrain of 20th-century Mennonite identity in its selective borrowing from wider culture and its tentative embrace of progressive reforms and higher education, and growing conviction that Anabaptism served as a taproot of Western civilization. Bush argues that Smith’s body of historical writing furnished a new generation of Mennonites with both an understanding of their shared past and the tools to navigate an ever-shifting present.

Volume 49 in the Studies in Anabaptist and Mennonite History Series.

Deuteronomy is a book full of life, stories of God’s people, and a vision for walking in the way of God. Considered by some to be the theological center of the Old Testament, Deuteronomy has been called the gospel according to Moses, with its attention to divine grace and practices of justice. Deuteronomy has also disturbed thoughtful readers throughout history, having been used to justify violence and all manner of war. In this insightful commentary, Old Testament scholar Gerald Gerbrandt invites readers to struggle with the difficult passages and to humbly converse with the book’s consistently hopeful themes of covenant, land, and leadership. Against the backdrop of apathy and amnesia and countless competing modern-day gods, Deuteronomy calls for the exclusive worship of the one God, with a reminder of what that God has done for us. It presents a vision for a community of brothers and sisters who treat each other with justice and generosity. By examining the book that Jesus quoted when asked about the heart of Israel’s faith, Gerbrandt unfolds for readers the richness of a book that is endlessly challenging and remarkably relevant for today.

Deuteronomy is the twenty-ninth volume in The Believers Church Bible Commentary Series. Accessible to lay readers, useful in preaching and pastoral care, helpful for Bible study groups and Sunday school teachers, and academically sound, the commentary foregrounds an Anabaptist reading of Scripture. Relying on a unique format that includes sections on The Text in Biblical Context and The Text in the Life of the Church, the commentary series is a cooperative project of Brethren in Christ Church, Brethren Church, Church of the Brethren, Mennonite Brethren Church, Mennonite Church Canada, and Mennonite Church USA. Published for all who seek more fully to understand the original message of Scripture and its meaning for today, the series is based on the conviction that God is still speaking to all who will listen, and that the Holy Spirit makes the Word a living and authoritative guide for all who want to know and do God’s will.

Single. A woman of faith. Pregnant. With touching truthfulness and healing honesty, author Susanne Coalson Donoghue delivers joyous confidence to beleaguered and often hurting or lonely single mothers like herself.

Donoghue speaks as a trusted friend, telling of the struggles she and other unmarried mothers experience, writing about getting over shame and embarrassment and learning to rely on extended family and her faith community. Her own powerful story starts with feeling hurt, lonely, and desperate as a single mother; over time, she becomes a confident and love-filled Christian, deeply grateful for the opportunity to raise a promising child of God.

These 31 devotionals include the author’s own heartfelt poetry, daily Scriptures, and touching personal stories and wisdom from years of single parenting.

Meditations for Adoptive Parents serves as a trusted confidant for those who have welcomed a child into their home through adoption. This heartfelt collection of meditations celebrates adoption as an act of grace mirroring God’s own redeeming love for us, of family adoption as a sacred experience—a model of the redemption offered by God through Jesus.

Author and educator Vernell Klassen Miller offers 30 days of encouragement and wisdom for new families through devotionals, poetry, Scripture, prayers, and readings. Brimming with real-life examples from the author’s own journey as the parent of four adopted children, this insightful volume offers what every Christian adoptive family can use—a pause for spiritual nourishment amid the ongoing journey of raising children.

Meditations for the Newly Married offers 30 meditations to draw newlyweds closer to each other and closer to God. Author John M. Drescher, a prolific writer and longtime pastor, has helped thousands of couples begin their wedded lives in the best possible company: reflecting on God’s Word together.

Thoughtful meditations and carefully chosen Scriptures, along with illustrative poems and quotations, help recently married couples understand that marriage isn’t about falling in love but continuing to actively and faithfully love each other. These lasting truths and nurturing advice will build up enduring marriages focused on faith, where the desire to be happily married ever after is in God’s plan.

Get a free chapter here.

When did we become so tame? How has “the good life” come to mean addiction to screens and status, fossil fuels and financial fitness? Can we break free to become the joyful and prophetic people God calls us to be? Trek along with wilderness guide Todd Wynward as he “rewilds” the Jesus Way. Seek the feral foundations of Scripture and the lessons that the prophets and disciples gleaned from wilderness testing.

Packed with inspiring stories of how contemporary people and groups are caring for the land and each other, Rewilding the Way issues a call to action. Read about how reskilling and local food covenants are transforming churches, and how place-based activism and creative housing are nurturing communities. Learn from those who are recovering from affluenza, replacing visions of personal wealth with the commonwealth of the earth and restoring their humble place in the community of creation. Do you despair about life on our changing planet? Join the hopeful band of seekers of God and makers of change who are rewilding the Way.

Watch an interview with author Todd Wynward:

Ted Swartz and his Ted & Company TheaterWorks team are known for blending Bible stories with comedy and poignancy, and pushing the envelope on issues of faith and social justice. But who is Ted Swartz?

Follow along in this engaging memoir as Swartz finds his way as a middle child in an eastern Pennsylvania traditional Mennonite home to his early work in the family butcher shop. Journey with Ted through the decision of uprooting his young family to attend seminary and then embracing life as a writer and actor. Get a glimpse into the friendship that led to the formation of the popular acting duo Ted & Lee.

This uniquely honest backstage tour of an artist's life and mind combines side-splitting reminiscences, heart-rending accounts of loss, and touching stories of restored faith and love. Swartz's engaging humor blends with his own stories of triumph and tragedy, and helps readers understand their own sense of place and how they're shaped by those around them.

Read the forward by Bryan Mclaren under the "Excerpt" tab and see what is already being said about the book under the "Quotes" tab!

"Laughter Is Sacred Space is even funnier than Mennonite in a Little Black Dress—an authentic and profound snapshot of what it means to grow up and live Mennonite."—Howard Zehr, professor of restorative justice, Eastern Mennonite University

"Ted Swartz is a gift. He unveils some of the most tragic pain and injustice of our world . . . but he knows that if we can't laugh then the devil has already won. Laughter reminds us that we know the end of the story—and in the end we see life conquer death and love triumph over hatred."—Shane Claiborne, author, activist, and lover of Jesus

About the authorPurchase Ted and Company scripts and DVDs

Vincent Harding is Professor Emeritus of Religion and Social Transformation at the Iliff School of Theology in Denver, Colorado. He is chairperson of the Veterans of Hope Project, which he founded in 1997 with his late wife, Rosemarie Freeney Harding. As longtime activists and teachers, the Hardings began their work in the Mennonite Church in Chicago, Illinois, in the late 1950s and moved to Atlanta, Georgia, in 1961 to join with Martin Luther King Jr. and others in the southern freedom movement. In ensuing years, the Hardings served as scholars, advisors, and encouragers for a wide variety of movements, organizations, and individuals working for compassionate social change in the United States and internationally. Before coming to Iliff, Vincent had taught at Spelman College, Temple University, and the University of Pennsylvania. His essays, articles, and poetry have been published in books, journals, and newspapers. Three of his most recent books are: Hope and History: Why We Must Share the Story of the Movement; Martin Luther King: The Inconvenient Hero; and We Changed the World, a history of the freedom movement for young people. There is a River, his classic history of the early black struggle for freedom in America, has been in print for three decades.

For over forty years, in national and international contexts, Rosemarie Freeney Harding was an activist for peace, justice, and racial reconciliation. Beginning in the southern freedom movement in the early 1960s as an associate of the Mennonite Central Committee, Rosemarie worked as an organizer, educator, historian, social worker, and counselor for a wide range of religious, community, and educational organizations. In her later years, as she continued to organize and teach, she also maintained a private bodywork and counseling practice that integrated Feldenkrais, Therapeutic Touch, and traditional African American spiritual healing modalities. Rosemarie held a master's degree in women's history, a master's degree in clinical social work, and, with her husband Vincent, was cofounder and cochairperson of the Veterans of Hope Project at the Iliff School of Theology in Denver, Colorado. Rosemarie passed on in 2004. "Mennonite House" is a chapter from her memoir, Remnants, cowritten with her daughter, Rachel Elizabeth Harding.

Rachel Elizabeth Harding is a historian and writer whose work focuses on religions of the Afro-Atlantic diaspora. She holds a PhD in history and an MFA in creative writing, and is author of numerous published essays and a book on Afro-Brazilian religion, A Refuge in Thunder: Candomblé and Alternative Spaces of Blackness. Rachel served as a consultant and featured scholar in the PBS series This Far by Faith, on African American spiritual traditions. She is also a poet and has published work in Callaloo, Chelsea, Feminist Studies, The International Review of African American Art, Hambone, and several anthologies. She teaches in the Ethnic Studies Department at the University of Colorado Denver.

Sally Schreiner Youngquist is a current community leader of Reba Place Fellowship, where she has been a covenant member since 1973. She has worked as a high school English teacher, a Mennonite Central Committee administrator, a conference planner, communications manager for the Seminary Consortium for Urban Pastoral Education (SCUPE), and a Mennonite pastor at Reba Place Church and Living Water Community Church. Besides nurturing community, she enjoys reading, walking, and being a grandparent.

Celina Varela directs the intern program at Reba Place Fellowship in Evanston, Illinois, and occasionally preaches at Reba Place Church, a member of the Illinois Conference of Mennonite Church USA. She moved to Evanston in 2006 after graduating from Truett Theological Seminary in Waco, Texas. Celina enjoys gardening, singing, and theological discussions with her husband, Peter.

Regina Shands Stoltzfus was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, and currently lives in Elkhart, Indiana. She and Art Stoltzfus are the parents of four children: Matthew, Danny, Rachel, and Joshua. Regina has served as an associate pastor at Lee Heights Community Church in Cleveland, and as a campus pastor at Goshen College. She currently teaches at Goshen College in the Peace, Justice, and Conflict Studies and the Bible, Religion, and Philosophy departments. She has a BA in English from Cleveland State University, an MA in Bible from Ashland Theological Seminary, and is currently a doctoral student at Chicago Theological Seminary. Regina is one of the cofounders of Damascus Road, an antiracism education and organizing program.

Hedy Sawadsky lives in the midst of fruit orchards in the picturesque village of Vineland, Ontario. She enjoys hiking and biking, even to the First Mennonite Church, where as a child she first learned the Beatitudes. Half a lifetime ago, while living near Shepherds' Fields in Bethlehem, she began creating petal cards with Holy Land flowers. It's still one of her favorite hobbies.

André Gingerich Stoner and his wife, Cathy, have four school-aged children. They live in the Near Northwest Neighborhood of South Bend, Indiana, as intentional neighbors with several other households gathering regularly for meals and prayers and sharing cars, tools, childcare, and daily life. André worked with Mennonite Central Committee from 1984 to 1991 on two peace assignments in West Germany, including relating to U.S. military personnel at a large nuclear weapons base. He served as Pastor of Missions at Kern Road Mennonite Church in South Bend for sixteen years. He presently serves as Director of Holistic Witness and Interchurch Relations for Mennonite Church USA. He is a graduate of Swarthmore College and Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary.

Since 1979, Peter and Mary Sprunger-Froese have been Mennonite peace activists with an ecumenical community in Colorado Springs. They work with homeless people, refugees, and nonviolence seekers. They find the Anabaptist story deeply sustaining in their Christianized military setting.

Dawn Longenecker was born in 1958 into a Mennonite family. She married Jim Rice in 1982 and they have two children, Jessica (age 25) and Adam (age 22). Dawn attends Hyattsville Mennonite Church in Maryland and lives in Mt. Rainier, Maryland. She works with the Church of the Saviour in Washington, D.C., directing their Discipleship Year Program. She is a member of a Spiritual Support Group focused on dismantling racism and founded by Church of the Saviour.

Tim Nafziger enjoys gathering with people who share values to work and talk together. One such gathering of people is Christian Peacemaker Teams, where he works as Outreach Coordinator. Another is the blog Young Anabaptist Radicals, where he is administrator. He also designs websites, writes, and takes photographs of small and beautiful corners of creation. He lives with his wife, Charletta, beside Lake Michigan in the Rogers Park neighborhood of Chicago, where they attend Living Water Community Church.

Since its founding in 1989, James Nelson Gingerich has provided medical care and helped lead the staff at Maple City Health Care Center, a communitybased, not-for-profit organization working with neighbors to enhance the health of people in north-central Goshen, Indiana (for more, see www.mchcc.com). This chapter is distilled from a talk James gave in 2008 as Theological Center Guest at Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary, Elkhart, Indiana; it is available at www.mchcc.com/en/talk/jamess-seminary-talk-2. In 2006 he received the Dorothy Richardson award for resident leadership from NeighborWorks America, for his work with the health center. James is a 1980 graduate of Goshen College, a 1985 graduate of the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine, and a 1988 graduate of the family medicine residency program at St. Francis Hospital, Beech Grove, Indiana. He and his wife, Barbara Nelson Gingerich, are the parents of two young adult sons, Jonathan and Daniel. James is a member of Eighth Street Mennonite Church in Goshen. He enjoys praying with neighbors every weekday morning from Take Our Moments and Our Days: An Anabaptist Prayer Book, and sharing a weekly eucharistic meal with friends. His interests include beekeeping, baking bread, weaving, singing from shape-note songbooks, typesetting music, leading congregational singing, and bookbinding.

Sarah Thompson is a 2002 graduate of Bethany Christian High School, the Mennonite high school in Goshen, Indiana. Resisting church community pressure to attend a Mennonite college, she chose Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia, and subsequently got involved in a range of Anabaptist faith-inspired activities (such as eco-feminist anti-war mobilization) while deepening her identification as a U.S. American woman of color. Church involvements include her six years of volunteer work as the North American representative to Mennonite World Conference's Youth and Young Adult Executive Committee and Global Youth Summit Planning Group, as well as service with Mennonite Central Committee and Christian Peacemaker Teams. She returned home to Elkhart to participate in local community organizing and attain a Master of Divinity degree from Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary, which she completed in 2011.

Bert Newton is one of the founding members of the Urban Village community in Pasadena, California. By day he works in a public mental health program that houses and stabilizes mentally ill adults who have ended up homeless or in jail. By night he organizes for peace and justice and writes liberationist biblical reflections.

Mark Van Steenwyk is a cofounder of Missio Dei, a Mennonite intentional community in Minneapolis. Mark is a writer, speaker, and grassroots educator. Mark has traveled around North America, nurturing and networking with radical Christian communities. He is the general editor of JesusRadicals.com and cohost and producer of the Iconocast podcast.

Andrea Ferich is the Director of Sustainability at the Center for Environmental Transformation in Camden, New Jersey, where she has lived since 2003. Having grown up Mennonite and now Catholic, she finds great hope within polydenominationalism. Andrea is an avid writer and filmmaker in Camden, where she lives beside her greenhouse. She makes peace by encouraging sustainable community development and food system security, as well as expressing herself through the arts and loving fiercely. She is the recipient of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Environmental Quality Award and serves as a cochair for the Camden City Food Security Advisory Board and the Waterfront South Network. She enjoys gardening with children and growing imaginations. Visit her blog at aferich.blogspot.com for a free environmental justice garden curriculum and to view her fun and educational garden films.

Seth McCoy was born in Hollywood, California, in the early 70s and is married to Jennifer. They have three children: Judah (16), Glory (11), and Silas (9). He has spent fourteen years in ministry ranging from youth ministry to ministry consultant to church planting in churches ranging from Pentecostal to "seeker sensitive" to Anabaptist. Most recently, Seth has planted a Mennonite church with friends along the University Corridor of St. Paul, Minnesota.

Anton Flores-Maisonet is the cofounder of Alterna, a Christian missional community based in Georgia and comprised of U.S. citizens and Latin American immigrants. In 2006, Flores-Maisonet left his tenure-track faculty position at a private college to follow a call to a life of solidarity with newcomers from Latin America, especially unauthorized and unwelcomed immigrants. Anton and his wife, Charlotte, have been married since 1994 and have two wonderful sons, Jairo and Eli. Anton is a past chair of the steering committee of Christian Peacemaker Teams. He has also served on the boards of directors of DOOR (a ministry of Mennonite Mission Network) and Jubilee Partners and has taught courses at the Central America Study and Service program (CASAS) of the Latin American Anabaptist Seminary (SEMILLA) in Guatemala.

Calenthia S. Dowdy is a cultural anthropologist who specializes in urban youth culture(s) and Afro-Brazilian life. She teaches youth ministry and cultural anthropology at Eastern University in St. Davids, Pennsylvania. Calenthia was born, raised, and continues to reside in the city of Philadelphia. She's a Philadelphia Mennonite affiliate and has a keen interest in intentional discipleship community living and various expressions of the emerging church movement. Since 2003, Calenthia has been an antiracism trainer with Damascus Road, an antiracism education and organizing program.

Jesce Walz is an artist and relational movement-builder. She has been a networker amidst the Christian community movement since 2001. Currently based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Jesce is a member of Circle of Hope (Brethren in Christ) and has been part of The Simple Way. Her creative work includes design, performance art, drawing, writing, event organizing, sculptural installation, and hospitality from her home. She hopes to foster community, creativity, and empowerment as alternatives to structures of oppression. www.Jesce.net

In a time when many are questioning the relevance of the church to their spiritual journeys, this book makes a bold case that "going to church" is intrinsic to Christian faith. Drawing on Anabaptist life and conviction, Mast presents Christ's call to all believers to be the church, whether gathered for worship or scattered for service.

By exploring such practices as baptism, communion, singing, and group discernment, he asks us to consider how participation in the life of the church shapes our daily witness—how “going to church” transforms “going to work” in the world that God loves.

Ginnie Horst Burkholder shares from the heart about caring for a spouse who is slowly slipping away to Lewy body dementia (LBD). Burkholder’s memoir reveals how she handles the constant challenges through humor, love, commitment, and faith. At the same time, she does not gloss over the loss, pain, and loneliness on this emotional roller coaster ride that invaded her marriage and family following her husband’s diagnosis.

The book is about the gritty and glorious substances of life—how illness and health, faith and doubt, grief and acceptance all flow together in the river of change. It leads each of us to a greater awareness of our own life experiences.

Study questions are included. They are not only a tool for understanding dementia or the role of caregivers but can bring greater self-awareness to every person’s life experience.

LBD is not a rare disease. It affects an estimated 1.3 million individuals and their families in the United States. It affected the author Ginnie Horst Burkholder's family before the age of 50. Learn more from the Lewy Body Dementia Association at www.lbda.org. Read more of Ginnie's writing and other Essays on LBD Caregiving by clicking here.

A great companion resource to Relentless Goodbye is the book Loving Someone Who Has Dementia: How to Find Hope while Coping with Stress and Grief by Pauline Boss, PhD. Click here for more information.

Emma Stutzman's Amish life was abruptly altered when she learned about her husband's sudden and tragic death. Now a single parent, Emma must figure out how to respond to the pressures of modernization and the pull of mainstream culture. Will she regain her strength as a woman after so much stress and tragedy in her married life? How will she lead her children to faith in the Amish Mennonite church without their father?

Journey into the world of Emma: A Widow among the Amish and follow this true-life story of a woman left to raise six young children on her own after her world collapsed. Ervin R. Stutzman, the youngest son of Emma, paints a fictionalized but ultimately true story of his mother's daily struggle to provide for her children and be faithful to God. This intimate portrait is a sequel to Tobias of the Amish, the true-to-life story of the author's late Amish father.

Also available in a hardcover edition.

Click here for an interview between Shirley Hershey Showalter and Ervin Stutzman.

"Ervin R. Stutzman's Emma invites us into the life of an Amish Mennonite community. Through Emma, I understand what Gelassenheit, the ultimate yielding to the will of the Lord, means for the Amish." —Karen M. Johnson-Weiner, The State University of New York Potsdam

Ervin Stutzman discusses his book "Emma: A Widow Among the Amish"

In this groundbreaking study, the authors make an unsettling claim: Anabaptist churches of the Global South have more in common with the church of the first three centuries than they do with contemporary churches in Europe and North America that claim the Anabaptist name. With data from 18,000 church members in ten countries, they show how historical patterns of church renewal are repeating themselves today in the Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

The study does more than crunch statistics; it probes the sources and nature of the renewal and growth. And it pushes readers to ask what these trends can teach the church of the North in their own quest for faithfulness and vitality.

"A compact and informative thesaurus on emerging ecclesiastical and cultural meanings of ‘Mennonite.’ Christian faith today is not merely a world religion, but a substantially non-Western phenomenon."—Jonathan J. Bonk, executive director, Overseas Ministries Study Center

The Sharron Valley is as majestic, harsh, and remote as any in Afghanistan. In the summer, snowmelt feeds a silver ribbon of river, and the valley floor is strewn with stones and boulders. On each side, mountain walls rise steeply away to the crests of the Hindu Kush. As far as the eye can see, there is hardly any sign of human settlement. Not by chance is it home to the elusive snow leopard, ibex, and Marco Polo sheep.

On the silent valley floor, on a summer day in 2010, sits a caravan of three white Land Rovers. Closer examination suggests a desperate story. On small grassy mounds around the vehicles, bodies lie prostrate under a cobalt sky. Others are strewn in and under the vehicles where the victims took cover. All of them taken out execution-style. Ten in all.

The sketchiest outline of what happened there along the river emerges from the testimony of a passing shepherd who witnessed the events from the surrounding hills, and from the sole survivor, a young Afghan driver.

Making Friends Book Trailer

In Making Friends among the Taliban, childhood friend Jonathan Larson retraces Dan’s nearly forty years in Afghanistan and, through interviews and eye witness accounts, relays Dan’s incredible way of daily living. Facing famine, poverty, prison, and rifle muzzles—and across three decades of kings, the Red Army, warlords, the Taliban, and the American-led coalition—Dan found improbable friendships across the front lines of conflict and inspired small Afghan communities to find a better way of life. This inspirational narrative of Dan’s life and friendships offers a model for living authentically wherever we are.

Read a sample chapter here.

Free downloadable study guide available here.

Jonathan Larson and others share more captivating stories from Dan Terry’s life, in the complementary documentary, Weaving Life: The Life and Death of Peacemaker Dan Terry, available here.

Whenever renewal occurs, everyone in the church is drawn into involvement in the church’s mission. But within a generation or two, vitality wanes and ministry is left to religious specialists. In The Power of All , renewal leaders Stuart and Sian Murray Williams confront this thought-provoking dilemma by asking: how can a New Testament model help empower and renew the church in today’s post-Christian society?

Follow the authors as they outline how early churches were multivoiced, valued the gifts of all, and expected that the Holy Spirit would speak through all members of the community. Discover the growth and opportunities that occur when wenurture the wider community’s spiritual talents.

"Bold, original, and practical, The Power of All is full of stories of congregations in trouble and congregations coming to life. The authors have written a multivoiced book on multivoiced church life; the medium and the message work together. Wonderful."—Alan and Eleanor Kreider, authors of Worship and Mission AfterChristendom

Free downloadable study guide available here.

After selling over 125,000 copies and being translated into nearly twenty languages, this third edition of a classic Herald Press title has been refreshed for new generations!

Drescher continues to emphasize how parents can meet their children's seven most basic needs. Anybody who cares about children as persons created in God's image will rediscover the topics of significance, security, acceptance, love, praise, discipline, and God through this practical, timely resource written in a personal, down-to-earth way.

Islam and Christianity seem to be at opposite and unbridgeable poles, both committed to world mission. Given the political tension and violent acts that sometimes surround these two major world religions, it is essential for both sides to understand the other—its history, beliefs, traditions, and vision for the future.This invaluable resource from David W. Shenk, an expert in comparative religious studies, examines Islam and Christianity at their deepest spiritual, cultural, and communal levels. It explores the similarities, and yet unavoidable differences found in Isaac and Ishmael, Jesus and Muhammad, the Bible and the Qur’an, Jerusalem and Medina, the Eucharist and the Hajj, the Church and the Ummah. Reflecting years of conversations and dialogue with Muslim friends, this is narrative theology, full of anecdote and personal experience that bridges the poles and builds understanding.

Part of the Christians Meeting Muslims series

As a teenager, you face hard choices and situations every day. Dive is aplace to turn for strength and encouragement as you confront them head on - with God. From her seventeen continuous years of teaching a youth Sunday school class, author Cindy Breeze knows what issues are important to youth who want to grow in relationship with God. These 108 meditations, rooted in Scripture and prayer, are grouped under eighteen topical sections, each ending with a practical guide for "living it out."

Dive confronts difficult topics like trauma and failure. But it also offers plenty of humor, real-life stories, and celebration. Woven throughout the devotions are God's offer of unconditional love and Jesus' call to be faithful disciples.

The Anabaptist Vision, given as a presidential address before the American Society of Church History in 1943, has become a classic essay. In it, Harold S. Bender defines the spirit and purposes of the original Anabaptists. Three major points of emphasis are: the transformation of the entire way of life of the individual to the teachings and example of Christ, voluntary church membership based upon conversion and commitment to holy living, and Christian love and nonresistance applied to all human relationships.

Preacher Peter is wakened by strange noises on the roof. To his dismay he finds there are young men destroying his hatch. As a Mennonite minister he believes in the way of peace, so instead of calling the authorities or shouting threats, Peter and his wife invite the young men in for a midnight meal. Their act of kindness brings unexpected results.

Peter is not alone in this collection of true stories. Each tells of returning love for hate, good for evil. Written for elementary age children (but of interest to teens and adults), Elizabeth H. Bauman shares 17 true stories of men and women from various times and countries who showed the universal power of Christian love.

Los cristianos anabautistas existen desde hace alrededor de 500 años. ¿Cómo se ve un anabautismo sin el ropaje de las tradiciones Amish y Menonitas? Stuart Murray intenta quitar las capas que se han acumulado a lo largo de la historia para llegar a los componentes centrales de la fe Anabautista. Intenta explorar lo que esto significa para su propio contexto y el nuestro. El seguimiento de Jesús nos desafía, nos inspira y nos anima a adorarle y seguirle con todo nuestro corazón. Lea este libro y contágiese de una visión de fe radical para su vida!

Murray escribió un libro con el cual me identifico plenamente como alguien que ha abrazado la fe Anabautista recientemente. El libro resume en forma sucinta las razones poderosas que hacen del Anabautismo histórico una opción atractiva y práctica como fieles seguidores de Jesús en el siglo XXI.—Marvin Lorenzana, Director de la Iniciativa Menonita Hispana (MHI).

Murray elabora que los Anabautistas pueden influir la conversación en estos tiempos de post-Cristiandad debido a que son un grupo innovador, conocen las experiencias desde la marginalidad, tienen testimonios de paz para compartir, reconocen la importancia de pertenecer a una comunidad de fe, y buscan estar enfocados en la centralidad de Jesús.—Gilberto Pérez Jr., Pastor Regional, Conferencia de Iglesias Menonitas, Indiana/Michigan

Creo que el Anabautismo al Desnudo es un magnifico libro donde Stuart Murray ha podido conjugar de manera muy dinámica y atractiva la historia, la crítica objetiva, el testimonio y las respuesta a las inquietudes de muchos respecto al espíritu del Anabautismo.—Sergio E. Flores, Pastor de la iglesia Menonita de Boulogne-Buenos Aires- Argentina,Miembro de la Junta Directiva de la Convención de Iglesias Evangélicas Menonitas de Argentina (IEMA)

Guia de estudio

Adopted by the General Conference Mennonite Church and the Mennonite Church at Wichita, Kansas, July 1995. The 24 articles and summary statement were accepted by both groups as their statement of faith for teaching and nurture in the life of the church.

John Wesley is a fiery preacher who is stirring up the people in London. One day, while peddling his father’s wares, Robert Upton meets Wesley and his life is changed forever. Robert and his father start going to Wesley’s meetings. Gradually, Robert begins to understand what Wesley’s preaching is all about. As he allows God to work in his life, Robert finds that his own heart, like Wesley’s, is strangely warmed. For 9-to-14-year-olds.

Millions of Muslims and Christians are neighbors, and they believe that they worship the one and only God. Yet they seldom witness to each other. In this book, a Muslim (Badru D. Kateregga) and a Christian (David W. Shenk) attempt to witness and listen. The issues they deal with are profound. Kateregga and Shenk open up the basic questions of the human situation and confront similarities and differences in Muslim and Christian responses. In recent years Muslim-Christian interactions have too often been antagonistic. Here the authors pioneer another way: that of authentic dialogue between friends.

Part of the Christians Meeting Muslims series

A unique resource for a generation, the preeminent textbook in its field. Cornelius J. Dyck interacts with the many changes in the Anabaptist/Mennonite experience and historical understandings in this revised and updated edition. This is a history of Mennonites from the 16th century to the present. Though simply written, it reflects fine scholarship and deep Christian concern.