Resource Store

Divine Gravity — A movement manifesto for a more hopeful and Jesus-centered ChristianityOver five hundred years ago, the Western church underwent a period of massive recalibration that exposed abuses and theological blind spots and revived the historical foundations of Christianity. Today, signs suggest that we have entered another such religious reformation as new technologies, ecclesial scandals, and a crisis of biblical authority leave many Christians adrift or deconstructing the faith they once took for granted. The Christian story the church has been telling has become too small, and we are at a dead end.​There is hope. Author and pastor Meghan Larissa Good invites readers into a movement that is finding ways to tell a better Christian story — a movement that is already emerging spontaneously as a work of the Spirit in many different wings of the church. Along the way, readers will encounter core rediscoveries of this authentic, Jesus-centered Christianity: through Christ, God is breathing life among us, restoring creation, and reconciling all divided things. In this better story, isolation, intolerance, polarization, and death have no grip. This story satisfies our deep spiritual hunger, beckoning us to renew the church for the coming centuries and reignite a world-changing global movement. — Purchase here

by Meghan Larissa Good

Prodigal Gospel — The good news is bigger and better than we imagined.

Is the gospel good news for us today? Many Christians — especially young Christians stepping into a world and a church devastated by division, scandal, and abuse — are asking this question and deciding it simply isn’t. For many, it seems like our faith has little to offer the world around us. Our gospel has become too small — it looks nothing like the Jesus who embodies good news in the flesh.

How do we recover this gospel? When we turn to the parable of the prodigal son — a story of elaborate parties, upside-down kingdoms, and reunited families — we can hear in Jesus’ own words a clear presentation of what he is doing, of a truth that is bigger and better than we’ve imagined. In these pages, author and pastor Jonny Morrison invites us on a journey to help us find ourselves and Jesus in the welcoming arms of this familiar parable, zooming out to show how this story shapes the entire story of Scripture. Along the way we discover the radically inclusive power of the gospel that upends religions, disrupts empires, heals the wounded, and empowers the marginalized. This is, after all, Jesus’ news to tell, and when we truly listen to him tell it, we can be found again in the surprising, disarming, challenging gospel that is truly good news. Purchase here

by Jonny Morrison

The Me I was Made to Be - Helping Christian Parents Navigate the Identity Conversation

Your kids are talking about identity. Are you part of the conversation? Today’s kids and youth are talking about identity — and often very differently from the adults around them. How can we walk well with them through their questions about who they are and how they fit into the family of God? We must begin by telling a better gospel story, with an invitational posture that actually expects us to love God and love others. Rather than resolve a tension around perceived right and wrong, The Me I Was Made to Be equips parents and pastors to tell this better gospel story — one that helps kids understand who they are, how God sees them, and why they are an important part of God’s story.

In this engaging and disarming book that speaks to readers across the theological spectrum, author and children’s ministry expert Christie Penner Worden invites grown-ups along to imagine a more Jesus-centered narrative for the sake of kids who are no longer buying what the church is selling, who do not feel safe, and who have not been invited to the conversation that adults are having without them. It is a call to action for Jesus followers to engage the conversation with kids in a desire to walk with them as they learn both who they are and whose they are.

The Me I Was Made to Be is the beginning of a conversation that offers a better story on identity rooted in a better understanding of the gospel — one that includes all image-bearers and extends Jesus’ welcome to all our kids. Purchase here

By Christie Penner Worden

Centered-Set Church: Discipleship and Community without Judgementalism

Christians can be adept at drawing lines, determining what it means to be ​“a good Christian” and judging those who stray out of bounds. Other times they erase all the lines in favor of a vague and inoffensive faith. Both impulses can come from positive intentions, but either can lead to stunted spiritual life and harmful relationships. Is there another option? The late missionary anthropologist Paul Hiebert famously drew on mathematical theory to deploy the concepts of ​“bounded,” ​“fuzzy,” and ​“centered” sets to shed light on the nature of Christian community. Now, with Centered-Set Church, Mark D. Baker provides a unique manual for understanding and applying Hiebert’s vision. Drawing on his extensive experience in church, mission, parachurch, and higher education settings, along with interviews and stories gleaned from scores of firsthand interviews, Baker delivers practical guidance for any group that seeks to be truly centered on Jesus.

Baker shows how Scripture presents an alternative to either obsessing over boundaries or simply erasing them. Centered churches are able to affirm their beliefs and live out their values without such bitter fruit as gracelessness, shame, and self-righteousness on the one hand, or aimless ​“whateverism” on the other. While addressing possible concerns and barriers to the centered approach, Baker invites leaders to imagine centered alternatives in such practical areas of ministry as discipleship, church membership, leadership requirements, and evangelism. Centered-Set Church charts new paths to grow in authentic freedom and dynamic movement toward the true center: Jesus himself. Purchase here

by Mark D Baker