Books published by Abingdon Press

This guide to contemporary preaching focuses on exciting and innovative ideas that have recently emerged. Wilson demonstrates with clarity and detail how Scripture and personal experience can be used to train the imagination, thus strengthening and enlivening the task of preaching.

This book is designed for the minister's use, not only in the study while planning services of Holy Communion, but also at the Lord's Table while conducting service.

This provocative volume illuminates a dimension of John Wesley's theology that has received insufficient attention: his deep and abiding commitment to the poor. By focusing on the radical nature of Wesley's "evangelical economics," Theodore W. Jennings, Jr., provides an important corrective to the view that Wesley was concerned with the salvation of souls only, and not also with the social conditions of human beings.

David Lowes Watson wants to remove a major blockage in the church--the self-centered pursuit of spiritual amphetamines--by acknowledging the responsibilities of universal salvation and the demands placed upon faithful discipleship: How can Christians effectively hold the tension between the gospel and the seductions of the world? How can we be committed to the church in a way that guards against thoughtless or self-centered discipleship? How can we be committed to discipleship in a way that guards against theological procrastination? David Lowes Watson demonstrates through careful biblical exegesis that all persons are the benefactors of divine grace, but that persons known as Christians are called to a disciplined discipleship. When identifying the role of the clergy and laity as facilitators of these disciplined leaders, Watson explains why no person has the right to declare who is inside or outside of God's universal love.

Here are 52 easy-to-follow "how-to" session plans for introducing young children to worship. Carolyn C. Brown uses her many years of experience as a Christian educator to show How to use the church school hour to introduce children to worship and to prepare them for the day they will participate in the church's worship; How to learn and explore the meaning of the Lord's Prayer and other elements of the worship service; and How to become familiar with the sacraments and celebrate the seasons of the church year. For every church wishing to make the church school a valuable introductory worship experience for children, Gateways to Worship is the ideal resource.

The pastoral ministry is in danger of losing its focus, say the authors of this perceptive and timely study. Specialization in preaching, counseling, evangelism, administration, and education has diffused the impact of practical theology. And because of competing ideas as to what now is central, the very image of ministry may be breaking down. Foundations for a Practical Theology of Ministry responds to the problem by introducing a specific method for doing practical theology which will be welcomed by concerned church leaders everywhere. Presenting a realistic, workable answer to those who call for a revival of this vital discipline, Drs. James N. Poling and Donald E. Miller propose that the unifying image for ministry becomes the formation of the community of faith. After developing this as the most appropriate base for the practice of theology, they carefully outline their method and show how it will work by demonstrating its success in the actual experiences of typical congregations. For Christian leaders who seek to renew the integrity of ministry and restore the character of pastoral leadership, this significant book will provide a solid foundation. And for individuals interested or involved in education for the future of the church, this important resource will prove invaluable.

Highly acclaimed and widely used, this text shows what church tasks must be undertaken, why they are important, and the guiding theological principles required to achieve them. Alvin J. Lindgren clarifies the present confusion about what church administration is and what its place in the church should be. He provides a concept of church administration for the student of theology, and a new, more effective overview for the working pastor frustrated by current demands and procedures.

Answers the question "Why start new churches?" and shows how to reverse the decline of new church development. Schaller offers tested advice based on more than thirty years of working with leaders responsible for developing new churches.

Shows how to spiff up your storytelling skills, plus plenty of ideas for dance, movement, and drama techniques. This revised volume combines two classic resources by author Dorothy Jean Furnish: Exploring the Bible with Children, a bestseller, and Living the Bible with Children, which shows how to put the principles of the first book into practice. This new combination offers professional and lay Christian educators a current, reliable source book to help children really understand and experience the Bible. You'll learn more about what to tell children about the Bible and what methods are best to use with children. These methods include storytelling techniques, dance, movement, drama techniques, and the "meaning" of words for children.

This volume is intended to set in historical context the official United Methodist theological statements in the Disciplines of 1972 and 1988, and to foster reflection on and discussion of the 1988 statement.

"We would be naive to think that we can hear these narratives with the same clarity that the first hearers did. An equal naivete, however, would be to suggest that we have no access to their situation, or that it is irrelevant to know how the texts originally functioned. One way to proceed is to juxtapose narratives with issues faced by the people of God in the context to which the narratives were addressed. To lay contextual issues alongside narrative should enable illumination of the text, and give breadth and depth to the results of one's interpretation. This approach has the advantage of avoiding an abstract concern about what the author might have 'intended.' Rather, in the juxtaposition of context and text, we are concerned about what issues faced by the audience might have been addressed." "Although the Word of God is always addressed to a particular situation, the insights gained through hearing it will assist in the hearing of a Word in the contemporary situation." (excerpts from the Introduction, by Terence E. Fretheim)

In this Song of Ascents not one single note is here by right. I deserve nothing; I have everything. God is the heart of this everything. I have everything - everything I need, and more. ... What I had - Jesus, God, the Kingdom of God - was all I wanted and needed. I didn't want anything different. I only wanted more of what I had. (from the Introduction)

In this introductory treatment of Christian education, the authors assume that "religious education begins with the basic human need to make meaning. The church and its education fail when they do not take into account people's life experiences and their search for faithfulness." Teachers and pastors learn first to understand how their own meanings have been shaped, then to name and clarify how religious meaning is transmitted and transformed through personal experience. Several personal and congregational "stories" are woven throughout the text to help the reader better understand how meaning, learning, and vocation converge as Christians grow in faith and understanding. Readers are encouraged to apply new insights to their own lives through activities that are suggested throughout the text. A Key Concept Index provides easy access to primary terms and ideas.

Traditionally, the roles of Christian ministry have been thought of as priest, pastor, and prophet. Donald E. Messer adds five contemporary images: Wounded Healer, Servant Leader, Political Mystic, Practical Theologian, and Enslaved Liberator. By combining these new images with the more traditional roles, readers will develop their own personal vision of Christian ministry.

Seymour and Miller, with four other experts in the field, seek to clarify the agenda, resources, and hopes for Christian education in the twenty-first century. Gone are the days when Christian education was variously envisioned as a school, a home, an educational system, a mission agency, or a school for Christian living. These dreams revealed the conflicts Christian education was to face throughout much of the twentieth century; yet they also clarified its resources and motivated efforts on its behalf. Modern educators such as Seymour and Miller also dream of what Christian education is and what it can become. Here they investigate five approaches through which contemporary Christian educators can develop the theory and practice of Christian education: (1) religious instruction (2) faith community (3) development (4) liberation (5) interpretation. Although they explore these five vital approaches from psychological, philosophical, exegetical, and sociological viewpoints, the authors agree that the central theme is still the teaching of the Good News. It is there we will discover that we are delivered for dependency on the old ways and that we are free to move into new ways of living.

"Jesus wrote no autobiography. He left nothing in writing at all. He committed himself and his teaching simply to the hearts and memories of the men who knew and loved him. And they did not fail him. The four little books that we call Gospels are our primary and practically our only sources of information about the life and the words that have changed the world. We may wish the story had been told with greater fullness and detail; but we know that, short as it is, it is enough. It has given Christ to every race and age." (excerpt from Chapter 1: The Making of the Gospels)

"Prayer is a hard topic for most of us modern folk, and we have little place to talk about it. My own first conversation partners were the great ancient teachers, the Abbas and Ammas of the Egyptian desert...These men and women have been urging me for nearly thirty years to pray and to seek healing for the wounds of my heart I carry from childhood, from my own temperament, from my culture, even the culture of my church. They have also urged me all along to write about what I have learned from them and from my own experience, for, as they tell us, nothing, neither the most wonderful nor the most humiliating thing we are given as Christians, is ever given for ourselves alone...The chapters that follow are in the form of letters to a friend. My intention, of course, is that you, the reader, understand yourself to be the friend to whom I am writing..." --excerpted from the author's Preface "What a wonderful example of spiritual guidance through letters! Out of her own rich experience and struggle and scholarship Roberta Bondi speaks about prayer as one who knows. Those who have a lot of questions about experience of God in everyday life will not want to miss reading In Ordinary Time." --E. Glenn Hinson, Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond, Richmond, Virginia

Companion to Songs of Zion; discusses liturgical time, spirituals, gospel songs; includes Scripture/ lectionary index.

Countering dire pronouncements of the irrelevance of African American institutions, Teresa L. Fry Brown celebrates the way African American women continue, often invisibly, the task of passing on moral wisdom in African-American families, churches, and communities. The book begins with the author's analysis of intergenerational transmission of spiritual values as depicted in selected African American women's literature written since 1960 (gospel music, poems, novels, short stories, and autobiography). An interpretive framework is grounded in three ethical presuppositions based on traditional African American spiritual values, African American Theology and Ethics, Womanist Christology and Ethics, and values culled from the author's own experience and religious beliefs.