Books published by Resource Publications (CA)

The Christian Skeptic was written for those who are not sure if they can still call themselves Christian because they are no longer able to ""drink the Kool-Aid"" of orthodoxy. It is also for seekers who find the person of Jesus intriguing or compelling but who struggle with all the doctrines that surround his story.Inspired by Leslie Weatherhead''s now out-of-print book The Christian Agnostic, Jody Seymour takes a fresh look at some of the basic tenets of the Christian Faith. He offers new insight into concepts such as the nature of God, the person and work of Jesus, how to read the Bible, the role of the church, and the question of whether or not Jesus really said ""my way or the highway.""This book will give you an opportunity to explore the faith with the windows open to some fresh air, and you may discover that being caught between belief and doubt is a good place to be.Jody Seymour is the senior pastor of Davidson United Methodist Church in Davidson, NC. He is the author of Looking for God in All the Wrong Places, Finding God between the Lines, A Time for Healing, Lost but Making Excellent Time, and Marking the Gospel. Gail Spach is the church librarian at Davidson United Methodist Church. She not only edited The Christian Skeptic, but also added some wonderful words to the original manuscript.

At some time or another, every preacher has entered the pulpit wondering ""What shall I preach?""This study finds the answer in the preaching charge of 2 Timothy 4:1-5 summarized in the command, ""Preach the Word!"" In this careful examination of the preaching ministry of Paul as recorded in his letters and sermons in the book of Acts, a Pauline theology of preaching emerges. What this work discovers is that the governing activity of the ministry of the Apostle Paul is the verbal proclamation of the gospel of Christ. All other activities in his ministry are subservient to this overriding concern, and they find meaning only if preaching is primary.That being the case, this book takes seriously the words of Paul when he encourages future preachers to follow his teaching, conduct, and purpose (2 Tim 3:10), offering Paul as the model for the Christian preacher. As readers will discover, anyone who desires to preach biblically should seek to preach like Paul, and the way to do that is to ""Preach the Word!""

""If required to summarize my deepest conviction in a single sentence, it would be something like this: I believe that God is more taken with the agony of the earth than with the ecstasy of heaven.""So begins the preface to In the Land of the Living: Prayers Personal and Public by Kenneth L. Sehested. What follows from that conviction is a collection of prayers and poems, most of which are ""inspired by"" one or more particular biblical texts and many of which were originally written for use in Sehested's own congregation.Sehested's lifelong work as a justice and peace organizer informs his ""poetic eloquence,"" which, in the words of one reviewer, produces reflections on Scripture that create ""a flash of insight, a bolt of courage, a stretch of imagination, a surprising peek into the heart of God"" and ""cries out against second-hand convictions.""In the Land of the Living (Ps 27:13) represents a significant addition to that tradition of spirituality which takes seriously both the pain of the world and the claim of a God at work disarming both the heart and the nations. Indeed, ""These prayers are jumper cables from the pew to the world.""

Evil, death, demons, reanimation, and resurrection. While such topics are often reserved for the darker mindscapes of the vampire subgenre within popular culture, they are equally integral elements of religious history and belief. Despite the cultural shift of presenting vampires in a secular light, the traditional figure of the vampire within cinema and literature has a rich legacy of serving as a theological marker. Whether as a symbol of the allure of sin, as an apologetic for assorted religious icons, or as a gateway into a discussion of liberationist theology, the vampire has served as a spiritual touchstone from Bram Stoker''s Dracula, to Stephen King''s Salem''s Lot, to the HBO television series True Blood. In Such a Dark Thing, Jess Peacock examines how the figure of the vampire is able to traverse and interconnect theology and academia within the larger popular culture in a compelling and engaging manner. The vampire straddles the ineffable chasm between life and death and speaks to the transcendent in all of us, tapping into our fundamental curiosity of what, if anything, exists beyond the mortal coil, giving us a glimpse into the interminable while maintaining a cultural currency that is never dead and buried.""Equal parts fan-boy adulation and academic analysis, this delightful book expresses such joy and enthusiasm in either mode: in both, the author shows what it is to be passionately engaged and intellectually stimulated by the subject. The section on liberation theology and social change also takes the vampire narrative into new areas of interpretation and application that I found especially exciting and invigorating. Those who identify as either fan or critic (or both) will find here fresh insight into and inspiration from their favorite monster--a sort of bracing antidote to Twilight!""--Kim Paffenroth, author of Gospel of the Living Dead""Jesse Peacock knows his theology and his vampires, making him a perfect guide to the dark places he wants to take us. Such A Dark Thing successfully explores how our fascination with the hungry undead not only connects with religious themes, but also sex, politics, and even social justice.""--W. Scott Poole, author of Monsters in America""Such A Dark Thing is eminently readable, exhaustively researched, and always thoughtful--an examination of modern folklore through a theological lens that left me thinking about why I write about vampires and why the undead resonate so with the contemporary subconscious. Well worth reading for any scholar, student, or fan of the genre.""--David Wellington, author of PositiveM. Jess Peacock is the editor of Street Speech, a social justice publication produced by the Columbus Coalition for the Homeless, and is the 2013 recipient of Methodist Theological School in Ohio''s Ronald L. Williams Book Prize in Theology and Ethics, as well as The Matey Janata Freedwomen Award for his research and work in women''s issues.

What do you do with your money? What do you think of your boss? Do you like your work? Is it satisfying? Are you satisfied with your answers?Do you know that God, through Scripture, offers us answers? Two of the most fundamental challenges for all humankind are deciding how to live and, if we accumulate riches, deciding how to use them.Did you know that God expects all humankind to work? For the Christian, all work is part of your Christian calling, whether you collect garbage for a living or sit in Washington deciding affairs of state.And what does Scripture have to say about riches? Did you know that Jesus directed more attention to the question of how to deal with wealth than just about any other subject he addressed during his three-year ministry?Join me in this short journey as we explore work and wealth in Scripture and seek answers to the above questions and others. We travel from the first work recorded in the Bible to our own time, when leisure competes with work for our attention and wealth gives us a false sense of security that puts us in danger of replacing God with self. Lawrence Clayton is Professor Emeritus of History, University of Alabama. His latest books include Bartolome de las Casas: A Biography (2012), Bartolome de las Casas and the Conquest of the Americas (2011), and Cleared for Landing: On Living a Christian Life (2008). He has taught in the Tuscaloosa County Jail Ministry on a weekly basis since 2000 and done missionary work, evangelizing, and preaching in Spanish in the Dominican Republic and Honduras since 2010.

My poems are about places on Cape Ann, in the wider world, and in interior places of mind and heart. I often write poetry about beauty as revelatory of transcendent meanings in nature, community, and intuitions of the divine. The introduction reveals my literary and religious connections to Lucy Larcom, a nineteenth-century writer who is most famous for her book of prose, A New England Girlhood Outlined from Memory and her book of poetry, Wild Roses of Cape Ann. For both my historical soul sister and for me, beauty is sacramental, signaling the Creator in creation. Beauty is beatitude infused. I invite you to contemplate with me. Perhaps our paths will converge. It is my hope that you will discover challenge, comfort, and even joy.""Part philosopher, part poet, part image maker, writer Sharon Chace captures small-town life with a perceptive eye and a light touch. Cape Ann and Beyond the Cut Bridge is a veritable Whitman''s Sampler for the mind, a treat you will go back to time and again, each page offering a different delight.""--Suellen Wedmore, Poet Laureate emerita, Rockport, MA""Color experienced as beauty gives comfort. Love of place is partly love of its characteristic colors (blue and green for Cape Ann), experienced as beautiful and thereby comforting. These underlying convictions animate the poems of Cape Ann and Beyond the Cut Bridge and the prose essays that frame them. Nearly two-thirds of the poems ''cull'' Cape Ann, reflecting Sharon Chace''s deep attachment to this far northeastern projection of Massachusetts, its tip almost cut off from the rest of the state by a river. The poet''s visual imagination evokes it for the reader. The rest of the poems make forays down the Atlantic coast to Rhode Island, up into northern New England, west to Michigan, and far west to Arizona, Colorado, California, and Oregon. These are appreciative postcards, marveling notes, sent back home. Finally, it is the poet''s visual imagination that brings the sights of western travel together with the daily ones of her eastern dwelling place--''Refreshed again by Eastern green, / Remembering the reds of the West.''""--Eleanor Berry, President, National Federation of State Poetry Societies, Lyons, ORSharon R. Chace is the author of Portfolio of Painterly Poems: A Pilgrim''s Path to God (2006), An Artistic Approach to New Testament Literature (2008), Protestant Pulse: Heart Hopes for God (2009), My First Introduction to the New Testament (2011), and Images of Light: Ascent to Trust in Triumph (2013). She continues to write poetry and paints comforting images for people in hospice care.

Brokenhearted Parents is for Christian parents who want to heal, deal with, and find spiritual help with the serious pain and hurt they are feeling because of their adult child's choices. Their child's choices can lead to a breakage in the relationship between them and/or God and cause great feelings of grief, frustration, and pain. Some of these choices have caused the child to pull away or leave. Christians know that God intends for them to grow through their hard experiences. But how do they do that? This book is to help parents analyze their feelings by studying the views of God, themselves, and their child. Through this they can process these feelings, come to a deeper level in their walk with God, and find more ways to express the love they have for their child. This book leads them by reading the twelve short devotionals, answering questions, and journaling both in writing and drawing. Parents will also find song references, extra scripture references, and a daily devotional idea they can format for their own use.

Dear God, the world feels very alive today, with birds and flowers and many colors. Thank you for the new life we feel and see all around us, life that comes from you. Thank you for butterflies and dandelions and new leaves and bugs and kites and baseball. Thank you for life. Amen.--""On a Spring Day""This easy-to-use book of prayers provides a much-needed resource for families who want to celebrate the everyday events of their lives. From such moments as the first day of school, being in a thunderstorm, reading together, and fifty-seven other occasions, Finley attempts to help parents and children see and express the ways that God is part of their lives. In her introduction, she describes the family as the basic unit of religious formation and experience. She further argues that the role of family prayer is not to make family life holy, but rather to help families see the holiness that is already there. Line drawings by Kevin Finley, the author's son, accompany each prayer.

When nineteen-year-old Hunter Sharpless e-mails roots rock band Stephen Kellogg and the Sixers, he doesn't expect a response. He wants to write a book about them. When his inbox chimes two hours later, telling him he has a chance to tour with the band for three full months, he dreams of groupies and Almost Famous. It doesn't take long, though, for Hunter to discover that the road isn't the electric collection of glories it's often billed to be. He's mistaken for a homeless person in Sacramento, thrust onstage in Iowa, and cradled against a toilet in New York. The road is hard. No cocaine, no backstage blowjobs, no sleek tour bus. But the Sixers see it differently. Stephen introduces Hunter to a more authentic perspective: behind the lights of the stage, after the glow of the performance, away from the noise of the amps. This is the world Song of the Fool begins to unravel.

""This accursed heat! This scorching wind and sand!"" moaned the young warrior Hanani ben Amran as he stood atop the wall of the great King Solomon's fortress at Tamar. ""Why is it my lot to spend three years in this infernal desert? There is nothing here worth defending . . . There is no adventure, no war, no anything here!""So went Hanani's daily complaint. Ah, but there was adventure, and plenty of it! There was intrigue. There was war. And, to complicate matters, there was also romance. Caught up in these events, Hanani would find himself captured twice, and would need to draw on all his wits--and the help of others--to escape.If you like all of these ingredients in a historical novel, you will enjoy Tamar: A Story of Adventure, Intrigue, and Romance in Ancient Israel.

Sparked by phrases from the book of Psalms, these poems question and occasionally affirm our everyday ideas about life, mortality, the afterlife, God, family, and belief. In vigorous contemporary language--complaining, lamenting, and wisecracking on everything from Job's wife to baseball, crows to angels, circus elephants to Mary Magdalene--but in traditional form, these sonnets, or little songs, "speak what we feel, not what we ought to say."