Search results for ""canterbury press norwich""

Giles Goddard embodies the story of the Church of England's struggle to be more diverse and inclusive. In Generous Faith, he reflects on his experiences of pushing the boundaries of inclusion to include refugees, those of other faiths, the street homeless, climate activists, and anyone for whom his central London church could be a place of sanctuary and hospitality.Anyone who dreams of a more generous, colourful, courageous and daring faith will find kindred spirits in Giles''s community. Generous Faith tells their story through the pattern of the Christian year with its seasons of preparation, retreat and growth.

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Mapping your spiritual journey is a technique used in spiritual direction, on retreats and pastoral work, as a way of recognising and interpreting God’s presence in the highs and lows of your life experiences. This book offers creative ways to explore your own spiritual journey, helping you to trace your relationship with God from the beginning, whether looking at your entire life or exploring significant moments. It can be done in multiple creative ways – drawing, collages, timelines, maps, collections of objects or photographs, modelling, journaling, making a garden and more. It offers suggestions for ways to reflect on your journey by looking at parallels in the narratives of the Bible and in everyday life and to learn from these how to deepen your understanding of God’s presence and actions in your life. This equips you to look forward and plan your future journey with God with confidence.

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Advent is a season of waiting and anticipation in which the waiting itself is strangely rich and fulfilling. Poetry can help us fathom the depths of Advent's many paradoxes: dark and light, emptiness and fulfilment, ancient and ever new. For every day from Advent Sunday to Christmas Day and beyond, the bestselling poet Malcolm Guite chooses a favourite poem from across the Christian spiritual and English literary traditions and offers incisive seasonal reflections on it. In the spirit of the season, he blends the familiar and the new, ranging from from spiritual classics such as Edmund Spenser, John Donne, George Herbert and Christina Rossetti, to contemporary voices Luci Shaw and Scott Cairns. His own acclaimed sequence of sonnets for the great Advent antiphons are also included.

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In this collection of captivating and striking poems, the acclaimed writer Eugene Peterson explores the unexpected nature of the kingdom of God, its reversals and surprises. Arising out of his vocation as a pastor, these poems invite a radical renewal of our imaginations and show us how to embrace and live a holy life. Seventy poems are arranged in three parts: Holy Luck is based on the Beatitudes, a declaration of independence from the usual ways of the world, and an orientation to the wholly different values of the kingdom of God. The Rustling Grass includes poems that uncover the kingdom of God in the ordinary and the everyday. Smooth Stones attends to the grace and mystery awaiting discovery in the times and seasons of our lives and loves.

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Around the year 500 St Benedict wrote a short guide for a small community who wanted to live together the balanced life of body, mind and spirit. The Rule of St Benedict became not only the foundational guide for monastic life in the West, but remains a potent spiritual resource that speaks authentically to countless individuals today. Fr Laurence Freeman OSB has described the text as the most important document for Christian living after the Bible. In this reflective commentary, Esther de Waal recognises the profoundly scriptural emphasis of St Benedict’s writings. She shows how his Rule may be read personally and prayerfully by people such as herself seeking practical encouragement and support in their following of Christ.

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In How to Preach, Samuel Wells goes beyond the arts and disciplines of preparing, crafting and delivering sermons, to explore preaching as an act of worship and prayer. Here, preachers will discover how being attentive to God, to Scripture, to the world, to their hearers, and to themselves can inform and shape their message. They will be renewed in joining the long tradition of witnessing to the revelation of God in every area of human experience. Preaching takes many forms and responds to many different needs and occasions. This broad-ranging volume considers: • the times in which we live: politics, society, freedom, disability and war • the seasons of the church year: Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter, Ascension and Pentecost • the variety of biblical texts: Old Testament narratives and poetry, Gospel miracles and parables, the writings of Paul • life’s key moments: baptisms, weddings and funerals. For each topic, there is reflection on the demands and opportunities presented, ways of approach, sermon examples, and memorably wise and uncompromising practical guidelines that will nourish and inspire all who long to embrace the call to preach more faithfully.

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See the Biblical story in an unusual light - from the perspective of a devil who took up arms against heaven under the leadership of Satan. With eternity to ponder why God emerged triumphant from the struggle, this rebel angel has turned to the Bible, the record of God’s dealings with ‘the humans’ to find out why his side was defeated. In twelve chapters, he considers a dozen of God’s significant encounters with humanity - each take placing on a mountain top. From Mount Ararat where Noah’s ark pitched up, to the Mount of Ascension where Jesus returns to heaven, each reveals an aspect of God’s inexplicable and unfathomable love for humans. Beneath their conversational and sardonic surface style, these infernal reflections engage deeply with the reality of a loving God who is made visible and vulnerable in Christ. The Infernal Word began as a series of addresses preached on Good Friday in Canterbury Cathedral. They make ideal seasonal reading for anyone who wishes to explore the story of salvation - although perhaps not if you are a devil.

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A leading poet and a theologian reflect on the Old Testament story of Ruth, a tale that resonates deeply in today's world with its themes of migration, the stranger, mixed cultures and religions, law and leadership, women in public life, kindness, generosity and fear. Ruth's story speaks directly to many of the issues and deep differences that Brexit has exposed and to the polarisation taking place in many societies. Pádraig Ó Tuama and Glenn Jordan bring the redemptive power of Ruth to bear on today's seemingly intractable social and political divisions, reflecting on its challenges and how it can help us be effective in the public square, amplify voices which are silenced, and be communities of faith in our present day. Over the last year, the material that inspired this book has been used with over 6000 people as a public theology initiative from Corrymeela, Ireland's longest-established peace and reconciliation centre. It has been met with an overwhelming response because of its immediacy and relevance, enabling people with opposing views to come together and be heard.

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Richard Carter swapped a life of simplicity with an Anglican religious order in the Solomon Islands for parish ministry in one of London's busiest churches, St Martin-in-the-Fields. Seeing a need for monastic values in the centre of the city, he founded the Nazareth Community. Its members gather from everyday life to seek God in contemplation, to acknowledge their dependence on God’s grace and to learn to live openly and generously with all. Part story, part spiritual meditation, The City is My Monastery offers spiritual wisdom for daily life rooted in the Nazareth Community’s seven guiding principles: Silence, Service, Scripture, Sacrament, Sharing, Sabbath Time and Staying.

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The Five Quintets is a mammoth poetic adventure undertaken by the celebrated poet Micheal O’Siadhail, representing the culmination of an extraordinary life’s work. The project is vast in scope, attempting nothing less than an exploration of the predicaments of Western modernity. Drawing on inspiration from T S Eliot’s Four Quartets, The Five Quintets brings the premise of Dante’s Divine Comedy into the current day. As Dante explored humanity though mythical characters, O’Siadhail focuses on the humanity of the creators of today’s dreams of perfection: scientists, artists, economists, politicians, politics, and philosophers and theologians from the past speak with each other in this extraordinarily imaginative work. The result is an unparalleled book of instruction for a troubled age. The Five Quintets retrieves and exhibits human gifts our own age may have lost to create a work ‘whose pulse draws us to love. A book of poetry in the category of the epic, the encyclopedic, and the sacred.’ (Peter Ochs, Professor of Judaic Studies, Virginia).

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The Mystery of Faith explores the essentials of Christian belief and the ancient spiritual practices that enable us to live and flourish in the light of God’s grace. It is written for those who are new to the Christian faith, are curious about it, want to understand their faith better or make more meaningful connections between faith and life. Using the structure of the Apostles Creed it offers clear explanations of core beliefs through the God we encounter in creation, in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit who makes God known in our world and in our lives today. John-Francis Friendship draws on the riches of the Christian tradition and his own experience of Religious life to introduce practices that guide our daily living as God’s people: prayer, scripture, the sacraments, worship, the company of saints. Throughout, questions for reflection and discussion make this an ideal resource for faith formation for individual and groups.

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This collection of exquisite meditations is vintage Michael Mayne. Originally given as a series of retreat addresses, it focuses on timeless aspects of spiritual experience and means of growth: • Discovering the gifts of silence • Redemption at work in human life • Seeing with the heart • Cultivating a true and proper self-regard All who enjoy Michael Mayne’s writing will delight in these previously unpublished reflections.

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Hymns A&M was first published in 1861. The new standard edition was introduced in 1983 containing 533 hymns including 333 from the 1950 Revised Edition plus 100 Hymns for Today and More Hymns for Today.

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The Bible is a book of stories par excellence and is wholly realistic about human nature. Hero, Lover, Daughter, Queen retells ten timeless stories of biblical characters who grappled with the reality of the human condition and reached beyond themselves for understanding from within the messy confines of lives like ours. Solomon how to create your legacy; The lover in the Song of Songs - what makes you beautiful? Goliath what makes you strong? The paralytic man where to find true friendship; Jezebel what it's like to be thrown to the dogs; and more. Contemporary issues such as racism, the environment, mental health and wellbeing come under the spotlight in this imaginative book. In these striking stories we are offered a mirror in which to see ourselves more clearly, find wisdom for our own times, make better sense of our own experiences and insights for navigating our way through today's complex world.

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In the late 1920s, the Church of England was stunned when its first new prayer book since 1662 - a book that had received overwhelming support from bishops, clergy and laity alike - was rejected by the House of Commons. It was almost another sixty years before a new prayer book was attempted and although many of its rites went on to appear in the 1984 Alternative Services Book (and continue today in Common Worship), to many Anglican minds, the 1928 Prayer Book is unsurpassed and it continues in demand, especially among Anglo-Catholics. This facsimile edition will make available to students of liturgy and worship one of the finest written treasures of the Church of England. Although unauthorized for use, this is a resource that many clergy will be glad to have. This is not to be confused with the 1928 US Book of Common Prayer - the authorized prayer book of the Episcopal Church in America for over 50 years.

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Contains 825 items from around the world - both hymns and psalms - and includes indexes to First Lines and authors for easy reference.

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What if the annoying person you try to avoid is actually seconds away from becoming an accidental saint in your life? What if, even in our persistent failings, holy moments are waiting to happen? In Accidental Saints, New York Times bestselling author Nadia Bolz-Weber invites readers into a surprising encounter with what she calls “a religious but not-so-spiritual life.” Tattooed, angry, and profane, this unlikely priest stubbornly, sometimes hilariously, resists the God she feels called to serve. But God keeps showing up in the least likely of people—a church-loving agnostic, a drag queen, and a gun-toting member of the NRA. As she lives and worships alongside these “accidental saints,” Nadia is swept into first-hand encounters with grace—a gift that often feels less like being wrapped in a warm blanket and more like being hit by a blunt instrument. But by this grace, people are transformed in ways they couldn't have been on their own. In a time when many have become disillusioned with Christianity, Accidental Saints demonstrates what happens when ordinary people share bread and wine, struggle with scripture together, and tell each other the truth about their real lives. This unforgettable account of their faltering steps toward wholeness will ring true for believer and skeptic alike. Told in Nadia’s trademark confessional style, Accidental Saints is the stunning next work from one of today’s most important religious voices.

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This is a fresh and contemporary rendering of one of the most loved and influential spiritual texts of all time. It brings alive the message and spirituality of this great 14th-century mystic to 21st century readers. At the age of 30, Julian of Norwich, a contemporary of Chaucer, was suffering a severe illness and believed she was on her deathbed. She had a series of intense visions of Jesus and recovered. Julian wrote down the narration of the visions shortly after they occurred and expanded on them 20 to 30 years later in what became the first book written in English by a woman. Her message remains strikingly relevant today: that failure is an opportunity to learn and grow that God's love has nothing to do with retribution and everything to do with compassion in spite of appearances, all is well.

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Whether you love poetry or haven't read it since school, The Splash of Words will help you rediscover poetry’s power to startle, challenge and reframe your vision. Like throwing a pebble into water, a poem causes a ‘splash of words’ whose ripples can transform the way we see the world, ourselves and God. Through thirty selected poems, from the fourteenth century to the present day, Mark Oakley explores poetry’s power to stir our settled ways of viewing the world and faith, shift our perceptions and even transform who we are.

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The world’s most famous hymn book has undergone a complete revision and now offers the broadest ever range of traditional hymns and the best from today’s composers and hymn/song writers. 150 years since its first publication and after sales of 170 million copies, this brand new edition contains over 840 items, ranging from the Psalms to John Bell, Bernadette Farrell and Stuart Townend. The guiding principles behind this collection are: • congregational singability • biblical and theological richness • musical excellence • liturgical versatility • relevance to today’s worship styles and to today’s concerns New features include added provision for all the seasons of the Church year, new items for carol services and other popular occasions where the repertoire is in need of refreshing, more choices for all-age worship, fresh translations of some ancient hymnody, beautiful new tunes, short songs and chants – alleluias, kyries, blessings etc. and music from the world church. A full range of indexes (including biblical and thematic) and a helpful guide to choosing hymns for every occasion will help to make Ancient & Modern the premier hymn collection of choice. This is the Full Music edition.

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This illustrated workbook arises out of many years of leading retreats, study and quiet days on the theme of the cross in many contexts from an English Cathedral city to a South African township. The symbol of suffering and sacrifice, the cross also stands for the triumph of love over hate, life over death, hope over despair. This includes complete outlines with prayers, readings, guided meditations and instructions for making crosses on the following themes: Crosses from around the world, Holy People, Holy Places & Crosses: Bridget, Francis, Andrew and others, Good Friday Pilgrims: living the cross, Making Crosses: yours and mine, Meditating with Crosses, and Following The Way of the Cross.

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What is the biggest threat facing churches today? Not enough young people? Too little mission and evangelism? Unsustainable buildings? Unappealing styles of worship? Not enough diversity? Whatever the reasons, the church today seems to exist in a state of anxiety, concerned with its self-preservation. In this bold and hopeful book, Martyn Percy argues that a being a broken church is in fact good news, as it is only through the cracks that the overwhelming abundance of God can shine through. This collection of essays and reflections considers what it means to be a precarious church. The term suggests uncertainty and peril, yet it is rooted in the Latin precatio, meaning prayer. It argues that the Church’s vocation is not to be successful or even to survive but to be precarious, liminal, unpredictable and mysterious – a place of encounter with the holy. The questions that should consume us are not, “how shall we remove the risks and alleviate our anxieties?”, but rather “how shall we live in this age of uncertainty?” Every age has had its uncertainties and this inspiring volume explores what faithfulness to each other and to God looks like in an age of anxiety.

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All disciples of Jesus Christ are called to care for one another whether they have a formal role or not, and exercise pastoral care by listening, encouraging, comforting, offering practical help, praying. In times of crisis and in everyday life, good pastoral care people feel known and loved by God, and valued in the church. This short, yet comprehensive guide lays a biblical foundation for good pastoral care, offers a theological approach to understanding people, considers the particular needs of the sick, children and families, and those in difficult circumstances, and outlines the boundaries within which all can be safe. Throughout, examples and questions for reflection will deepen understanding and enrich practice.

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This wise and beautiful book, written in the form of spiritual letters, reflects on the themes of home and being at home: with ourselves, with each other, with the times we are living through, and with God. Nazareth, where Jesus spent his first thirty years, was a physical home but also a spiritual home and the place of nurture, dreaming, formation and becoming. Richard Carter offers a wealth of insight for experiencing how, as Christians, we carry Nazareth, the place of God’s incarnate presence, with us wherever we are and how it becomes a home where the Word is made flesh again in our lives and we find our place of deepest belonging. Rich in biblical reflection, poetic meditation and practical guidance for living in demanding times, Letters from Nazareth abounds in simple yet profound wisdom for our world today.

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Mark Oakley is one of the church’s most outstanding communicators. His writing and preaching alike are shaped by a sense that language is sacramental, and he has a poet’s gift of opening up new worlds and new possibilities simply through words. In a series of fifty beautifully crafted reflections, with characteristic wit, Mark traverses the landscape of the Christian year, with its oases of celebration, its desert stretches of emptiness, its days of abundance and seasons of lament, and its affirmation of the ordinary and the everyday. Rooted in the scriptures that the Church reads through the year, this volume is pure gift for preachers and all who are charged with interpreting these sacred stories in today’s world. For all who wish to understand their own story in the light of God’s bigger story, this will be a book to turn to again and again.

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Raw, intimate, and timely, Nadia Bolz-Weber's latest book offers a full-blown overhaul of our harmful and antiquated ideas about sex, gender, and our bodies. Christians are obsessed with sex. But not in a good way. For nearly two thousand years, this obsession has often turned destructive, inflicting pain, suffering, and guilt on countless people of all persuasions and backgrounds. In Shameless, Bolz-Weber calls for a reformation. To make her case, she offers experiences from her own life and stories from her parishoners alongside biblical theology to explore what the church has taught, and the harm those teachings have caused. Along the way, she re-examines patriarchy, sex, and power with candour but also with hope, because in her heart she believes the "Gospel is powerful enough, transgressive enough, and beautiful enough to heal not only the ones who have been hurt but also those who have done the hurting." This is by far Bolz-Weber's most personal book yet, revealing intimate and emotional details about her life while offering a reading experience that is as entertaining and affirming as it is intellectually robust and liberating. For anyone who has been harmed by the shaming sexual messages so prevalent in religion, this book is for you.

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This major new poetry collection from bestselling poet and priest Malcolm Guite features more than seventy new and previously unpublished works. At the heart of this collection is a sequence of twenty seven sonnets written in response to George Herbert’s exquisite sonnet 'Prayer', each one describing prayer in an arresting metaphor such as ‘the church's banquet’, ‘reversed thunder’, ‘the Milky Way’, ‘the bird of paradise’ and ‘something understood’. In conversation with each of these, Malcolm’s sonnets offer profound insights into the nature of communion with God in all circumstances and conditions. Recognising that all poetry is a pursuit of prayer, After Prayer also includes forty five more widely ranging new poems, including a sonnet sequence on the seven heavens.

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Send my Roots Rain explores ways in which the life-giving water of the Spirit can soak down to the roots of a priest’s life and work. Many priests know what it is to be thirsty: to be overwhelmed by the pressures inherent within their ministry and have little time for themselves or for God. Yet, each priest is also a disciple, whose spiritual, physical and emotional health matters to God, who calls each one by name. Send My Roots Rain explores attitudes, practices and ways of prayer capable of refreshing and sustaining priests and pastors amidst the challenges and stresses of their way of life. Christopher Chapman draws on more than thirty years’ experience of spiritual direction, formational training and leading retreats for priests and ordinands to offer a book full of wisdom that new and experienced priests will turn to again and again.

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The Vowed Life reflects on a paradox in the Church today: one that represents an important challenge to its mission and witness. Vows continue to be made sacramentally in the Church, yet there remains a great longing for a vowed life which would be truly transforming and life-giving. Vows are simultaneously alluring and unappealing: lay memberships of religious orders have escalated, yet very few traditional religious communities have attracted younger members due to their more demanding lifelong commitments. The Vowed Life explores why and how this has come to be, and how the Church urgently needs to respond to this paradoxical challenge. Returning to baptism as the anchor of all other Christian vows, a range of contributors consider whether the longing for forms of life that are profoundly life-changing is a displaced desire for something that should be intrinsic to Christian life. In a Church that prioritises pastoral sensitivity, they ask how those demands could be newly expressed for our culture. In seeking a coherent theology of vows in liturgical practice and sacramental context, they find that fresh attention to ‘the vowed life’ also has much to offer to the Church’s continuing conversations about sex, gender and identity, and to a ‘mixed ecology’ approach to the life of the Church and its mission.

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In our busy, pressured world, the natural world can be a powerful counter-balance, offers wisdom for the challenges, pain and dislocations of life as well as for beauty, wonder and healing. In Soulful Nature, Brian Draper and Howard Green encourage you to get outside and make deeper connections with creation and its creator. They chart walking journeys through rural landscapes and town streets over the course of a year, showing how the natural cycle of the changing seasons can awaken us to the rhythms of our own lives. Each chapter explores a different landscape, zooming in on the small details of the natural world as well as panning out to the wide-screen beauty of time and place. Simple and practical spiritual exercises are provided throughout.

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Enfolded in Christ is a book about priesthood with a difference. Instead of focusing on ministry, it helps priests develop a healthy spiritual life to sustain them through the demands of their calling. John-Francis Friendship draws on extensive experience in pastoral supervision and spiritual direction to help priests cultivate spiritual practices and habits that will nurture a priests's relationship with Christ, sustain holy living and foster personal well-being. In a series of reflections based on the charges in the ordination service, he explores a range of topics including: • Growing in holiness • The call to wholeness • Keeping prayer fresh • Preparing for the Eucharist • Healthy relationships

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Twelve addresses by Anglicans, Roman Catholics and others, expressing favourable and unfavourable responses to the papal encyclical Veritatis Splendor. With contributions by Peter Baelz, Stephen Barton, David Brown, Alec Graham, Ambrose Griffiths, Peter Leighton, Ann Loades, Walter Moberly, Alan Smithson, Robert Song, Alan Suggate and Charles Yeats

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