Soup Kitchen for the Soul combines testimony with a challenging scriptural foundation and follows it with specific guidance on how you can get out of your church and make a difference in your community. Each chapter builds on a Bible story and the author’s personal experience, and ends with thought questions, and then action questions. References include specific ways in which you can take action on what you have been studying in the book.

This book is suitable for personal or small group study, or could be used effectively by an entire church to transform their ministry.

In the introduction Crosby says: “Upon entering Seminary, I was required to serve in the community and begrudgingly accepted my assignment, choosing to serve in a soup kitchen. While serving in the soup kitchen, God revealed himself to me in a profound and miraculous way. It was in restudying the scriptures with this new heart knowledge of God that allowed me to see a message of a mission for His people that we lack a connection with today. I began asking, ‘What if … What if I’m not the only one who doesn’t understand the whole mission God has planned for us? What exactly are we supposed to be doing? Where in the Bible can we find directives on our missions for God? What if I wrote a book about radically new old ways of doing the gospel?’”

Soup Kitchen for the Soul is that book.

Along Bible Paths: Summer Devotions grew out of the daily devotional e-mail list that Jody Neufeld began in 1999 to encourage others to begin their day with the Lord. Many continue to enjoy these thoughts in their e-mail every weekday morning, or via the Jody’s Devotionals blog. This book is a collection organized for the summer. We hope many more will enjoy these in printed form.

Jody Neufeld, now in a “new season” of her life as she is retired from nursing and is working in publishing full-time in partnership with her husband, Henry. “I’m not sure God agrees with the concept of retirement. He seems to be more about ‘seasons’ and giving us opportunities to serve in His Kingdom all the days of our lives.” She is the author of Daily Devotions of Ordinary People-Extraordinary God and

Grief: Finding the Candle of Light. Jody and Henry have three children: Janet and her husband, Chris Lister, who are in ministry in Ft. Worth,Texas, twin brother, John Webb, a former MLB pitcher, lives with his family in Phoenix, AZ, and James Webb, who loved to lead praise and worship and his work in marching band, is now home with Jesus after battling cancer for five years. They also have five grandchildren: Alex, Anna, Jaxon, Jamie, and Ashton.

Owner of Energion Publications, Henry Neufeld is also the editor of the Participatory Study Series. He can be followed on deepbiblestudy.net, henrysthreads.com, and jevlir.com. Henry has BA and MA degrees in Biblical Languages, and uses his skills in Biblical studies to help lay people learn to better understand the Bible . He is also the author of What’s in a Version?,When People Speak for God, and eight other books. He and Jody live near Pensacola, Florida.

ISBN10: 1-893729-83-4

ISBN13: 978-1-893729-83-4

Pages: 164

Book of the Week: August 4-7, 2010

Geoffrey Lentz and Henry Neufeld, a pastor and a teacher team up in Learning and Living Scripture to present the Participatory Bible Study Method, an approach to Bible study that is rooted in the conviction that God can and will speak to us in scripture.

They bring together their different experiences and perspectives to present this method of study in a practical, usable way.

There are three key elements to this study:

1. The integration of prayer and study
2. Serious questioning and research that is nonetheless within reach of the non-scholar
3. Study in community with both witness and accountability through sharing

In this guide you will learn to integrate prayer and scripture reading while also being faithful to the historical meaning of the text and its use throughout history by the community of faith. This method is not just about study and learning facts; it’s about letting the God, who gave scripture, live in and through you, as you learn and share.

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The Character of Our Discontent grew out of the author’s conviction that pastors do not preach enough about the Old Testament. The result is 19 chapters, each of which represents a sermon on an Old Testament character. These sermons are lively, fast paced, and practical yet are rooted in sound scholarship and are examples of the homiletical art.

Christians who would like to learn how the Old Testament can enlighten and guide their Christian walk, and pastors who would like to learn how to preach more effectively from the Old Testament will both find these sermons an invaluable aid.

While Dr. Bevere specializes in the New Testament and theology, he believes that pastors (and academics as well) can preach and teach effectively outside their areas of specialty. Indeed, they must, and this teaching can enrich their own learning and the fields of study into which they venture.

The Character of Our Discontent is an adventure in preaching and it invites us into the adventure of living in relationship with God, an adventure that has similar characteristics whether we are learning about God’s call to Abraham or how a call to mission in Africa came to a contemporary English teacher nearing retirement.

The church is in disarray. Theologians and commentators speak of the demise of evangelicalism. Are they alarmists? Is Christianity as we know it in the process of dying?

Writer, scholar, teacher, and missionary Dr. David Alan Black thinks that the answer does not lie in the politics of the left or the right. In fact, he doesn’t think that Jesus tells us what our politics should be. He doesn’t see answers in Christian nationalism. But even further, he sees serious flaws in the very structure of our churches and denominations that prevent us from truly being obedient to the gospel.

The solution lies, not in renewal, revival, or even in reformation, but rather in restoration-a restoration of the church organized as Jesus intended it and according to the example provided by the earliest church sources in the New Testament.

To make the church and its members true servants of Jesus Christ again, we need to change our entire paradigm-to The Jesus Paradigm.

Soup Kitchen for the Soul combines testimony with a challenging scriptural foundation and follows it with specific guidance on how you can get out of your church and make a difference in your community. Each chapter builds on a Bible story and the author’s personal experience, and ends with thought questions, and then action questions. References include specific ways in which you can take action on what you have been studying in the book.

This book is suitable for personal or small group study, or could be used effectively by an entire church to transform their ministry.

In the introduction Crosby says: “Upon entering Seminary, I was required to serve in the community and begrudgingly accepted my assignment, choosing to serve in a soup kitchen. While serving in the soup kitchen, God revealed himself to me in a profound and miraculous way. It was in restudying the scriptures with this new heart knowledge of God that allowed me to see a message of a mission for His people that we lack a connection with today. I began asking, ‘What if … What if I’m not the only one who doesn’t understand the whole mission God has planned for us? What exactly are we supposed to be doing? Where in the Bible can we find directives on our missions for God? What if I wrote a book about radically new old ways of doing the gospel?’”

Soup Kitchen for the Soul is that book.

Now Shipping!

The Character of Our Discontent grew out of the author’s conviction that pastors do not preach enough about the Old Testament. The result is 19 chapters, each of which represents a sermon on an Old Testament character. These sermons are lively, fast paced, and practical yet are rooted in sound scholarship and are examples of the homiletical art.

Christians who would like to learn how the Old Testament can enlighten and guide their Christian walk, and pastors who would like to learn how to preach more effectively from the Old Testament will both find these sermons an invaluable aid.

While Dr. Bevere specializes in the New Testament and theology, he believes that pastors (and academics as well) can preach and teach effectively outside their areas of specialty. Indeed, they must, and this teaching can enrich their own learning and the fields of study into which they venture.

The Character of Our Discontent is an adventure in preaching and it invites us into the adventure of living in relationship with God, an adventure that has similar characteristics whether we are learning about God’s call to Abraham or how a call to mission in Africa came to a contemporary English teacher nearing retirement.

• Separated from someone you love: mother, father, sister, brother, wife, husband, child, friend, pet
• Separated from a career you love
• Separated from a home you love
• Separated from the life you thought would continue on the road you were traveling

Grief is the sorrow and suffering that must be walked THROUGH by everyone who has experienced a loss. The walk is characterized by:

• Alone-ness. No one can do it for you.
• Timelessness. There are no shortcuts and detours may occur.
• Darkness. Each path is unique to the person. There is only One who sees in the dark just as He does in the light (Psalm 139).

“God gives us simple directions as we walk through the valley of grief. As He told David in Psalm 23, it was His intention that we walk through the valley, not get stuck. Walking my own roads after the death of my son, my parents, and my first marriage, I can say now that each road was different; each one had some very difficult periods and yet God was faithful. It is my prayer as I write this book that others will also receive God’s healing, life-giving words.”

When someone claims they have a message from God, how do you decide whether to believe them? This question has been with people of faith at least since Abraham heard someone-God, as it turned out-telling him to leave home and go to a place he would be shown. Other people have left their homes thinking God was guiding them, and have ended up with nothing but trouble.

And what about books? When someone claims a book is inspired by God how do you determine whether they are right or wrong? Very often they will be telling you that your eternal destination depends on believing what they say, and yet others will say that their book is right. Is it possible to know?

Interpretations of those books can be equally difficult to judge. People with special interpretations of scripture often claim just as much authority as those who claim to be prophets. If you reject their interpretation, you are rejecting God himself. How do you make a wise decision?

Writer and Bible teacher Henry Neufeld wrestles with these questions in these pages. You may not like some of the answers, but you will be challenged as he calls us each to focus first on the conversation with God and then to each be responsible for learning God’s will for our individual lives.

Megabelt is a fictional account of the South and its preoccupations with modern Christianity told from the point of view of a boy named Gil growing up in what is otherwise known as the “Bible Belt.”

The readers will find themselves steeped in the world of Gil whose experiences and questions lead him to unravel some of the Bible Belt’s many dominant and passively adopted messages as well as its numerous types of characters.

Gil is the quintessential mind of most inhabitants of the Belt. He is you. He is I. While his experiences greatly reflect those of the author, his encounters will never go unidentified with by the reader.

Megabelt is a fabricated entity describing the world that exists between traditional Bible Belt culture and contemporary Bible Belt culture, the term explores the differences between as well as the ever-growing and ever-changing dynamics of the two.

Megabelt has no message, no moral proclamation or agenda. Its purpose is to highlight the truths of the Bible Belt culture and therefore perform a complete overhaul of its patrons’ thoughts and lifestyles for better or for worse. Any further sort of significance or meaning drawn from its pages is strictly subjective.