Our Hope Has Come

In this 5-session Advent study, take a closer look at the Christmas story and the hope revealed in the lives of people in the Bible whose obedience and yeses to God's plans, even in difficult times, gave them great joy and led to God's glory in their lives and generations to come. As we explore the hope that Jesus brings, we'll learn to trust God's care for us as His beloved children in both times of abundance and times of lament. No matter what you're facing, at just the right time, in the fullness of time, God will act on your behalf too. In fact, He already has. In the advent season, we celebrate God's kindness to us, even as we wait on the future hope to come. Features: Personal study segments with homework to complete between 5 weeks of group sessions Leader helps to guide questions and discussions within small groups Beautiful, full-color interior to enhance the study experience Specific Advent activities for kids, students, and adults Benefits: Be encouraged to obey God despite difficult circumstances. Be reminded that God, in His sovereignty, works on behalf of His children at just the right time. Study the Christmas story and many of the individual stories of God's people in the Bible to capture the wonder of the holiday season. Consider how your testimony of faith may extend to generations in the future.

How is our Christian hope both expressed and experienced in contemporary worship? In this Dynamics of Christian Worship volume, pastor, theologian, and songwriter Glenn Packiam explores what Christians sing about when they sing about hope and what kind of hope they experience when they worship together.

Experience the Christmas season anew this year with this 5-session study on Advent, why we celebrate it, and how it fuels our worship of Jesus. Understand the anticipation and waiting the Old Testament world endured. And experience the joy of new life signaled by the coming of Christ, and the way Advent points to the glory of God still to come. First released in 2019, this study is expanded with tools for Scripture memory to help you savor this Advent season. Features: Beautiful, full-color designed pages to ready participants for the Christmas season Personal study segments to complete between 5 weeks of group sessions Weekly activities for adults, teens, and kids Tips to guide discussion within small groups Benefits: Fuel your worship of Christ with a deeper understanding of Advent Grasp God's character and His work on behalf of His people, in the past and present, as a catalyst to a more intimate relationship with Him Learn how to practically extend joy, hope, peace, and love to others during the holiday season

The inspiring, true coming-of-age story of a ferociously determined young man who, armed only with his intellect and his willpower, fights his way out of despair. In 1993, Cedric Jennings was a bright and ferociously determined honor student at Ballou, a high school in one of Washington D.C.’s most dangerous neighborhoods, where the dropout rate was well into double digits and just 80 students out of more than 1,350 boasted an average of B or better. At Ballou, Cedric had almost no friends. He ate lunch in a classroom most days, plowing through the extra work he asked for, knowing that he was really competing with kids from other, harder schools. Cedric Jennings’s driving ambition—which was fully supported by his forceful mother—was to attend a top college. In September 1995, after years of near superhuman dedication, he realized that ambition when he began as a freshman at Brown University. But he didn't leave his struggles behind. He found himself unprepared for college: he struggled to master classwork and fit in with the white upper-class students. Having traveled too far to turn back, Cedric was left to rely on his intelligence and his determination to maintain hope in the unseen—a future of acceptance and reward. In this updated edition, A Hope in the Unseen chronicles Cedric’s odyssey during his last two years of high school, follows him through his difficult first year at Brown, and tells the story of his subsequent successes in college and the world of work. Eye-opening, sometimes humorous, and often deeply moving, A Hope in the Unseen weaves a crucial new thread into the rich and ongoing narrative of the American experience.

"O Come, O Come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel..." The familiar carol rings true with beauty and grace, but few stop to consider the deep theology of this tune. O Come, O Come, Emmanuel: An Advent Study explores Jesus' work on our behalf in the message of Christmas. This study will not only fuel our worship of Jesus, but help the reader foster steadfast love anchored in biblical truth now and all year long. Readers will more fully understand the anticipation and waiting that the Old Testament world endured, the light and life Jesus came to bring us, and the eternal promise that Jesus is yet ushering us into. This beautiful resource will also include advent activities to help kids, students, and adults celebrate the Christmas season together. This Christmas season, set your focus on the anticipation and joy that only Christ can bring in this study of Advent. Features: Leader helps for group discussion 4 weeks of personal study to be completed between the 5 group sessions Beautiful 4-color interior to enhance the reader's experience Specific Advent activities for kids, students, and adults Benefits: Allow a deeper understanding of Advent to fuel your worship of Christ. Understand deeper theological truths of Christmas. Learn more about Jesus and how His coming brings us hope, light, wisdom, and gospel unity.

How to focus on Christ during Advent Most Christians agree that Christmas is all about Jesus, yet most of us spend little time preparing our hearts to celebrate Him. Why is this? Partly because we don’t know how. In Unwrapping the Names of Jesus, Asheritah Ciuciu leads readers through the four weeks of Advent (Hope, Preparation, Joy, and Love). Each week: Begins with an interactive family devotional that equips readers to celebrate Advent together Offers five daily reflections that focus on that week's name of Jesus Includes suggestions for fun-filled family activities or service projects This devotional can be used by readers in their own personal worship times or as a tool to engage in family worship during the busy holiday season. Either way, participants will gain a greater sense of awe and wonder at who Jesus is. By focusing on the person and character of Jesus throughout the Advent season, readers will prepare their hearts so that when they admire the live nativity, sit in the candlelight service, or wake up on Christian morning, they can join the faithful who sing from the bottom of their hearts, "O come, let us adore Him, Christ the Lord!"

“[A] landmark book . . . Solnit illustrates how the uprisings that begin on the streets can upend the status quo and topple authoritarian regimes” (Vice). A book as powerful and influential as Rebecca Solnit’s Men Explain Things to Me, her Hope in the Dark was written to counter the despair of activists at a moment when they were focused on their losses and had turned their back to the victories behind them—and the unimaginable changes soon to come. In it, she makes a radical case for hope as a commitment to act in a world whose future remains uncertain and unknowable. Drawing on her decades of activism and a wide reading of environmental, cultural, and political history, Solnit argues that radicals have a long, neglected history of transformative victories, that the positive consequences of our acts are not always immediately seen, directly knowable, or even measurable, and that pessimism and despair rest on an unwarranted confidence about what is going to happen next. Now, with a moving new introduction explaining how the book came about and a new afterword that helps teach us how to hope and act in our unnerving world, she brings a new illumination to the darkness of our times in an unforgettable new edition of this classic book. “One of the best books of the 21st century.” —The Guardian “No writer has better understood the mix of fear and possibility, peril and exuberance that’s marked this new millennium.” —Bill McKibben, New York Times–bestselling author of Falter “An elegant reminder that activist victories are easily forgotten, and that they often come in extremely unexpected, roundabout ways.” —The New Yorker

The NIV is the world's best-selling modern translation, with over 150 million copies in print since its first full publication in 1978. This highly accurate and smooth-reading version of the Bible in modern English has the largest library of printed and electronic support material of any modern translation.

In the Because of Bethlehem video Bible study (DVD/digital video sold separately), bestselling author and pastor Max Lucado guides you through the Advent season to its source at an unassuming stable in Bethlehem... No one expected the Messiah to come the way he did. Yet the way he came was every bit as important as the coming itself. The manger is the message. Because of Bethlehem, God knows what it's like to be human. Because of Bethlehem, when we talk to him about tough times, he understands. He's been there. He's been here. Because of Bethlehem, we no longer have marks on our record...just grace. In the midst of your hectic Christmas season, this 4-session Bible study with Max will: Revive your wonder that the One who made everything chose to make himself nothing for us. Rekindle your connection to the Christ of Christmas who offers lasting hope. Help you lay down your endless Christmas to-do list and receive what Jesus has already done. Heal your heartache by embracing the God who is always near you, always for you, and always in you. For some, Christmas is a time of excitement, celebration, and family, while for others it is a time of loneliness, grief, and loss. No matter what this season holds for you, the promise of Christmas will bring you a lifetime of hope. The Because of Bethlehem Study Guide includes video notes and discussion questions, Bible exploration, an individual application activity, and an Advent practice to complete between meetings. Sessions include: God Has a Face Worship Works Wonders God Guides the Wise Every Heart a Manger Designed for use with Because of Bethlehem/He Chose the Nails Video Study (9780310687849), sold separately. The DVD is a two-disc set for Christmas and Easter.