I Belong to God!
An Intergenerational Study of Baptism in the United Methodist Church

by Carolyn Tanner

In a manner similar to her communion study for children and youth, Carolyn Tanner offers a six-session study of baptism, based on By Water and the Spirit. The six sessions explore concepts of God’s love and grace that we experience in baptism.

The concepts explored are:

Tanner includes Bible stories, music, crafts, puzzles, and mission education as part of the study. Many reproducible pages.

ISBN 978-1-878009-58-6--Paper--$24.95

This Holy Mystery:
A United Methodist Understanding
of Holy Communion

A Study Guide for Children and Youth

by Carolyn Tanner

Congregations across the Methodist connection are studying This Holy Mystery: A United Methodist Understanding of Holy Communion. The document, adopted by the 2004 General Conference, is enriching our understanding and experience of the Holy Meal.

Now your entire church family can be involved in a “congregational study!” Designed as a companion to Gayle Carlton Felton’s seven-session adult study guide, this resource offers the full text of This Holy Mystery along with lesson plans and student papers useful for a broad age-range of children and youth.

"Carolyn Tanner’s careful understanding of This Holy Mystery is evident on every page of her comprehensive and practical study guide. Indeed, the hands-on exercises gave me fresh insights about the ways This Holy Mystery will shape the life of the United Methodist Church as it is received by the youngest members of our congregations. Not only will the students learn from her study guide, I expect that adult teachers using her lesson plans will come to a deeper understanding of the theology and practice of Communion. Thanks to Ms. Tanner for demonstrating what the communion study claims — that the Lord’s Supper is for the entire Body of Christ. Jesus invites us all to the Holy Table."

L. Edward Phillips
Associate Professor of the Practice of Christian Worship
Duke Divinity School
Chair, General Conference Holy Communion Study Committee, 2000-2004

ISBN 1-878009-54-0— Paper—$19.95

In Spirit and Truth:
United Methodist Worship for the Emerging Church

by L. Edward Phillips and Sara Webb Phillips

A scholar and a pastor call United Methodists away from the worship wars and back to the holy grounds of scripture, tradition, and lived experience with biblical, theological, and practical guidance for all who lead worship in the United Methodist tradition.

ISBN # 10878009-53-2—93—pages $16.95
 

Seeking union in communion.

The Banquet’s Wisdom:
A Short History of the Theologies of the Lord’s Supper

Gary Macy

In the Introduction, Macy points to the past and asks some very pertinent questions:

For over fifteen hundred years, Christians were, for the most part, “in communion”. … The Christian people, as a whole, have a much longer history of unity than of disunity. This simple historical observation raises some interesting questions. How did we as a community get from there to here? How did the earlier centuries manage to maintain the communion which seems so to elude us? … Perhaps in rediscovering our former union, we Christians may find the grounds for overcoming our present disunion.
GARY MACY

ISBN 1-878009-50-8 — 266 pages — Paper—$19.95

How the community of faith addresses evil.

Good Lord, Deliver Us:
The Praise of God and the Problem of Evil

Rowan Crews
Foreword by Geoffrey Wainwright

Early in this thoughtful and thought-provoking first work, Rowan Crews states his premise:

The pastoral value of worship for those afflicted by evil has long been recognized. Yet, we have rarely conisdered worship as a place to stand when viewing the problem theologically. Protestant theology in particular has neglected worship as a setting and a source for critical theological reflection.

Through the lens of the liturgies of mainline Protestant denominations, Dr Crews blends academic perspective and narrative style to examine a liturgical theology of evil. He offers a theological experience of God present with us in times of pain and sorrow, suffering and despair. In this study covering the breadth of corporate worship, the author weaves stories and refelctions into a garment of hope and faith.

“This fine book results from creative thinking in engagement with the realities of the Christian life.”
—GEOFFREY WAINWRIGHT, from the foreword.

ROWAN CREWS serves as Chairperson of the Department of Religion at Columbia College in Columbia, SC, where he is Associate Professor of Religion. He is a graduate of the Divinity School at Duke University.

ISBN 1-878009-41-9 — 242 pages — Paper—$14.95

The power of language to speak of God.

Reviving Sacred Speech:
The Meaning of Liturgical Language.

Second thoughts on Christ in Sacred Speech
Gail Ramshaw

In 1985, Gail Ramshaw wrote Christ in Sacred Speech, a book about the metaphoric meaning of liturgical language. When considering a reissue, Ramshaw wished the book to reflect the scholarship and evolution in thought of those intervening years. Reviving Sacred Speech incorporates that original work and adds her “Second Thoughts” at the conclusion of each chapter.

From the “Introduction”:

“On some of my original positions I stand firm. I remain committed to the weekly eucharistic worship of the Christian Church and to a liturgy that is both shaped by centuries of Christian tradition and informed by today’s speech. Mediocre Sunday worship notwithstanding, I persist in the belief that there is more height and depth to ten minutes of the classic eucharistic liturgy than we can know or perhaps bear. As a Christian considering liturgical language, I approach that ancient yet still luminous burning bush, and there in that small tree glimpse among the mysterious branches the wood of the cross, aflame with the fire of the Spirit. I trust that in that fiery tree there is life for us all.”

“Careful attention to the rich ambiguity and layers of meaning in liturgical language . . . make this book one of the very best mystagogies of liturgical language one can find.”
—GIL OSTDIEK, Past President, North American Academy of Liturgy

ISBN 1-878009-36-2 — 144 pages — Paper — $16.95

Under the Tree of Life

Gail Ramshaw

"This book records my engagement with that [Christian] spark. It alternately energizes and shocks me, enlightens and burns me, that spark skipping over the seas." writes Gail Ramshaw in the Introduction to Under the Tree of Life.

Written in reflection on her fiftieth birthday, the book invites us into reflections on "the religion of a feminist Christian" whose gift for language has been tremendous gift to the Church.

"Ramshaw's love of metaphor and respect for the powerful symbols of the religious imagination illuminate the book, and make for an invigorating read." Kathleen Norris

ISBN 10878009-48-6 - 211 pages - $16.95

Eucharist and Esachatology

Geoffrey Wainwright

Geoffrey Wainwright's seminal work "Eucharist and Eschatology" was first published in 1971 by Epworth Press in Great Britain. Since that time, it has been a standard text for sacramentalists and theologians. In this third edition, edited for generosity of language and featuring a new preface and bibliography, Dr Wainwright's attention to detail and passion for his topic is available to a new generation of scholars.

ISBN 1-878009-37-0 - 292 pages - $24.95

A people fed on God

Food for Pilgrims:
A Journey with St. Luke

Dwight W. Vogel, O.S.L.

A foundational example of the early Church’s life is found at the end of Chapter 2 of Acts: “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship to the breaking of bread and the prayers... ate with glad and generous hearts, praising God ... and giving to all as any had need.”

This paradigm of living the apostolic hope, being nourished by the sacraments, participating in the worshiping community and doing works of mercy is explored afresh. The interaction of work and worship, of hope and faith provides a model for the renewing of individual lives and bring new life into the Church of our own day.

Dwight Vogel, beloved teacher at Garrett-Evengelical Theological Seminary, leads the reader on a new exploration into a way of living revealed by Luke, who has given us some of the most beautiful stories found in scripture. Here we may find food for our journey to the heart of God. This “Lukan spirituality”, grounded in the revelation of God-in-the-flesh, enlightens us on our pilgrim way and sustains us through the means of grace.

“This is the book for which many of us have been waiting. It is a comprehensive introduction to a whole sacramentally-based way of life for contemporary mainline Protestants. It will come as manna in the wilderness to countless Christians who struggle with what it means to follow Christ today.”
— HOYT L. HICKMAN

ISBN 1-878009-28-1 — 189 pages; Paper — $14.95

Finding ourselves in worship

Worship and Spirituality (Second Edition)

Don E. Saliers, O.S.L.

As more people come to define and live into their relationship with God, they turn to the Bible as their major source of inspiration and knowledge. In the search they travel with other members of a praying, worshiping community of believers. Moving forward, the individual and the community move to the core of the Christian experience — life in the Spirit.

The author, professor of Theology and Worship at Candler School of Theology, says that too often we have lost our identity as worshiping people and have hidden ourselves from God’s self-giving in the sacraments.
Saliers speaks to all who “gather around the font, the book and the table” to recover their center. “Without living remembrance of the whole biblical story there would be no authentic worship, nor could there be any such thing as becoming a living reminder of Jesus Christ for others.”

While this book serves as a textbook for seminaries and the Academy for Spiritual Formation, it is written in a style which invites readers from every walk of the church’s life to drink deeply of the fresh insights it offers.

“Nothing else in the whole of the literature available has broken open the dynamic matrix of worship, sacrament and spirituality with such depth of insight.”
— DWIGHT W. VOGEL Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary

ISBN 1-878009-27-3 — 102 pages; Paper — $16.95

Worship at the center of the Church’s life.

Liturgy and Learning Through the Life Cycle

John H. Westerhoff III and William H. Willimon

This is a book for pastors, religious educators, members of liturgy/worship and religious education committees, and others interested in the renewal of individual and corporate life through worship.

Using as its reference points the various life passages through which people move (e.g. birth, marriage, retirement, relocating, sickness and death) the writers show how the services of the church form and express the faith of the Christian community. Building upon their original work (1980) this edition takes advantage of the emerging trends in liturgical and educational development. This would make an excellent text for the catechumenate as well as the seminary classroom.

“I wish I could require every pastor to read this book. It is the most interesting handbook on worship that I have seen in many years.”
— THE BOOK NEWSLETTER Augsburg Publishing House

JOHN H. WESTERHOFF, III is formerly Professor of Theology and Christian Nurture at the Divinity School at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina. Among his many published works are Will Our Children Have Faith? and Learning Through Liturgy.

WILLIAM H. WILLIMON is now Bishop of the North Alabama Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church and was formerly Dean of the Chapel and Professor of Christian Ministry at Duke University. Worship as Pastoral Care, Sunday Dinner, and Word, Water, Wine and Bread are among his list of publications.

ISBN 1-878009-21-4 — 168 pages; Paper — $14.95

The best treatment of the doctrines which shaped a revival.

The Eucharistic Hymns of John and Charles Wesley

J. Ernest Rattenbury
Second American Edition
Introduction by Don E. Saliers, O.S.L.

Here is the classic text in an all-new edition which explores the treasury of Wesleyan theology as expressed in the hymns of those “enthusiasts” of the eighteenth century. The original, out of print since 1948, has been edited for generous language, usage and style for the modern reader. Included with the text is Brevint’s The Christian Sacrament and Sacrifice, as well as the complete (unedited) Hymns on the Lord’s Supper, originally published by the Wesleys in 1745.

Using as primary source documents the 166 hymns written by John and Charles, the author's extracts and exploration of the texts lay out for the reader “the true Methodist doctrines” as no other volume has done before or since. “It should never be forgotten that these hymns were revival hymns, and that Sacramental worship was not only not contrary to Evangelical, but was . . . one of its chief results.” (p. 15)

“Wherever there are evangelicals who are not sacramentalists, and wherever there are sacramentalists who are not evangelicals, the message of this book needs to be considered.”
— RELIGION IN LIFE

J. ERNEST RATTENBURY was a noted practical thologian and English cleric, best known for his Fernley-Hartley lectures. He also authored The Conversion of the Wesleys, The Evangelical Doctrine of Charles Wesley’s Hymns, Wesley’s Legacy to the World, and Vital Elements of Public Worship.

ISBN 1-878009-55-9 — 216 pages; Paper — $24.95

In Her Own Rite:
Constructing Feminist Liturgical Tradition

Marjorie Procter-Smith

In a major updating of a classic text, Procter-Smith offers us the foundational work in feminist liturgical study that made this book a standard at its first publication; we are priviledged also with her perspectives on the growth and changes in the field over the past ten years.

Procter-Smith addresses the benefits of and necessity for dialogue between the liturgical and feminist fields of study. She grounds the reader in “liturgical fundamentals: meaning and imagination in liturgy,” through her exploration of such basic liturgical issues as language (verbal, physical and visual), God-talk, preaching and the role of the Bible, and the sacraments.

“Marjorie Procter-Smith has written a landmark book in liturgical studies. In Her Own Rite makes a very significant contribution to a critical feminist theology of liberation. No one engaged in theological studies or feminist spirituality can afford to miss it.”
—Elisabeth Schüssler-Fiorenza, from the first edition

MARJORIE PROCTOR-SMITH is LeVan Professor of Preaching and Worship at Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University. She is the author of Praying with Our Eyes Open: Engendering Feminist Liturgical Prayer.

ISBN 1-878009-40-0 — 206 pages — Paper— $19.95