Scripturally-based readings to complement your Lenten journey.

The Way this most ancient naming of the Church in the Book of Acts reminds Christians we are a people on a journey of faith. But what signposts might guide us on this way? Way Words provides an itinerary of daily readings based on scripture for the journey we make during the season of Lent. 

Each of its daily readings, starting with Ash Wednesday and concluding with Easter Sunday, will explore one concise phrase or verse from the Old or NewTestament that offers a spiritual guidepost for modern-day disciples on the Way ofJesus Christ.

Each of the short forty-seven readings includes a scripture excerpt, followed by a brief prayer or spiritual exercise. This resource is written for personal study and devotional use during Lent.

Introductory reading: Ash Wednesday
Week One: Holy Foundations
Week Two: Godward Callings
Week Three: Crucial Decisions
Week Four: Community Fashionings
Week Five: Faithful Practices
Week Six: Enlarging Vistas
HolyWeek: Saving Mysteries

God is love. Love one another. We teach these to children and new Christians, but what exactly do we mean (and do they hear) by love? Our culture offers a multitude of understandings and experiences through which the meaning of love can be filtered. We in the church can become sloppy in our proclamation and embodiment of love as a result of those filterings, unless we remain grounded in the Biblical moorings of love revealed in the narratives of both the Old and New Testaments.The Greatest of These offers an extended exploration of love 's qualities in scripture. Each of the six chapters begins with a single page introduction to the chapter theme. The bulk of each chapter consists of six individual readings (2.5 to 3 pages each) that reflect on a Biblical passage related to the chapter 's theme on love. The book is written for use by individuals or groups, and a leader's guide, which is written into the book, provides for six suggested sessions.

Chapter One - Love as Gift

Chapter Two - Love as Invitation

Chapter Three - Love as Loyalty

Chapter Four - Love as Ethic

Chapter Five - Love as Compassion

Chapter Six - Love as Wonder

The written-in leader 's guide provides a basic template that can be used for each session along with specific suggestions for six sessions to plug into the template in order to explore each of the book 's chapters.

Years of reader evaluations yield a record of overwhelming positive teaching results. Teachers agree that The New International Lesson Annual gets highest marks for helping Christian educators in the classroom, making Scripture understandable or intelligible, relating Scripture to contemporary living, and challenging students to respond with positive life-changing actions. Based on the Bible study foundations of America’s leading ecumenical Bible educators and editors in the venerable Committee on Uniform Series.

Inside discover:
• Easy-to-use design with tint boxes, thumb index, goals for learners, and a key-word pronunciation guide
• Easy-on-the-eyes clear type
• The only lesson commentary with popular easy-to-understand NRSV and CEB translations (Combined with your own King James Bible, NIV, or any other Bible translation, you have a multiversion parallel.) [Karla, multi- forms a closed compound]
• Eight pages of Bible background, interpretation, and step-by-step lesson plans keyed to learner goals for each lesson make lesson preparation thorough without requiring difficult and tedious research
• In-depth quarterly teacher enrichment articles and Bible background covering both the big picture and close-up views. Complete index to background Scriptures and occasional additional helps such as maps, charts, and timelines
• “Faith in Action” section gives ideas for placing faith concepts of the lessons into action
• “Preparing Our Hearts” section with Bible reading and reflection questions for the teacher’s personal spiritual growth
• “Continue the Journey” section includes ideas for prayer, learner preparation for next week’s session, activities the learners can do during the coming week to live out what they have learned, and a suggested closing hymn and benediction
• Edited by one of the nation's leading Christian educators, Dr. Nan Duerling

Scripture and tradition fill the season of Advent with an abundance of characters, themes, and symbols. Each casts a slightly different perspective on the meaning of Jesus’ birth and God’s promised realm, the two chief components for which this season bids our preparation.

Beginning December 1 and running through December 26, each day will explore an Advent-related word that begins with a successive letter in the alphabet. This is followed by suggestions for simple, easy-to-prepare, and complete activities (discussion starters, games, crafts, meditations, journaling, outreach project, devotions). The activities are based on that day’s word and are ideal for parents teaching their children about Advent.

The New International Lesson Annual is designed for teachers who seek a solid biblical basis for each session and a step-by-step teaching plan that will help them lead their classes. It can be used with any student curriculum based on the Uniform Lesson Series. In many classes, both the students and teacher rely on the Annual as their companion to the Bible. Includes the CEB and NRSV translations.

Over the four quarters of the 2016-2017 Sunday school year we will explore the themes of God’s sovereignty, creation, love, and call. During the fall quarter we examine Isaiah, Hebrews, and Revelation to see how these books reveal the  Sovereignty of God. Luke’s Gospel, selected psalms, and Galatians will help us understand Creation: A Divine Cycle, our study for the winter. In the spring we will survey both the Old and New Testaments to discover that God Loves Us. We conclude during the summer with God’s Urgent Call, a study of the way God spoke to certain judges, prophets, and people of the New Testament.

Inside discover:

Weekly Scripture reading and reflection questions to enhance the teacher's personal spiritual growth. Weekly activities that the learners can do beyond the classroom to live out what they have learned. In-depth background article for each quarter. Quarterly pronunciation guide. Additional quarterly reference material, such as maps, charts, or timelines. Quarterly ideas for putting one's faith into action. Annual teacher enrichment article. Annual index to background Scriptures.

Phyllis Zagano explores the way both silence and stillness can help you turn your heart and mind to God in a more intentional way during Lent. She shows how important it is to detach ourselves from the busyness of everyday life to find stillness and silence—even if only for a few minutes of prayer each day.

DAYS OF THE LORD: The Liturgical Year A Commentary in Seven Volumes: 1. Advent, Christmas, Epiphany 2. Lent 3. Easter Triduum, Easter Season 4. Ordinary Time, Year A 5. Ordinary Time, Year B 6. Ordinary Time, Year C 7. Solemnities and Feasts

Adapted from Journey of Decision, a Way of the Cross for adults, this children's Way engages children by having them actively participate. Fourteen readers represent characters from the passion of Jesus. Suggestions are given at the outset for props or symbolic costumes that achieve a two-fold purpose: they draw children into the story, thus helping them follow along.

As in the original Journey on which this children's adaptation is based, the text combines the traditional with the innovative. It asks children to journey with Jesus not just during this Way of the Cross but during every day of their lives.

Follows a three-part pattern: 1) biblical and liturgical reflections on the season; 2) the season's structure and themes; 3) suggestions from the past.

In his other books for Advent, Christmas, and Lent published by The Liturgical Press, Father Brown has made the rich insights of modern biblical exegesis conveniently available for reflection during the great feasts of the liturgical year. Here he does the same for the Easter season by commenting on the Gospel stories of the risen Christ. Rather than focusing on the differences among the evangelists' accounts of the resurrection, Father Brown instead concentrates on how each treatment of the resurrection fits the theology and plan of its Gospel. Those people who afford the Church's liturgical calendar a major role in their spiritual life will appreciate the added meaning Father Brown infuses into these stories that dwell at the heart of our faith."Good, close readings chocked full of insight. . . . " The Living Church

Scripture and tradition fill the season of Advent with an abundance of characters, themes, and symbols. Each casts a slightly different perspective on the meaning of Jesus’ birth and God’s promised realm, the two chief components for which this season bids our preparation.

Beginning December 1 and running through December 26, each day will explore an Advent-related word that begins with a successive letter in the alphabet. This is followed by suggestions for simple, easy-to-prepare, and complete activities (discussion starters, games, crafts, meditations, journaling, outreach project, devotions). The activities are based on that day’s word and are ideal for parents teaching their children about Advent.

Years of reader evaluations yield a record of overwhelming positive teaching results. Teachers agree that The New International Lesson Annual gets highest marks for helping Christian educators in the classroom, making Scripture understandable or intelligible, relating Scripture to contemporary living, and challenging students to respond with positive life-changing actions. Based on the Bible study foundations of America’s leading ecumenical Bible educators and editors in the venerable Committee on Uniform Series.

Inside discover:
• Easy-to-use design with tint boxes, thumb index, goals for learners, and a key-word pronunciation guide
• Easy-on-the-eyes clear type
• The only lesson commentary with popular easy-to-understand NRSV and CEB translations (Combined with your own King James Bible, NIV, or any other Bible translation, you have a multiversion parallel.) [Karla, multi- forms a closed compound]
• Eight pages of Bible background, interpretation, and step-by-step lesson plans keyed to learner goals for each lesson make lesson preparation thorough without requiring difficult and tedious research
• In-depth quarterly teacher enrichment articles and Bible background covering both the big picture and close-up views. Complete index to background Scriptures and occasional additional helps such as maps, charts, and timelines
• “Faith in Action” section gives ideas for placing faith concepts of the lessons into action
• “Preparing Our Hearts” section with Bible reading and reflection questions for the teacher’s personal spiritual growth
• “Continue the Journey” section includes ideas for prayer, learner preparation for next week’s session, activities the learners can do during the coming week to live out what they have learned, and a suggested closing hymn and benediction
• Edited by one of the nation's leading Christian educators, Dr. Nan Duerling

The New International Lesson Annual is designed for teachers who seek a solid biblical basis for each session and a step-by-step teaching plan that will help them lead their classes. It can be used with any student curriculum based on the Uniform Lesson Series. In many classes, both the students and teacher rely on the Annual as their companion to the Bible. Includes the CEB and NRSV translations.

Over the four quarters of the 2016-2017 Sunday school year we will explore the themes of God’s sovereignty, creation, love, and call. During the fall quarter we examine Isaiah, Hebrews, and Revelation to see how these books reveal the  Sovereignty of God. Luke’s Gospel, selected psalms, and Galatians will help us understand Creation: A Divine Cycle, our study for the winter. In the spring we will survey both the Old and New Testaments to discover that God Loves Us. We conclude during the summer with God’s Urgent Call, a study of the way God spoke to certain judges, prophets, and people of the New Testament.

Inside discover:

Weekly Scripture reading and reflection questions to enhance the teacher's personal spiritual growth. Weekly activities that the learners can do beyond the classroom to live out what they have learned. In-depth background article for each quarter. Quarterly pronunciation guide. Additional quarterly reference material, such as maps, charts, or timelines. Quarterly ideas for putting one's faith into action. Annual teacher enrichment article. Annual index to background Scriptures.

A study focused on the people who encountered Jesus Christ, revealing a fresh understanding of the Christian faith. What does it mean to be gospeled? John Indermark suggests that an encounter with the living Christ demands a response. Gospeled Lives presents biblical characters who had such an encounter. Some of these persons responded with joy and gratitude. Some ignored or rejected Christ's offer of good news. These stories, along with daily readings of scripture, written prayers, and suggested exercises, make an ideal study for either individual or group use over the 6-week Lenten period. The offer and the experience of grace are found in these pages, as they are in the Lenten season itself. Each chapter has five daily readings and an introductory overview of the week's theme. The appendix includes session guides for group study.

Scripturally-based readings to complement your Lenten journey.

The Way this most ancient naming of the Church in the Book of Acts reminds Christians we are a people on a journey of faith. But what signposts might guide us on this way? Way Words provides an itinerary of daily readings based on scripture for the journey we make during the season of Lent. 

Each of its daily readings, starting with Ash Wednesday and concluding with Easter Sunday, will explore one concise phrase or verse from the Old or NewTestament that offers a spiritual guidepost for modern-day disciples on the Way ofJesus Christ.

Each of the short forty-seven readings includes a scripture excerpt, followed by a brief prayer or spiritual exercise. This resource is written for personal study and devotional use during Lent.

Introductory reading: Ash Wednesday
Week One: Holy Foundations
Week Two: Godward Callings
Week Three: Crucial Decisions
Week Four: Community Fashionings
Week Five: Faithful Practices
Week Six: Enlarging Vistas
HolyWeek: Saving Mysteries

God is love. Love one another. We teach these to children and new Christians, but what exactly do we mean (and do they hear) by love? Our culture offers a multitude of understandings and experiences through which the meaning of love can be filtered. We in the church can become sloppy in our proclamation and embodiment of love as a result of those filterings, unless we remain grounded in the Biblical moorings of love revealed in the narratives of both the Old and New Testaments.The Greatest of These offers an extended exploration of love 's qualities in scripture. Each of the six chapters begins with a single page introduction to the chapter theme. The bulk of each chapter consists of six individual readings (2.5 to 3 pages each) that reflect on a Biblical passage related to the chapter 's theme on love. The book is written for use by individuals or groups, and a leader's guide, which is written into the book, provides for six suggested sessions.

Chapter One - Love as Gift

Chapter Two - Love as Invitation

Chapter Three - Love as Loyalty

Chapter Four - Love as Ethic

Chapter Five - Love as Compassion

Chapter Six - Love as Wonder

The written-in leader 's guide provides a basic template that can be used for each session along with specific suggestions for six sessions to plug into the template in order to explore each of the book 's chapters.