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Sacred Flow

January 17, 2011 in Missional, Self-Development, Spirituality with Comments Off

DOES YOUR FAITH FLOW?
In Sacred Flow, Artie Sposaro describes an inspired way of living that integrates flow, a sought after peak-experience, with the Christian faith in order to foster a faith that flows. Like athletes fluidly performing with extraordinary grace, God designed us to gracefully flow in His Spirit.

Sacred Flow invites us to discover a fully engaged faith that is empowered by God’s Spirit. Life in the sacred flow leads us to dive deeply and swim freely in God’s love. It compels us to draw upon God’s effort, making our effort… less. The result is a rhythmic lifestyle that is moved by the divine current – God.

Living in the sacred flow you will:
❖ enjoy deeper intimacy with God
❖ break free from a performance-based lifestyle
❖ manage everyday life with greater ease
❖ thrive in the midst of difficult circumstances

“For those who desire a faith with more than a garnish of spirituality, Sacred Flow is a godsend. This book will open your soul to the gush of the Spirit. You’ll be amazed how fast and how far you’ll be swept into unimagined currents of discovery and delight.” -Leonard Sweet, best-selling author & professor at Drew Theological School & George Fox University

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To Love and To Cherish From This Day Forward

November 20, 2010 in Ministry, Missional with Comments Off

In the pages of To Love and To Cherish From This Day Forward, Millwood sets out to paint a different picture, a new picture of the Church: a portrait of a Church which is not a building, a business, an institution, a school, or an organization. Rather, a Church who is a person – a Bride – a Bride who adores Her Groom.

The goal of the book is to call Church members and leaders to get off the Church-As-Merry-Go-Round…take a deep breath…and to make the hard decision to look into the mirror and compare our churches to this portrait of a healthy Bride.

About Randy Millwood:
Randy consideres himself a freelance Christian worker. Randy works with the churches of the Baptist Convention of Maryland/Delaware where he coaches pastoral leaders, particularly the soul care of pastors and pastoral staff; consult with small, home/market-based groups; and champions relational spiritual formation. He am also a Department Team Leader and faculty member for a completely online, purpose-driven seminary called Rockbridge Seminary. Previously, Randy served as Professor of Christian Education at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.

Praise for To Love and To Cherish From This Day Forward:
Leaders need to make sure they are working on the right questions. Answering the wrong questions precisely right still won’t matter! Randy Millwood gives church leaders a better set of questions to work on than the ones consuming so many. Don’t read this book if you want to figure out how to do church better; by all means read it if you want to BE church better.
Reggie McNeal
Author of Missional Renaissance: Changing The Scorecard for the Church
Missional Leadership Specialist Leadership Network
leadnet.org/reggiemcneal

Possibly never before in the history of the Church is such a book needed to encourage followers of Jesus to love the Bride of Christ, like He loves her. It is easy to become disillusioned and disenchanted with the institutional church. Randy Millwood skillfully and poetically examines the characteristics of a healthy Bride and inspires Christian leaders to equip the Church to live out her passion for Christ in a skeptical world. This book offers real hope for those desiring to follow the “Way” of Jesus and experience real community.
Daryl Eldridge
President
Rockbridge Seminary

I know Randy Millwood. He is the real deal. He lives what he writes. In To Love and to Cherish from This Day Forward, Randy calls on the church to be the real deal, to understand clearly what the writers of the New Testament wrote and practiced, and to live and make disciples accordingly. This is a must read for those who are serious about growing a healthy, disciple-making church.
David Lee
Executive Director
Baptist Convention of Maryland/Delaware

Randy Millwood offers a powerful, personal contribution to missional writings as he provides sound theological insights cradled in stories of God’s transforming work in people, churches and the world. A tool for those in pulpits, pews and leadership in the world as the church at work in the world! Thanks Randy!
Edward Hammett
Author of Spiritual Leadership in a Secular Age
Partner with The Columbia Partnership www.thecolumbiapartnership.org

Here comes the Bride! In To Love and To Cherish from This Day Forward, Randy Millwood has provided an enjoyable and winsome look at the Bride of Christ, the church. Using the analogy of 1st century Jewish marriage practices to inform the modern reader, he offers a helpful critique to those of us within the Body of Christ, calling her to be about healthy disciple-making by focusing on the process rather than the results. Millwood reminds Christ-followers to live out the wonder of their relationship with the Bridegroom before the eyes of the world.
David Jackson
Church Multiplication Strategist, BCMD
Author of PlantLIFE: Principles and Practices of Church Planting

Casual, fresh, and insightful, a great combination for a book on such vital subject areas as church health and making more disciples. Randy has a unique way of communicating significant insights intertwined with everyday stories. There are truths about our life in Christ and His church that you don’t want to miss. If you are wondering what it means to be a church in the midst of all the spiritual confusion, read this book. It might just give you some new perspectives and pieces of the mosaic puzzle you have been missing.
Will McRaney
Director of Evangelism Strategy
Florida Baptist Convention
Author of The Art of Personal Evangelism

Among the mentors who have most shaped my understanding of “church” and “mission” and “discipling” and “equipping,” Randy is at the top of the list. This is his heart and wisdom shared for our benefit and ultimately for the benefit of those to whom we will live sent in our daily lives. A very important book for the church of America to read and to apply.
Jason Dukes
Pastor, Westpoint Church
Author of Live Sent: you are a letter
www.LiveSent.com

Purchasing Information:

The book is available through Missional Press by clicking the Store link above. The book is also available for order at Barnes and Noble, Amazon and other retailers soon.

Holy Rewired:Science, the Gospel, and the Journey Towards Wholeness

June 1, 2010 in Ministry, Missional, Self-Development, Theology with Comments Off

Introducing Holy Rewired: Science, the Gospel, and the Journey Towards Wholeness!

This is a book about the journey towards wholeness from a life of unhealthy, addictive, and sinful behavior. In it the author examines how findings from emerging disciplines like neurobiology and behavioral science enrich and even validate the scriptures regarding the reason for unhealthy, addictive and sinful behavior.

Holy Rewired describes how changing our behavior is not simply a matter of being more disciplined about prayer and Bible reading or adding additional spiritual activities like fasting. Behavioral change requires accessing the deepest parts of our emotional lives. Engaging and dealing with our emotions leads to increasing emotional health, which in turn leads to behavioral change. Emotional health allows us to change our thinking about ourselves, our actions, and our relationship to others. It offers the freedom to regain a healthy understanding of who we are in Christ and in our relationship with God the Father. In this context, we can make progress in our journey toward wholeness.

In order to effectively change our behavior, we must also remember who we are as created by the Father. The ultimate impact of sin has been to destroy our sense of identity. We have lost the sense of being created in the image of God and being created for perfect relationship with our Creator. Because we are broken eikons (the Greek word for man being created in the image of God), we are searching to discover who and whose we are. Unhealthy behavior is an expression of that searching and longing that is within all of us. However, without the reshaping skill of the Potter, the cracked pots cannot be made whole and thus continue to struggle finding themselves in a world ignorant of the hope that brings wholeness.

Unfortunately, the institutional church has frequently dismissed the issues of unhealthy behavior as simply sin or a lack of self-discipline. The antidote for dealing with the behavioral dysfunction, according to those who emphasize spiritual disciplines, is to do more things that are spiritual: pray more, read the Bible more, spend more time in church. This prescription is limited in addressing the real cause of destructive behavior. It does not address the impact of other people’s destructive behavior upon us. The unhealthy behavior of others can negatively impact our own behavior. The negative impact is often, perhaps even always, the source of the unhealthy and destructive behaviors a person exhibits.

In addition, the spiritual prescription does not take into account multiple memory storage areas with which our minds are created. The emotional memory holds traumatic experiences, which cause us to react out of pain when we sense we are in a similar situation. These experiences, part of our emotional memory, are rarely readily accessible in our cognitive memory. These memories must be probed, remembered, and released.

Drawing on recent research from emerging sciences such as neuroplasticity, emotional intelligence, and family systems theory, behavioral change is a result of our journey towards emotional health and wholeness. It requires us to unlearn and put aside the practices and effects of self-destructive behavior and fully embrace our identity as people created in the image of God for relationship with him.

Endorsements:

In this encouraging study of spiritual whole-making, the key to a whole-souled life is to be wholly souled in biblical truth and integrity. – Leonard Sweet, Drew University, George Fox University, sermons.com

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