Showing results by narrator "Lyle Blaker" in All Categories

The American church is at a critical crossroads. Our witness has been compromised, our numbers are down, and our reputation has been sullied, due largely to our own faults and fears. The church's ethnocentrism, consumerism, and syncretism have blurred the lines between discipleship and partisanship. Pastor Eric Costanzo, missiologist Daniel Yang, and nonprofit leader Matthew Soerens find that for the church to return to health, we must decenter ourselves from our American idols and recenter on the undeniable, inalienable core reality of the global, transcultural kingdom of God.

National tensions are at a record high. People on all points in the political spectrum care deeply about their country, although they differ wildly in their opinions about what it looks like to serve that country well. As Christians, we love God and seek to follow him. At the same time, nothing shapes us and tugs at our loyalties quite like the place we live. And of course we are regularly encouraged to pledge our allegiance to our country―or particular understandings of it. Who wins when the priorities of God and our country clash?

Leadership is not static. Instead, authority in projects shifts dynamically between project managers, individual team members, and sub-teams, depending on the situation. Leadership may be exercised through a vertical, horizontal, shared, or distributed leadership approach. However, balanced leadership ensures the best suitable approach is used in any given situation. Based on an award-winning global program of research studies, Balanced Leadership is a thorough investigation of balanced leadership in projects. 

In many circles, the image of what a pastor is or does looks nothing like the picture Jesus paints for his disciples of the character that marks citizens of his kingdom. Shepherding Like Jesus is a call to rebel against much of what our culture understands pastoral leadership to be and return to being the shepherd God has called pastors to be. It’s an invitation to recover the most essential element of pastoral ministry: the character of Christ.

Stress happens. We all feel it. It steals our joy, interrupts our sleep, affects our relationships, and wears us down. We can't escape the things and people that cause it. We can't medicate it away. So we must deal with it. But how? How do we attain peace in life?

Get Your Game F.A.C.E. On is here to help guide business owners, partners, colleagues, and suppliers to a clear understanding of how to have successful businesses and be happy at the same time. The author accomplished building many successful companies to achieve goals well beyond what she imagined, and she did it while having fun and enjoyment in watching others succeed. If you want to learn more about F.A.C.E., have a listen and feel free to reach out to the author to learn more about her company, We Guide, You Grow, LLC.

When we encounter human suffering or personal tragedy, Christians and non-Christians alike utter the same refrain: Where is God? If God exists, then where in the world is he? Why doesn't he show himself? And how can we tell if God is really working or not? Tim Muehlhoff gives us insight into recognizing how God is at work in the world.

A kidnapped girl. A terrified Cape Cod. And a police cadet in way over his head... Police cadet Pepper Ryan’s biggest worries are a crummy love life and doubts about his supposedly bright future. Until a teenage girl is brazenly kidnapped, stunning her beach town. The police launch a manhunt to catch the kidnapper, nicknamed the Greenhead Snatcher. Pepper tries to locate the girl himself, but only finds trouble.

Police Officer Pepper Ryan returns home to Cape Cod for his last shot at redemption. Dumb move? He can never measure up to the ghost of his brother who died a good cop. But when a Secret Service agent’s corpse shows up in a clambake pit with a note threatening the President's life, Ryan sees his chance to erase the past and prevent the assassination.

Helen and Frank Schreider's dream was to drive the length of the Americas; from the town of Circle, Alaska (just outside the Arctic Circle), to the world's southernmost town, Ushuaia, in Tierra del Fuego. With their German shepherd Dinah along for the ride, they were the first people in history to have made this trip.

Fact: Health improves learning. Yet nationwide, elementary school students spend 12 times more classroom hours studying history than health. Worse, most kids don’t get enough physical activity and over five million underage youth vape.

History of the 318 Field Hospital has been timely written for the 100th anniversary of the United States' entry into WWI, the Great War. The story will take you from the early days in Georgia, Camp Oglethorpe, as the medical specialist begins to learn about army life, to the Camp Lee, Virginia, experience, where nonspecialists learn quickly how to become soldiers.

Whether it is recognized or not, America is engaged in a space race with China. Unlike the previous between the USA and the USSR that resulted in multiple moon landings, this is a new space race to expand and exploit the resources of the solar system. America initially embarked on this race in a similar fashion to the previous one, focusing on scientific exploration of deep space and satellite support to terrestrial military forces.

For weeks, Briga, a young druid, was troubled by unsettling dreams: dreams of fire, death, and destruction. Dreams that came true when her clan was ambushed by a strange new enemy who called themselves the Drev'an. After sustaining grievous injuries in the fighting, Briga was captured and claimed as a war prize by the Drev'an leader, Batu. With her life and safety in Batu's hands, her only hope of survival is to use her druidic skills and the appearance of a mysterious wolf to prove her worth to the Drev'an and their ambitious chief.

Matt Frazier, Jason “Hop” Hopkins, and Mark Ragone have been friends since elementary school. They played ball together, they hung out together, and they somehow managed to (mostly) work their way through the awkward years of junior high together. Now, they are finally starting to come into their own as they prepare to start their junior year, but on the first day of school, a new kid named Nate Mayes arrives and, with him, a secret.

Neil Baggio will go from enjoying the sunsets in Santa Fe to chasing down the trail of international drug ring set on releasing a new drug to the world. Neil, reluctant at first, is forced to get involved when Maria trusts the wrong people. Traveling across the US and the globe, Neil will have to find a new path, new routine, and a new way to survive each day.

Sitting in FCI Milan, the federal prison for an interview that will change his life and make it hard to focus on this new case. The disappearance of a missing girl, an activist protesting Gaines chemical. Neil will soon find out the head of Gaines is more involved than first anticipated. Neil Baggio sits down for a conversation long overdue, with an inmate at FCI Milan. Neil will find out the interview, along with this new case, are tied together beyond him. This case will have Neil sending his team to international waters while he stays home to work the case and the interview.

There is something fundamentally missing in modern leadership. Humility has been replaced with popularity. Selflessness has been replaced with celebrity. Security has been replaced with envy. Leadership is too often seen as a means of achieving greatness. A position that, once attained, affords a person authority, status, and celebrity. This modern leadership paradigm can be seen in businesses, politics, nonprofits, and even churches.

Neil Baggio, fresh off ending the Cappelano case, is called in the middle of the night from his high school. The headmaster, formerly his teacher, asks Neil to come help investigate a student’s mysterious death. What looks to be a suicide will have Neil chasing down the Church, causing scene after scene and flying to Europe to chase one last lead that will live up to the Baggio name.

A young frog, Hendrix, meets his match when he attempts to rob a professor, Marshall, who talks the thug out of robbing him and into taking a quest to find three noble truths. Hendrix accepts the professor's challenge, intrigued by the old frog's courage and insight. But the challenge winds up taking both frogs on a wild, life-changing journey.