Fa & Advent STUDIES
FROM ABINGDON PRESS PLUS LEADERSHIP BOOKS AND NEW BIBLES
praise for the book
Magrey challenges us not to miss the difference the Christmas story can make long after the decorations have been taken down and our personal Christmas letters have been filed away. Don’t miss the surprises along the way!
— James A. Harnish, retired United Methodist pastor, author of Surprised By Mary: How the Christ Who Was Born through Mary Can Be Born Again Through You
NEW The Christmas Letters Celebrating Advent with Those Who Told the Story First Magrey R. deVega
HEAR FROM THE AUTHOR at Cokesbury.com
MORE STUDIES from this author
You may or may not know the story of your birth. If you do, there is something uniquely special about hearing it again, about revisiting those first moments and remembering how it all began for you. Similarly, Advent offers us a chance to celebrate the beginning of it all—the birth of Christ. This study from Magrey deVega invites you to hear about the miracle of Christ’s birth from those who first told the story.
In The Christmas Letters, we turn to the letters in the New Testament, also known as the Epistles. These letters contain the early church’s first attempts to understand and celebrate the mystery of the Incarnation—Jesus Christ being fully human and fully divine. By spending time with these sacred, ancient words this Advent season, you will come to know the meaning of Christ’s coming like never before. Each letter, each reflection, takes you one step closer to understanding the miraculous event that changed the world.
Components available for a 4-week Advent study include a book and a Leader Guide (both available in print and eBook), and a DVD with 4 [CC] videos, 8–10 min. each, featuring Magrey deVega teaching, that will help to spark discussions in your group.
e journey to Christmas begins in Rome.
praise for the book
Travel changes us, and Rob Fuquay is the best of guides. The journey to Bethlehem is our way of knowing ourselves in relation to the God who seeks our rebirth. It is a journey of longing and waiting, simplicity and humility, and in these practices we are changed by the different settings in which Emmanuel has chosen to dwell among and within us.
—Bishop Ken Carter, Western North Carolina Conference and author of Unrelenting Grace
HEAR FROM THE AUTHOR at Cokesbury.com & Ampli Media First Look
MORE STUDIES from this author
NEW On the Way to Bethlehem
An Advent Study
Rob Fuquay
On the Way to Bethlehem is a spiritual exploration and historical investigation into the events leading up to the birth of Jesus Christ. The story begins with a decree from Rome—the seat of worldly power—mandating a census. This seemingly mundane government order sets into motion a series of events that will culminate in the birth of the Savior in Bethlehem, a town that stands in stark contrast to the grandeur and authority of Rome.
Author Rob Fuquay takes you on an enlightening journey through key locations such as Rome, Jerusalem, Nazareth, and Bethlehem. Each chapter delves into the geographical and historical significance of these places, providing context that enhances our understanding of the Christmas narrative. Through detailed descriptions and thoughtful reflections, you’ll feel as though you’re walking these ancient paths yourself.
In addition to the book and Leader Guide (both available in print and eBook), the 4-week Advent study includes a DVD with 4 [CC] video teaching sessions, 11–12 min. each.
NEW Advent: A Calendar of Devotions 2024
Preparation for the Christmas season is often busy and frantic, but Advent: A Calendar of Devotions is the perfect Advent resource to help us make room for reflection on the birth of Jesus, anticipate his return, and celebrate the traditional messages of hope, peace, joy, and love. Each daily reading is based on the Revised Common Lectionary and includes Scripture, a short devotion, and a brief prayer.
Sold in packs of 10, the booklets are affordable enough to enable churches to share with the whole congregation and visitors or mail to others the church wishes to reach during the Advent season.
Designed to fit in #10 envelope. Sold in Packages of 10.
Also available: eBook edition also available. Quantity discounts available on download version for emailing.
Sold in Packages of 10.
Prepare the Way for the Lord Advent and the Message of John the Baptist
Adam Hamilton
Explores the Advent themes of John’s life and ministry, and how John calls us to prepare our hearts for Jesus’ coming. Study components include the book (with free downloadable teaching resources for children/ youth); a Leader Guide, a DVD with 4 [CC] videos, 14–16 min. each; and a Worship & Media Download.
The Angels of Christmas Hearing God’s Voice in Advent
Susan Robb
Explore the four angelic visits surrounding the birth of Jesus with Zechariah, Mary, Joseph, and the shepherds. Dive into the history of Gabriel and other Old Testament angels to discover God’s presence in history and our lives today. The study includes the book, a Leader Guide, and a DVD with 4 [CC] videos, 10–11 min. each.
Experiencing Christmas Christ in the Sights and Sounds of Advent
Matt Rawle
Things just look, smell, and taste differently during the Advent and Christmas season, and these differences are a sign to us that God is about to do something radical and different. Explore the sights, and sounds of Advent in this unique study.
Includes a book; a Leader Guide; a DVD featuring 4 [CC] videos, 10–12 min. each; and a Worship & Media Download.
An Unlikely Advent Extraordinary People of the Christmas Story
Rachel Billups
This Advent study focuses on the experiences of four sets of often overlooked characters in the Nativity story while guiding readers through the themes of hope, love, joy, and peace.
The 4-week study includes a book, a Leader Guide, and a DVD with 4 [CC] videos, 10–12 min. each.
Heaven and Earth
Advent and the Incarnation
Will Willimon
In Advent we celebrate and anticipate the earthshaking, life-transforming good news that God is coming to us. In this Advent study, Will Willimon introduces you to the God who brings heaven to earth and changes everything.
The 4-week study includes a book, a Leader Guide, and a DVD with 4 [CC] videos, 10–12 min. each.
praise for the study
As I read this “beginner’s guide” I realized anew how much meaning is hidden in plain sight. With wit, wisdom, and her signature clarity, Levine takes us on an adventure that highlights the intertextuality of the Bible and the role our senses play in interpreting the Gospel According to John. —Malinda Elizabeth Berry, Associate Professor of Theology & Ethics, Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary
HEAR FROM THE AUTHOR at Cokesbury.com & Ampli Media First Look
MORE STUDIES from this author
NEW The Gospel of John A Beginner’s Guide to the Way, the Truth, and the Life Amy-Jill Levine
The Gospel of John, in addition to being the last gospel, is noticeably different from the other three Synoptic Gospels. For one thing, it’s just so much more spiritual and personal! The “beloved disciple” had a special relationship with Jesus, and it shows in his stories, many of which don’t appear elsewhere. And more importantly, he tells us that he wrote it. No wonder this gospel resonates with people in such a special way.
In her new book, The Gospel of John: A Beginner’s Guide to the Way, the Truth, and the Life, Amy-Jill Levine, with her characteristic wit and charm, taps into the qualities that make John’s gospel so unique and personal. She introduces readers to the world of John’s gospel by unpacking the stories in their original context, along with examining how the text is read today, enhancing how we understand the divine, how we experience the world, and how we participate in the mystery of faith.
Components available for a 6-week study include a book and a Leader Guide (both available in print and eBook), and a DVD with 6 [CC] videos featuring Amy-Jill Levine teaching.
author insights
I’m somebody who loves to travel. I love to take people to holy places. So I hope through this book you’ll come with me to the Holy Land—Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Galilee. I love to go there and be able to tell people “Jesus walked here.” But then also to other holy lands—maybe Alabama, Niagra Falls— places where people trying to follow Jesus [did] something that was really just so significant. And I hope through that, you can discover how you follow Jesus where you are.
HEAR FROM THE AUTHOR at Cokesbury.com & Ampli Media First Look
MORE
from this author
NEW Everywhere Is Jerusalem Experiencing the Holy Then and Now
James C. Howell
Christianity isn’t a batch of spiritual thoughts or metaphysical truths. It’s a journey of real people with their feet on the ground in real places. In Everywhere Is Jerusalem, James Howell takes you on a spiritual pilgrimage—from Bethlehem to Jerusalem to Montgomery, Alabama and beyond. Part travelogue, part Bible study, this study will take you on a spiritual journey to the places that are most important in our faith. Along the way, you’ll discover the profound connections between biblical stories and the places they happened. And you’ll find God calling you to bring your own faith to life right where you are, right now.
This 6-week study includes a book and a Leader Guide (both available in print and eBook), and a DVD with 6 [CC] video teaching sessions featuring images and videos from the Holy Land, Assisi, and other locations mentioned in the book, as well as James C. Howell teaching.
Context
Putting Scripture in Its Place
Josh Scott
This 6-week, any-time-of-the-year study delves into well-known Scripture verses, exploring their true meanings in context and revealing fresh and enlightening interpretations that are often missed. Includes a book and Leader Guide (both include eBooks), and a DVD with 6 [CC] videos of Josh Scott teaching (10–12 min. each).
A COKESBURY EXCLUSIVE
Wrestling with Doubt, Finding Faith
Adam Hamilton
Everyone has doubts. Where is God when bad things happen? Does God hear our prayers? Often we treat such questions as the enemy of faith. But uncertainty doesn’t mean our belief is lacking. Doubt can be a path to a deeper, richer encounter with God.
In Wrestling with Doubt, Finding Faith, join best-selling author and pastor Adam Hamilton as he discusses some of our most significant sources of doubt and shows how a steady trust in God can emerge from them.
The any-time-of-the-year 6-week churchwide study for individuals and groups includes a book (large print and eBook), a comprehensive Leader Guide (also as an eBook), and a DVD with [CC] videos featuring Adam Hamilton. Also includes a digital Sermon and Worship Series download.
Matthew
The Gosepl of Promised Blessings
Matthew L. Skinner
This 6-week study explores the themes, topics, and tensions at the heart of Matthew’s enigmatic story about the life and work of Jesus.
Includes a book and Leader Guide (including eBooks), and a DVD with 6 [CC] videos of Matthew Skinner teaching (10–12 min. each).
praise for the book
Well into my sixth decade of life, I have learned a simple truth that Jennifer so beautifully illustrates in More Messy People. It’s this simple, yet profound truth: “Don’t put a period where God puts a comma.” Jen creatively helps us connect the lives of disordered women and men in the Bible to our lives and together discover the God who loves us most and best.
—Rev. Dr. Jorge Acevedo, leadership coach, writer, speaker, retired pastor HEAR FROM THE AUTHOR at Cokesbury.com
MORE STUDIES from this author
NEW
More Messy People
Life Lessons from Imperfect Biblical Heroes
Author Name (if applicable—books)
If you ever feel like you’re a total mess or that your mistakes are irredeemable, then Jen Cowart has news for you: you’re in good company!
In her new study, More Messy People: Life Lessons from Imperfect Biblical Heroes, Jen introduces us to a cast of characters from the Bible who led very messy lives and made some major faux pas. Say hello to biblical heavy hitters like Moses, Rachel and Leah, Elijah, Martha and Mary, Peter, and Paul. If you’re thinking, “But there’s not a B-lister in the entire bunch!” then look closer. Before they were “great,” they were imperfect: troubled, selfish, stubborn, unqualified, you name it! Yet God helped them clean up their messes and was able to use them in powerful ways, despite their mistakes. And the same can hold true for you! Join Jen Cowart in this Abingdon Women study and learn how God can turn your life around.
For groups studying More Messy People, or any of her other women’s Bible studies, Jen would love to give you some inspiration! Whether you’re starting your first session or your group has spent several weeks together studying, Jen invites you to contact her directly at jennifercowart.org. Don’t miss this one-of-a-kind opportunity to connect with an inspiring author.
This 6-week any-time-of-the-year study includes a Participant Workbook and a Leader Guide (including eBooks), and a DVD with 6 [CC] teaching sessions (approximately 20 min. each) with Jen Cowart teaching from unexpected locations.
Untangling Faith
Reclaiming Hope in the Questions Jesus Asked Amberly Neese
Thrive
Living Faithfully in DIfficult Times
Jennifer Cowart
In Thrive, author and teacher Jen Cowart helps women develop the habits and attitudes necessary to thrive, whatever their circumstances. Leading readers through the Book of James, a letter written about enduring hardships, she lifts up six characteristics of mature Christians. From endurance and humility to controlling our words, Jen helps participants find the divine and the practical in living faithfully.
This 6-week any-time-of-the-year study includes a Participant Workbook and Leader Guide (including eBooks), and a DVD with 6 [CC] videos of Jennifer Cowart (8–13 min. each).
Reclaim your hope!
Have you ever felt you struggled to find your faith footing?
Join Amberly Neese in Untangling Faith as she explores the questions Jesus asked as a way to reclaim our faith. Chapters explore our own questions like Can God Be Trusted? and How Can I Grow in Faith? Amberly’s unique humor and wit help the whole group find their way through deep and rich issues of personal faith, doubt, and growth.
Components for this six-week Bible study, each available separately, include a Participant Workbook with daily reading and reflection and a full Leader Guide to help plan full group sessions (both include eBooks), and a DVD with 6 [CC] video sessions (20-25 min. each).
Streaming videos available on Cokesbury.com and amplifymedia.com. (Amplify Media available by subscription.)
Create a culture of radical hospitali that surprises and delights guests beyond their expectations.
NEW
The Art of Hospitality Revised Edition A Practical Guide for a Ministry of Radical Welcome
Yvonne Gentile and Debi Nixon
Engaging worship and intentional follow-up processes are important, but what compels guests to return to our churches is the warmth of our welcome and hospitality that goes beyond their expectations.
In The Art of Hospitality, Yvonne Gentile and Debi Nixon guide you and your church in creating radical hospitality that infiltrates the heart and culture of the entire congregation. Complete with key principles and proven techniques and strategies, this compelling and practical program will transform the way you do church, leaving guests surprised, delighted, and eager to return.
This Revised Edition includes new insights and strategies for effective hospitality and welcome in all aspects of your digital and in-person ministry.
In addition to the book for pastors and other church leaders, there is a Companion Book for everyone else in the congregation. (Both are available as eBooks.)
Equip your greeters and ushers for radical hospitali .
NEW
The Greeter and Usher Handbook Revised Edition Creating a Ministry of Welcome
Yvonne Gentile
The Greeter and Usher Handbook provides a guide to the responsibilities of those who are generally the first faces visitors encounter in church: the usher and the greeter. Intended for training use by church staff or volunteers, the text covers responsibilities related to all aspects of creating a welcoming atmosphere for visitors and new members.
This Revised Edition includes updated position descriptions and best practices reflecting a greater use of online resources and an emphasis on the greeter’s and usher’s role in safety and security.
The book is also available as an eBook.
Join the Fresh Expressions Movement!
Resourcing church leaders to serve the present age.
Your church can thrive in this strange new world!
NEW Gardens in the Desert
How the Adaptive Church Can Lead a Whole New Life
Michael Adam Beck and Kenneth H. Carter Jr.
Feeling lost? Learn how your church can thrive in this strange new world!
Picture a forest full of strong, old-growth trees with bright new saplings dotting the gaps between. This can be a vision for the church we are becoming—a healthy spiritual ecosystem where established churches nurture new congregations, even congregations that look quite different.
In Gardens in the Desert: How the Adaptive Church Can Lead a Whole New Life, authors Michael Adam Beck and Kenneth H, Carter Jr. draw from Jeremiah 29 to reveal how the Methodist Church, by being adaptive, can be old, new, traditional, and unconventional, all at the same time. Readers will see their challenges in a new light and learn to shift from disillusionment (the desert) to hope (the gardens). This inspired and Scripture-rooted book is packed with practical ideas and instruction for pastors and other leaders inside and outside the church. Plus, get free online extras with your purchase!
Also available as an eBook.
NEW Adaptive Ecclesiology
Cultivating Gardens of Healing in a Desert of Trauma
Michael Adam Beck and Kenneth H. Carter Jr.
Adaptive Ecclesiology takes a deeper look into the principles in the book Gardens in the Desert. This book provides foundational material on adaptive leadership for the church. It is for seminary students, people training for ministry in other settings, and local church leaders who are striving to understand the biblical and theological underpinnings of adaptive ecclesiology. Available only as an eBook.
NEW An Ecumenical Field Guide For Fresh Expressions
Michael Adam Beck
This practical manual for understanding and implementing the Fresh Expressions movement—a new way of thinking about the local church and a new way of doing church outside the confines of the church building—works for any congregation in any denominational setting. Also available as an eBook.
NEW Changing My Mind
Yes, pastor, you can (and should) change your mind!
The Overlooked Virtue for Faithful Ministry
Will Willimon
The context of ministry continually changes, the surrounding culture changes, and a living God demands constant movement and change. So, pastors and preachers must be prepared to change! Some of the current assumptions about how to persevere in ministry need to be questioned. What ideas and approaches do we need to change, in ourselves and in our ministries? And how, exactly, do we change our minds and practices, when we’re called to be steady, stable, and sure?
Will Willimon narrates of some of the twists and turns in his own journey as a pastor. These stories and “change-of-mind-and-ministry” points can be helpful to new pastors who are negotiating their own way into future ministry. And longtime pastors will find assurance and encouragement as they continue to grow and change, too.
The book is also available as an eBook.
NEW The Fullest Possible Love Living in Harmony with God and Neighbor
Paul W. Chilcote
What does Wesleyan theology and the Methodist way of life have to do with Benedictine ideas and practices? Renowned teacher Paul W. Chilcote reveals surprising and profound similarities and overlaps in the practices and theological convictions of these two Christian streams, revealing a new and age-old way of practicing our faith. Available as book and eBook.
NEW Church Culture How to Assess It, Shift It, and Shape It
Jim Ozier and Yvette Thibodeaux
A church’s culture is the launchpad for everything a church does, the starting point for every ministry. If the culture is “off,” everything else will be out of kilter. Church Culture equips every pastor and leader with the tools necessary for culture change. It provides a step-by-step process leaders can use to diagnose and gently shift the culture in their church. Also available as an eBook.
praise for e CEB Student Bibles
“If you’re searching for a Bible that will draw youth not only to read God’s Word but also form a deeper spiritual connection, The CEB Student Bible is your answer as it ‘mirrors how young people talk, read, and write with their friends.’ Because youth are a part of its composition, the effectiveness and impact is enhanced.” — Youth Worker magazine
NEW
The CEB Student Bible
The CEB Student Bible is a Bible for young people that invites them into deeper forms of both personal and social holiness, helps them make connections between the world of the Bible and their own world, offers resources for engaging the text in personal and group study, and embodies a commitment to taking young people seriously as Christian leaders now, not just in the future. It is a resource that helps young disciples of Jesus Christ as they transform the world.
Inside The CEB Student Bible, you will find introductions to each book of the Bible from leading biblical scholars; more than 350 articles; group discussion questions, activities, and exercises; and prayers and reflections written by young people. Updated Edition–Decotone, Black. Limited Edition–Decotone, Brown. Hardcover.
Also available, not shown:
Updated Paperback Edition (same design as hardcover).
Means of Grace Bible
Common English Bible
This special edition of the Common English Bible begins with a series of encouraging reflections from leaders, teachers, and theologians representing the rich diversity of the church and showing our rich imagination for reading the Bible in such a grace-filled way. Features translation footnotes, in-text subject headings, and color maps from National Geographic. Flexible Imitation Leather.
CEB Deep Blue Kids Bible
Common English Bible
This engaging, interactive, limited edition Bible offers four-color icons and illustrations throughout with notes, devotionals, Bible trivia, and other elements to capture inquisitive young minds and encourage a thirst for God’s timeless message. Young readers join three life-like kids in discovering the Bible and what it means to their lives. Lighthouse Green. Ocean Surf Hardcover.