Alicia Davis Porterfield

Sessions with Psalms is a ten-session study unit designed to explore what it looks like for the words of the psalms to become the words of our prayers. Each session is followed by a thought-provoking page of questions that allow for a deeper experience of the scriptural passages. These resource pages can be used by seminar leaders during preparation and group discussion, as well as in individual Bible study.The book of Psalms is indeed the church's prayer book. If we tell the truth about ourselves, then these are our prayers. If we are looking for ten easy steps to prayer, then the psalms are not the right option. But if we want to deepen our relationships with God and each other, our understanding of ourselves and of Scripture, and open ourselves to transformation, then the psalms are exactly the right word.

The "duet" of calls-to follow God and to become a mother-began with Sarah's story in Genesis and continues in God's people today. As more women follow God's call into ministry, many are discovering the power of this duet. These women are gifted for ministry, trained and shaped through excellent educations, and affirmed in their call. They serve as pastors in churches, on campuses, in impoverished areas, prisons, hospitals, hospices, the military, and in academia. And many of them are also called to be mothers: birth mothers, adoptive mothers, mothers to other people's children, mothers to their students. As they continue to follow God, the call story and the birth story combine, and the duet rings true.Each essay in this inspiring collection is as different as the mother-minister who wrote it, from theologians to chaplains, inner-city ministers to rural-poverty ministers, youth pastors to preachers, mothers who have adopted, birthed, and done both.