Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove

Fifty-two readings on living in intentional Christian community to spark group discussion.Gold Medal Winner, 2017 Illumination Book Awards, Christian LivingSilver Medal Winner, 2017 Benjamin Franklin Award in Religion, Independent Book Publishers AssociationWhy, in an age of connectivity, are our lives more isolated and fragmented than ever? And what can be done about it? The answer lies in the hands of God’s people. Increasingly, today’s Christians want to be the church, to follow Christ together in daily life. From every corner of society, they are daring to step away from the status quo and respond to Christ’s call to share their lives more fully with one another and with others. As they take the plunge, they are discovering the rich, meaningful life that Jesus has in mind for all people, and pointing the church back to its original calling: to be a gathered, united community that demonstrates the transforming love of God.Of course, such a life together with others isn’t easy. The selections in this volume are, by and large, written by practitioners—people who have pioneered life in intentional community and have discovered in the nitty-gritty of daily life what it takes to establish, nurture, and sustain a Christian community over the long haul.Whether you have just begun thinking about communal living, are already embarking on sharing life with others, or have been part of a community for many years, the pieces in this collection will encourage, challenge, and strengthen you. The book’s fifty-two chapters can be read one a week to ignite meaningful group discussion.Contributors include: John F. Alexander, Eberhard Arnold, J. Heinrich Arnold, Johann Christoph Arnold, Alden Bass, Benedict of Nursia, Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt, Leonardo Boff, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Joan Chittister, Stephen B. Clark, Andy Crouch, Dorothy Day, Anthony de Mello, Elizabeth Dede, Catherine de Hueck Doherty, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Jenny Duckworth, Friedrich Foerster, Richard J. Foster, Jodi Garbison, Arthur G. Gish, Helmut Gollwitzer, Adele J Gonzalez, Stanley Hauerwas, Joseph H. Hellerman, Roy Hession, David Janzen, Rufus Jones, Emmanuel Katongole, Arthur Katz, Søren Kierkegaard, C. Norman Kraus, C.S. Lewis, Gerhard Lohfink, Ed Loring, Chiara Lubich, George MacDonald, Thomas Merton, Hal Miller, José P. Miranda, Jürgen Moltmann, Charles E. Moore, Henri J. M. Nouwen, Elizabeth O’Connor, John M. Perkins, Eugene H.Peterson, Christine D. Pohl, Chris Rice, Basilea Schlink, Howard A. Snyder, Mother Teresa, Thomas à Kempis, Elton Trueblood, and Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove.

According to Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, faithful action is always inspired and sustained by common convictions—the basic truths that have sustained God’s people throughout every generation.The Awakening of Hope re-presents Christian faith by beginning with stories of faithful witness and asking, Why? Why do Christians eat together? Why do we fast? Why would we rather die than kill? These are the questions that help us see why creation and the fall, covenant and community, ethics and evangelism matter.This book and its accompanying DVD (sold separately) is a contemporary catechism, celebrating lives and stories that wouldn’t make sense if the gospel were not true. And then going one step further, this project shares the good news of Jesus and the way of life that he makes possible.

Surprising teachers. Tragic losses. Unexpected gifts. Every neighborhood has stories, and ways of singing the stories of their place. Start digging in, and you find all sorts of music. In a neighborhood skilled in improvisation, like Enderly Park, you also discover new ways to sing those songs, and a choir of new kinfolk to sing them with. Since 2005, author and saxophonist Greg Jarrell has been learning the songs of Enderly Park, his Charlotte neighborhood. A Riff of Love explores the riffs and melodies that comprise the life of the neighborhood and of QC Family Tree, the hospitality house where he lives. Though neighbors there face significant economic and political barriers, they still thrive. Funny, heartbreaking, and challenging in equal measure, these stories and essays about life in Enderly Park will surely inspire new improvisations towards community and neighbor-love for everyone who reads them.

The diverse contributors to this issue of Plough Quarterly focus on what it means to be a peacemaker. Peacemaking, they show, is a riskier and more ambitious undertaking than we may have imagined. Today we must wage peace where thousands of children are being murdered by militias or forced to fight as soldiers. We need peacemakers in divided cities from Paris to Baltimore, peacemakers in a culture with little tolerance for Christian witness, and peacemakers in churches riven by ideological fights and petty grudges, not to mention making peace with our spouses, and with ourselves. Hear from active peacemakers on the frontlines of these battles and explore insights on peacemaking from Thomas Merton, Dorothy Day, Badshah Khan, Jeannette Rankin, Charles Spurgeon, André Trocmé, Peace Pilgrim, Albert Schweitzer, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Eberhard Arnold. And as always, Plough Quarterly includes world-class art by the likes of Marc Chagall, Egon Schiele, Lisa Toth, Carl Larsson, Ben Shahn, Mikalojus Konstantinas Ciurlionis, Paul Klee, Antonello da Messina, and others. Plough Quarterly features stories, ideas, and culture for people eager to put their faith into action. Each issue brings you in-depth articles, interviews, fiction, poetry, book reviews, and art to help you put Jesus’ message into practice and find common cause with others.

A pastor’s frank advice for Christians who want to bring the gospel to their neighbors. Gold Medal Winner, 2016 Illumination Book Award in ministry/mission, Independent Publishers How can Christians represent the love of Christ to their neighbors (let alone people in foreign countries) in an age when Christianity has earned a bad name from centuries of intolerance and cultural imperialism? Is it enough to love and serve them? Can you win their trust without becoming one of them? Can you be a missional Christian without a church? This provocative book, based on a recently uncovered collection of 100-year-old letters from a famous pastor to his nephew, a missionary in China, will upend pretty much everyone’s assumptions about what it means to give witness to Christ. Blumhardt challenges us to find something of God in every person, to befriend people and lead them to faith without expecting them to become like us, and to discover where Christ is already at work in the world. This is truly good news: No one on the planet is outside the love of God. At a time when Christian mission has too often been reduced to social work or proselytism, this book invites us to reclaim the heart of Jesus’ great commission, quietly but confidently incarnating the love of Christ and trusting him to do the rest.

Jesus said, "I was a stranger and you welcomed me." How would your life change if you were committed to acting on his words? Using the power of well-told stories, Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove shows readers how they can experience Jesus every day as they minister to "the least of these my brethren." As a teenager, the author started to read the New Testament as if Jesus really did mean everything he said. How would a person's life change if he or she assumed that Jesus's more outlandish statements were not mere figures of speech? Jesus pointed to the most neglected people of his day and said that when you minister to them you minister to him directly. Wilson-Hartgrove chose to act on those words, believing that Jesus appears to us in the neediest people we encounter. The author is a popular speaker and one of the founders of the growing New Monastic movement. In inner-city Durham, North Carolina, he and fellow believers welcome every person who comes to their door--without exception.

Through Iraqis' eyes--through their stories--this book "tells the truth" about what war and the U.S. government's antiterrorism policies have really meant for them. Iraqis recount the abuses they experienced in the U.S. and new Iraqi detention systems, the excessive violence, and collective punishment of the U.S.-led occupying forces, as well as tensions between Kurds and Arab Iraqis--tensions rooted in Saddam Hussein's genocide against the Kurds. Stories coming out of Iraq between 2004 and 2011 also describe the efforts of courageous and creative Iraqis speaking out against injustices and building movements of nonviolence and reconciliation. We also get a glimpse of how the author, a peace-worker, immersed in the violence and chaos of war, dealt with the pain and suffering of those around her, as well as her own personal losses and kidnapping ordeal. Her experiences strengthen her belief that the power of nonviolent suffering love (the way of Jesus) is stronger than the power of violence and force, and can break down barriers and be transformative in threatening situations. She counters the myths of the superiority of violent force to root out evil in places such as Iraq and challenges us to do all we can to prevent the tragedy of any future war.

What modern church doesn't call itself a ""community""? Yet for how many is it real? How many churches form disciples intimately connected enough to call themselves Christ's ""body""? How many form disciples who know the relational arts that create a robust unity? How many form disciples practiced in the ways of sacrificial love? Pastor John Alexander, a thirty-year veteran of living in Christian communities, yearns for all the wonder and promise of the New Testament vision of church to come true. After struggling with Scripture in live-together church communities, he shares the Scriptural practices and wisdom that make for an authentic, sustainable, and joyful life together. For any person or church wanting to move beyond the cliche of ""community"" to the radical vision of the New Testament, this book is an invaluable guide ""John Alexander has been one of the unsung heroes in the modern Christian world. His understanding of Christianity as a counter-cultural movement is profound, and he has been able to communicate it with effectiveness in his writings. Everything he has written has been marked by fresh insights into what it means to be a Christian in a society in which cultural Christianity has become the norm."" --Tony Campolo, author of Red Letter Christians ""Superb. Disturbing. Challenging. Radical because it is biblical. Being Church is an extremely well-written, theologically profound but easily understood presentation of a hugely important truth: almost everything depends on recovering the revolutionary reality of genuine Christian community. A must-read."" --Ronald J. Sider, author of Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger ""Being Church is a comprehensive and winsome invitation to embrace a more radical and holistic vision for the church. It is also a testament to the remarkable story of Church of the Sojourners. John's voice has the weight of wisdom that comes only from deep reflection and hard-earned experience--it is a voice that we should pay attention to."" --Mark Scandrette, author of Practicing the Way of Jesus ""It took a sixty-year journey before John Alexander could write this book. Eventually he learned that trying harder and doing more is not the way God changes us. Nor is it the good news of the gospel for the world. This book shares the alternative: the culture of grace. It was worth the wait."" --Chris Rice, author of Reconciling All Things John Alexander earned a degree in philosophy and psychology at Oxford University and a master's degree at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, and pursued doctoral studies at Northwestern University. He taught at Wheaton College, edited The Other Side magazine, authored Your Money or Your Life and The Secular Squeeze, and was pastor of Church of the Sojourners (a live-together church community in San Francisco) before his death in 2001.

Common Prayer Pocket Edition helps individuals and today’s diverse church pray together across traditions and denominations. With an ear to the particulars of various liturgical prayer traditions, and using an advisory team of liturgy experts, the authors have created a tapestry of prayer that celebrates the best of each tradition. This convenient and portable book also includes tools for prayer scattered throughout to aid those unfamiliar with liturgy and deepen the prayer life of those already familiar with liturgical prayer. Common Prayer Pocket Edition adds new prayers for compline (late evening) and for individual use, such as prayers for travel, protection, and various blessings. It includes a table of days and readings for the morning prayers as well as an annotated list of saints and days to remember. Churches and individuals who desire a deeper prayer life–and those familiar with Shane Claiborne and New Monasticism–will enjoy the tools offered in this book as a fresh take on liturgy.

FOR DISTRIBUTION OUTSIDE THE USA. Designed to help individuals, families, and congregations pray, sing, and act together across traditions and denominations, Shane Claiborne, Enuma Okoro, and Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove offer a book of common prayer to help you and your community join together each day with the same songs, scriptures, and prayers.

Experience a deeper prayer life through this fresh take on ancient liturgy for believers today. Designed to help individuals, families, and congregations pray together across denominations, this book of common prayer will help you and your community join together each day with the same songs, scriptures, and prayers. Composed under an advisory team of liturgy experts, these three influential and inspiring authors have created Common Prayer--a tapestry of prayer that will help the church be one as God is one.This universal prayer book allows readers to greet each day together, remembering significant dates and Christian heroes in church history, as well as important historic dates in the struggle for freedom and justice. There are morning prayers for each day of the year, evening prayers for each of the seven days of the week, a midday prayer to be repeated throughout the year, and prayers for special occasions. In addition, there are morning prayers for Holy Week.Common Prayer also includes a unique songbook composed of music and classic lyrics to more than fifty songs from various traditions, including African spirituals, traditional hymns, Mennonite gathering songs, and Taize chants. Tools for prayer are scattered throughout to aid those who are unfamiliar with liturgy and to deepen the prayer life of those who are familiar with liturgical prayer.Ultimately, Common Prayer makes liturgy dance, taking the best of the old and bringing new life to it with a fresh fingerprint for the contemporary renewal of the church.

There is a new trend afoot, one that goes against the prevailing Western model, influenced by the values and principles of international commerce. Presented here are five "signs of life," showcased by this network of movements best referred to as "new friars." God's kingdom in the hands of the people of God, the contributors to this book show us, is first and foremost incarnational, which leads necessarily to gospel witness that is devotional, communal, missional and marginal. With a survey of the history of new friar movements and commentary by forerunner, this seminal book, edited by Scott A. Bessenecker, paints a picture of mission that is new only because it has been neglected for so long, a mission that is truly good news to the people in its path. With contributions from Viv Grigg, Craig and Nayhouy Greenfield, Derek Engdahl, Jean-Luc Krieg, Chris Heuertz, Darren Prince, Jose Penate Aceves, John Hayes and Ash Barker, this book brings together a chorus of voices at the front lines of what God is doing through the new friar community.

The original guide to “practicing the presence of God”“We must not grow weary of doing little things for the love of God, who looks not on the great size of the work, but on the love of it.” In this classic work, which has instructed and inspired millions, a humble 17th-century monk reveals the secrets of daily, moment-by-moment fellowship with God. “In the way of God, thoughts count very little,” writes Brother Lawrence, who spent much of his monastic life in the kitchen. “Love does it all.” Full of realistic honesty, friendliness, and simplicity, Brother Lawrence shows that it is possible to meet God amongst the pots and pans—in the ordinary, daily events of life. This edition, rendered from the original French into graceful, contemporary English, will nourish and delight all those who seek to practice the presence of God.

In The Wisdom of Stability, Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove illuminates the bible and monastic understanding of why staying in one place is both a virtue, and good for you.

Bønn og handling, åndelighet og kampen for sosial rettferdighet - hvordan henger disse tingene sammen? Dette er spørsmål som Shane Claiborne og Johnathan Wilson-Hartgrove undersøker med utgangspunkt i tre sentrale bønner i Det nye testamentet. "Gud hører bønn. Men hører vi selv våre bønner? Shane og Jonathan hjelper oss å lytte til det vi faktisk ber om når vi ber slik Jesus ba. Og samtidig legge øret til virkeligheten her og nå. Sånt blir det liv av! Denne boka er en brann. Du risikerer å bli tent." Knut Grønvik, Korsveiprest og forfatter

We learn who we are as we walk together in the way of Jesus. So I want to invite you on a pilgrimage. Rwanda is often held up as a model of evangelization in Africa. Yet in 1994, beginning on the Thursday of Easter week, Christians killed other Christians, often in the same churches where they had worshiped together. The most Christianized country in Africa became the site of its worst genocide. With a mother who was a Hutu and a father who was a Tutsi, author Emmanuel Katongole is uniquely qualified to point out that the tragedy in Rwanda is also a mirror reflecting the deep brokenness of the church in the West. Rwanda brings us to a cry of lament on our knees where together we learn that we must interrupt these patterns of brokenness But Rwanda also brings us to a place of hope. Indeed, the only hope for our world after Rwanda’s genocide is a new kind of Christian identity for the global body of Christ—a people on pilgrimage together, a mixed group, bearing witness to a new identity made possible by the Gospel.