Mark Batterson

Halfway is no way to live. Quit holding back. Quit holding out. It's time to go all in and all out for God. The good news is this: If you don't hold out on God, God won't hold out on you. If you give everything you have to follow Jesus, you'll receive amazing spiritual rewards. But this reality also comes with a deeper truth: Nothing belongs to you. Not even you. In All In: Student Edition, Mark and Parker Batterson explore what going all in can mean for your life, sharing unique illustrations and unforgettable stories, as well as compelling accounts of biblical characters. Throughout, they demonstrate the amazing things that can happen when you surrender to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Mark Batterson writes: "When did we start believing that God wants to send us to safe places to do easy things? Jesus didn't die to keep us safe. He died to make us dangerous."

It's time to ante up and go all in with God.Christians who want to take the next step in their faith walk need look no further than this study guide companion to Mark Batterson's All In.When did we start believing that God wants to send us to safe places to do easy things? Jesus didn’t die to keep us safe. He died to make us dangerous. The will of God is not an insurance plan; it’s a daring plan. It’s time to quit living as if the purpose of your life is to arrive safely at death.All In, a four-session video-based Bible study (DVD/digital video sold separately) by New York Times bestselling author Mark Batterson, challenges participants to resolutely follow God wherever he leads by pointing out that if Jesus is not Lord of all, he is not Lord at all.Most people think they are following Jesus. They may think they are following Jesus, but the reality is, they’ve invited Jesus to follow them. They call him Savior, but they’ve never surrendered to him as Lord. Are you following Jesus? Or have you invited Jesus to follow you?Participants will find Batterson’s teaching filled with his customary vivid, contemporary stories as well as biblical characters like Shamgar, Elisha, Jonathan, and Judas. It’s time to go all in for God.Sessions include:Now or Never: Pack Your CoffinAll In: Charge!All Out: Rim HuggersAll in All: Burn the ShipsDesigned for use with All In Video Study 9780310333104 (sold separately).

The Gospel costs nothing, but it demands everything.It's all or nothing …This powerful booklet, excerpted from All In tells us that the Gospel costs nothing, but demands everything. If Jesus is not Lord of all, He is not Lord at all. It's all or nothing. It's now or never. It's time to ante up and go all in with God.No one has ever sacrificed anything for God. If you always get back more than you gave up, have you sacrificed anything at all? The eternal reward always outweighs the temporal sacrifice. At the end of the day, our greatest regret will be whatever we didn’t give back to God. What we didn’t push back across the table to Him. Eternity will reveal that holding out is losing out.Batterson writes, “For many years, I thought I was following Jesus. I wasn’t. I had invited Jesus to follow me. I call it inverted Christianity. And it’s a subtle form of selfishness that masquerades as spirituality. That’s when I sold out and bought in. When did we start believing that the gospel is an insurance plan? It’s a daring plan. Jesus did not die just to keep us safe. He died to make us dangerous.”

Your 40-day guide to experiencing more passionate, persistent, intimate communication with God. Do you pray as often and as bravely as you want to? Are you looking to strengthen your relationship with God and experience a deeper, more intentional prayer life? Mark Batterson, New York Times bestselling author of The Circle Maker, is here to teach you all about a new, life-changing way to pray. After the release of The Circle Maker, thousands of readers quickly became many tens of thousands, and soon enough, true stories of miraculous and inspiring answers to prayer began to pour in. Draw the Circle shares these inspiring testimonies and combines them with timely scriptures and daily prayer prompts designed to stir you to pray like never before. Through these moving stories and encouraging devotionals, you'll learn all about:The life-changing power of intentional prayerWhy prayer is such a crucial aspect of your relationship with GodHow to start applying the principles of The Circle Maker in your everyday lifeHow to stay humble, patient, and focused as you start your 40-day journeyBuilding prayer habits that will support your faith for a lifetimeThere's a way for all of us to experience a deeper, more passionate, persistent, and intimate prayer life. Batterson invites you to begin a lifetime of watching God work, believe in the God who can do all things, and experience the power of bold prayer and even bolder faith. Let Draw the Circle be the first forty days on your way to a lifetime of watching God work and believing in the God who can do all things.

The Teaming Church is so good, I had a poster made out of its key ideas and am using that with our team and keeping it in my office. You cannot have a great church without a great team at the core. --John Ortberg, Best-selling Author & Pastor Create a successful team culture. Great teams live and serve in light of the Divine Team the Trinity, and to be truly effective they need: a deeply challenging goal, a creatively empowering leader, and a willingness to collaborate and honor the Bible. Author Robert C. Crosby provides innovative ways in which biblical teams reflect the workings and nature of "the image of God." Revealing what he calls "The Four C's of Great Teams" - The Character, The Carrot, The Coach, and The Context - Crosby shows how successful teams reach their goals more effectively. Conversely, he also addresses the "Four Fatal Teaming Errors" and how to avoid unnecessary, time-consuming missteps. This book provides biblical motivations, vivid examples, and practical approaches for creating a teaming culture in any faith community. Crosby, a leader who has built teams as a senior pastor, youth leader, and university administrator, is now training and mentoring a new generation of pastors and leaders. "Teamwork is essential for effective ministry. Robert Crosby's book, The Teaming Church, explores the essential elements of a team and gives a biblical perspective on how to surround yourself with the right people." --Craig Groeschel, senior pastor of LifeChurch.tv; author of "Soul Detox: Clean Living in a Contaminated World" "Relational networking and collaboration is the way forward for Christ's Kingdom in the 21st century! Teamwork has always been God's way as he declared, "Let US make humans in our own image" and demonstrated in Jesus' formation of the ultimate team--His Church. The timing of Bob Crosby's work in this volume could not be better. You will be inspired and motivated to participate in ministry teams who will conquer contemporary challenges for Christ. Together we can win."--Billy Wilson, Executive Director, International Center for Spiritual Renewal "'The Teaming Church' captures the most transformative leadership model in history, the ministry of Jesus Christ. Robert Crosby frames the optics of collaboration and kingdom partnerships that vertically honor God while horizontally empowering others.This book affirms strategic and prophetic cooperation for a generation that stands skeptical of individual platforms while embracing the idea of community." --Samuel Rodriguez, President, NHCLC, Hispanic Evangelical Association "

Every blessing, every breakthrough, and every miracle can be traced back to the prayers that were prayed by you or for you. Join Mark Batterson, New York Times bestselling author of The Circle Maker, as he equips you to become an extraordinary influence in the lives of your children through one simple practice: praying for them.Praying Circles around Your Children combines timeless scriptures with stories of parents just like you, which will revolutionize your prayer life and give you a new perspective on the power of prayer.Along the way, Batterson shares five biblically backed prayer circles that will not only help you pray for your kids, but also pray through your kids.In Praying Circles around Your Children, Batterson will give you the tools you need to:Create prayer lists that are unique to your familyTurn your family circle into a prayer circleClaim God-inspired promises for your childrenThroughout Praying Circles around Your Children, Batterson teaches us that our prayers for our children are the greatest legacy we can leave them. They even have power to shape your family's destiny for generations to come. It's time to start circling.

According to Pastor Mark Batterson in his book, The Circle Maker, 'Drawing prayer circles around our dreams isn't just a mechanism whereby we accomplish great things for God. It's a mechanism whereby God accomplishes great things in us.' Do you ever sense that there's far more to prayer, and to God's vision for your life, than what you're experiencing? It's time you learned from the legend of Honi the Circle Maker---a man bold enough to draw a circle in the sand and not budge from inside it until God answered his prayers for his people. What impossibly big dream is God calling you to draw a prayer circle around? In this powerful booklet, excerpted from THE CIRCLE MAKER, Batterson helps you uncover your heart's deepest desires and God-given dreams and unleash them through the kind of audacious prayer that God delights to answer.

Bold prayers honor God and God honors bold prayers.Do you ever sense that there's far more to prayer than what you're experiencing? This four-session video-based Bible study (DVD/digital video sold separately) is for believers who love God with a passion, but have slipped into a spiritual rut. It's time to enter a whole new level of extreme faith...it's time to become a circle maker!Through the story of Honi the Circle Maker—a man bold enough to draw a circle in the sand and not budge from it until God answered his prayer for his people—bestselling author and pastor Mark Batterson will help you see that who you become is determined by how you pray. Throughout this guide, Batterson:Clearly and practically lays out what prayer looks like and how it shapes and changes us.Shows you the powerful results and modern-day miracles that come from a courageous prayer life.Helps you, your group, and your entire church begin to identify dreams and future miracles to draw prayer circles around.This Participant Guide provides individual and group activities, between session personal studies, and additional background material that will enhance the experience of the video on The Circle Maker DVD (sold separately).Sessions include:1. Becoming a Circle Maker 2. Little People, Big Risks, and Huge Circles 3. Praying Hard and Praying Through 4. Praying is Like PlantingDesigned for use with The Circle Maker Video Study (sold separately).

Drawing on theology, psychology, neurology, and defining moments in the life of King David, Batterson helps 20- to 30-somethings process the baggage of old mistakes, insecurities, and outright lies in order to live the authentic life God wants.

Our generation needs a reformation. But a single person won't lead it. A single event won't define it. Our reformation will be a movement of reformers living creatively, compassionately, courageously for the cause of Christ. This reformation will not be born of a new discovery. It will be the rediscovery of something old, something ancient. Something primal. -Mark Batterson, Primal What would your Christianity look like if it was stripped down to the simplest, rawest, purest faith possible? You would have more, not less. You would have the beginning of a new reformation-in your generation, your church, your own soul. You would have primal Christianity. This book is an invitation to become part of a reformation movement. It is an invitation to rediscover the compassion, wonder, curiosity, and energy that turned the world upside down two thousand years ago. It is an invitation to be astonished again. From the Hardcover edition.

"The Celtic Christians had a name for the Holy Spirit that has always intrigued me.They called Him An Geadh-Glas,or "the Wild Goose." I love the imagery and implications. The name hints at the mysterious nature of the Holy Spirit. Much like a wild goose, the Spirit of God cannot be tracked or tamed. An element of danger and an air of unpredictability surround Him. And while the name may sound a little sacrilegious at first earshot, I cannot think of a better description of what it's like to pursue the Spirit's leading through life than "Wild Goose chase". I think the Celtic Christians were on to something that institutionalized Christianity has missed out on. And I wonder if we have clipped the wings of the Wild Goose and settled for something less - much less - than what God originally intended for us. I understand that "wild goose chase" typically refers to a purposeless endeavor without a defined destination. But chasing the Wild Goose is different. The promptings of the Holy Spirit can sometimes seem pretty pointless, but rest assured, God is working His plan.And if you chase the Wild Goose, He will take you places you never could have imagined going by paths you never knew existed. I don't know a single Christ follower who hasn't gotten stressed out over trying to figure out the will of God. We want to solve the mystery of the will of God the way we solve a Sudoku or crossword puzzle. But in my experience, intellectual analysis usually results in spiritual paralysis. We try to make God fit within the confines of our cerebral cortex. We try to reduce the will of God to the logical limits of our left brain. But the will of God is neither logical nor linear. It is downright confusing and complicated. A part of us feels as if something is spiritually wrong with us when we experience circumstantial uncertainty. But that is precisely what Jesus promised us when we are born of the Spirit and start following Him. Most of us will have no idea where we are going most of the time. And I know that is unsettling. But circumstantial uncertainty also goes by another name: adventure. I think it is only fair that I give a Wild Goose warning at the outset of this book: nothing is more unnerving or disorienting than passionately pursuing God.And the sooner we come to terms with that spiritual reality, the more we will enjoy the journey. I cannot, in good conscience, promise safety or certainty. But I can promise that chasing the Wild Goose will be anything but boring!" - Mark Batterson