Steve Chalke

'This important book sets out vital steps for government, civil society and key stakeholders to create integrated care for our young people.' Sir Tony Blair A Manifesto for Hope sets out ten tried-and-tested practical principles for how to develop joined-up, cost-effective, community-empowering work, gleaned from the hard-won experience that has sat at the heart of Steve Chalke's mission over the past four decades. It's time to reimagine. Our social care systems are failing us, struggling for funding, and failing to speak to one another. At the same time, we are side-lining our greatest national asset: its people - mums, dads, families, and other community members. Steve demonstrates the stark choice facing us: keep pouring money into a faltering system, or reform and invest to improve people's lives. We need a new social covenant that empowers local charities, grassroots movements and faith groups - creating a more imaginative, more collaborative and less bureaucratic approach to community development - if we are going to transform the life chances of countless young people and families. Steve Chalke calls for a radical reset. It's time for A Manifesto for Hope! This is a book for anyone working with young people and the communities they belong to, and for those interested in social reform and transformation. Challenging and informing, A Manifesto for Hope comes from a heart dedicated to the service of that local community, written to support those that act every day to see something that has true life-changing impact in the places where it's most needed.

Arguably the most imaginative and energetic church response to the pandemic has been that of HeartEdge, the interdenominational church renewal movement founded at St Martin in the Fields by Samuel Wells but now extending beyond the UK to Europe, North America and Australia. From serving thousands of meals on London’s streets to becoming, in all but name, an online conference centre and theological college offering hundreds of events, one outstanding feature of its programme has been Samuel Wells’ monthly conversations about the future of the Church with leading figures from Britain and America, attended by large online audiences. This volume offers a distillation of those conversations which, instead of being preoccupied with decline, focus on what Christian presence and practice might look like in the world that is being reshaped by what the pandemic has revealed, and the theology that is needed to sustain such a vision.

Christianity must be understood not as a religion of private salvation, but as a gospel movement of universal compassion, which transforms the world in the power of God's truth. Amid several major global crises, including the rise of terrorism and religious fundamentalism and a sudden resurgence of political extremism, Christians must now face up fearlessly to the challenges of living in a ""post-truth"" age in which deceitful politicians present their media-spun fabrications as ""alternative facts."" This book is an attempt to enact a transformative theology for these changing times that will equip the global Christian community to take a stand for the gospel in an age of cultural despair and moral fragmentation. The emerging post-Christendom era calls for a new vision of Christianity that has come of age and connects with the spiritual crisis of our times. In helping to make this vision a reality, Searle insists that theology is not merely an academic discipline, but a transformative enterprise that changes the world. Theology is to be experienced not just behind a desk, in an armchair, or in a church, but also in hospitals, in foodbanks, in workplaces, and on the streets. Theology is to be lived as well as read. ""This is a fierce critique of shallow Christian discipleship and irrelevant theological formation that has positioned the church on the fringes of our trivial and poverty-stricken cultures. This gifted author writes as a self-confessed outsider, an Anabaptist without a home, but this is the very strength of the book. He asks the question, 'where have all the prophets gone' and then answers it with some chilling denunciations and challenging propositions. Three cheers for his call for pioneering theologians who will serve as apostles to the bewildering cultures of our age."" --David Coffey, Global Ambassador BMS Mission, Past President of the Baptist World Alliance ""Searle's call for a radical rethink of what often passes for 'theological training' is both welcome and long overdue. Many of his assertions expose fundamental shortcomings in historical and current preoccupations that are often bereft of prophetic imagination and revolutionary practice. This is a provocative, faith-full, and deeply passionate book."" --Kate Coleman, Founding Director of Next Leadership, Past President of the Baptist Union of Great Britain Joshua T. Searle is Tutor in Theology and Public Thought at Spurgeon's College, London. He serves on the Steering Committee of the Anabaptist Network and is a Companion of the Northumbria Community.

Christianity must be understood not as a religion of private salvation, but as a gospel movement of universal compassion, which transforms the world in the power of God's truth. Amid several major global crises, including the rise of terrorism and religious fundamentalism and a sudden resurgence of political extremism, Christians must now face up fearlessly to the challenges of living in a ""post-truth"" age in which deceitful politicians present their media-spun fabrications as ""alternative facts."" This book is an attempt to enact a transformative theology for these changing times that will equip the global Christian community to take a stand for the gospel in an age of cultural despair and moral fragmentation. The emerging post-Christendom era calls for a new vision of Christianity that has come of age and connects with the spiritual crisis of our times. In helping to make this vision a reality, Searle insists that theology is not merely an academic discipline, but a transformative enterprise that changes the world. Theology is to be experienced not just behind a desk, in an armchair, or in a church, but also in hospitals, in foodbanks, in workplaces, and on the streets. Theology is to be lived as well as read. ""This is a fierce critique of shallow Christian discipleship and irrelevant theological formation that has positioned the church on the fringes of our trivial and poverty-stricken cultures. This gifted author writes as a self-confessed outsider, an Anabaptist without a home, but this is the very strength of the book. He asks the question, 'where have all the prophets gone' and then answers it with some chilling denunciations and challenging propositions. Three cheers for his call for pioneering theologians who will serve as apostles to the bewildering cultures of our age."" --David Coffey, Global Ambassador BMS Mission, Past President of the Baptist World Alliance ""Searle's call for a radical rethink of what often passes for 'theological training' is both welcome and long overdue. Many of his assertions expose fundamental shortcomings in historical and current preoccupations that are often bereft of prophetic imagination and revolutionary practice. This is a provocative, faith-full, and deeply passionate book."" --Kate Coleman, Founding Director of Next Leadership, Past President of the Baptist Union of Great Britain Joshua T. Searle is Tutor in Theology and Public Thought at Spurgeon's College, London. He serves on the Steering Committee of the Anabaptist Network and is a Companion of the Northumbria Community.

'Your life is precious - a precious gift. It is sacred; every moment of it. The opportunity to live rather than sleepwalk through our days belongs to us. This book is a call to wake up. It is a call to each one of us; to wake up, to live before we die.'It's easy to sleepwalk through life without ever really considering what we're here for. But life presents us with continual opportunities to wake up - and to think about not just what we do with our lives, but who we become while living them. Ultimately it is the story that we believe about ourselves, our lives and the world around us that will shape us - for better or for worse. So where do we find a good story - a convincing narrative that makes sense of it all?Steve Chalke suggests that Jesus' good news about the kingdom of God - a practical, lived-out expression of God's plans for the world - is the best story for us to find ourselves in. Each one of us is called to be part of the drama of the coming kingdom, and it's in this that we find a practical spirituality that helps shape our lives into everything we were meant to be.

Human trafficking is the fastest growing global crime and is now the second largest after the illegal arms trade. It involves the movement of people, against their will, through violence, deception or coercion for the purpose of sex, forced labour or even body parts. Men, women and children are all victims of trafficking; although approximately 80% are women and girls and up to 50% are children. The book contains real-life stories, photographs, and practical action points, divided into 6 sections: STOP: The right to freedom, LOOK: Trafficking is on your doorstep, THINK: Attitudes and awareness, BUY: The power of the consumer, ACT: Join the movement, START: Resources to get you started.

Change agents are pioneers, entrepreneurs, innovators. They can be difficult, annoying, and demanding. But their calling is demanding too: to take a vision and wrench it into reality. When Steve Chalke was asked to be the senior minister of a dying inner-city church, he knew what he wanted: to make it into a Christian equivalent of a first-century synagogue. A place where the community gathered, not just to pray and hear sermons, but to be educated, entertained, and find help. Making it all happen was the harder part. In Change Agents, the author shares twenty-five lessons he learned during this work. He had to teach himself to respond, not react; say no more than yes, give up being everyone’s friend, and accept that any success was only a short respite between two crises. Employing wry humor, personal examples, and a large helping of practical advice, Steve Chalke reminds us our enterprise, not our caution, with the Word of God is what’s rewarded. Christ waits and watches for us to take risks and create change in the church, the community, and the world at large.

Nick Baines takes a look at the Christian meaning of Hope from an unusual perspective. For several years, Nick worked at GCHQ in Cheltenham, during which he came face-to-face with many difficulties in a complex world. These were human difficulties, which had to be faced without the involvement of God. Because of this experience, Nick is impatient with simplistic, jargon-filled Christian explanations, which all too often ignore the real world and its many problems. As a pastor, Nick then had to offer comfort and advice while knowing that all he could do was suffer with them. And it is from these experiences that Nick wrote Hungry for Hope? He draws on the Scriptures and on his dealings with the everyday world and addresses those whose personal world has fallen apart at some point.

A fresh—and perhaps controversial—look at Jesus by one of Britain’s most respected Christian authors. Who is the real Jesus? Do we remake him in our own image and then wonder why our spirituality is less than life-changing and exciting? Steve Chalke—a high-profile visionary in the United Kingdom and an evangelical recognized not only by Christians but by the general public as well—believes that the real Jesus is deeply challenging. And each new generation must grapple with the question of who he is, because only through a constant study of Jesus are we able to discover God himself. The Lost Message of Jesus is written to stir thoughtful debate and pose fresh questions that will help create a deeper understanding of Jesus and his message. It is an encounter with the real Jesus of his world—not the Jesus we try to mold to ours. Themes include: •The Kingdom of God—shalom—is available to everyone now, through Jesus •The world outside your own church needs to hear of the depth of God’s love and suffering •Jesus was a radical and a revolutionary! •Jesus offers immediate forgiveness, without cost, to anyone •Jesus shows us repentance isn’t a guilt-laden list of dos and don’ts, but an inspirational vision of a new way to live Focusing on some of the key episodes, events, and issues of Jesus’ life, we will see how too often the message we preach today has been influenced more by the culture we live in than the radical, life-changing, world-shaping message Jesus shared two thousand years ago.