Dave Ferguson

Jon Ferguson

Dave Ferguson and Jon Ferguson challenge you to make a wager with God to show up in your life. This companion guide to the Finding your way back to God book and DVD will help you reconnect with God, even if you feel that you've forgotten him -- or that he's forgotten you. The five sessions explore key ideas from the book and look at the awakenings people typically have on their way back to God...--From publisher.

Five Awakenings to Your New Life

Finding Your Way Back to God Participant's Guide

"God, if you're real, make yourself real to me." Each of us spends our lives on a journey toward God. Yet often our most deeply felt longings--for meaning, for love, for significance--end up leading us away from, instead of toward, our Creator and the person he made us to be. Finding Your Way Back to God shows you how to understand and listen to your longings in a whole new way. It's about waking up to who you really are, and daring to believe that God wants to be found even more than you want to find him. It's about making the biggest wager of your life as you ask God to make himself known to you. And it's about watching what happens next.

Finding Your Way Back to God

NOT A WORD IN 2004 ran the (fictional) San Fransisco Chronicle's headline. By his own public admission, for 18 months Ted Foster “rarely rotated his noggin left or right because there was nothing it wanted to look at”. But what had put him into this catatonic stupor? Seems we could be about to find out... “On Larry King Live," he writes in chapter one, "I only had about forty-five minutes and he kept changing the subject to keep his ratings up. But now I’ve got a book. I can say whatever I want to say for as long as I want to say it...” And it turns out it’s not his marriage, it’s not that he’s entered his fifties, it’s not insane world events…It's something much smaller... Jon Ferguson has written a novel rich in character, philosophy and humour, that engages the reader to the extent that you will want Ted Foster to keep on “pecking out” his life story. From page one the book poses a question about “who the loonies are”: Foster’s pretty sure it’s not him...

A Novel

Foster's Depression

I wish I had loved more. I wish I had been smarter about money. I wish I had thought about God more. We all have regrets about the past. Many of them come from our attempts to fulfill unmet longings. Dave and Jon Ferguson call this back and forth between longing and regret the Sorry Cycle—and they want to help us escape it. In Starting Over, Dave and Jon show us how to recognize specific regrets and then release them to God as we learn to see our regrets as opportunities to start over. Finally, we can see God redeem our regrets as he takes the worst things in our lives and uses them for a greater good. In this new edition, Dave and Jon provide an inspiring and never before published case study for achieving real life change. Your regrets don’t need to keep you from the joy God has for your life. As you apply the recognize-release-redeem process to your financial, relational, and personal regrets, you will find new freedom in living out your God-given dreams. Fall in Love with Your Regrets It sounds impossible. How can we learn to love our mistakes and failures? Instead, we go over and over them in our mind. Could they ever bring us—or anyone else—good? Drawing from scientific research and biblical truths, Jon and Dave Ferguson give us tools to redeem our mistakes in five key areas: relationships, health, purpose, finances, and spirituality. Along the way, they teach us lifelong skills for getting unstuck when regret threatens to trap us again. We also learn how to help others escape the Sorry Cycle and experience the Starting Over Loop. It is possible to learn to love our regrets because through them we see God at work. We see that our weakness does not limit what God can do. Whatever regret is trapping you in the Sorry Cycle, God is big enough to redeem it. What could you do with a life beyond regret?

Your Life Beyond Regrets

Starting Over

Sold as a 10-pack Wherever You Are Right Now, You Can Move Toward God Do you believe God exists but struggle to connect with him? Do you feel like you’ve forgotten a God you used to know? Or do you feel that God has forgotten you? Most people say they believe in God, but many don’t feel connected to God. That’s just as real for long-time church attenders as it is for long-time spiritual wanderers. Many times in the course of our lives, we sense a distance between where we are and where we want to be. Dave and Jon Ferguson help you start right where you are and take the first step in finding your way back to God. Go further with the complete book by Dave Ferguson and Jon Ferguson Finding Your Way Back to God:Five Awakenings for Your New Life

(10-PK)

Can I Find My Way Back to God?

﻿Lonely Philip Papp cuts a sad version of Michelangelo’s David. But that doesn't seem to matter post-deluge and he manages to attract a small crowd of spectators, most days, from his first-floor window. After the flood, Betty Swain's old, arthritic fingers are free to work their magic with impunity and (bless her heart) for no fixed fee. Bereft, bemused widowers are happy to pay her a fair rate. Ask Bill the policeman. Who sent the mysterious flood? Decided which people would perish? Did all ambition, judgement, and censure recede and evaporate with it? Jon Ferguson's novel holds a mirror up to a West that's all but saturated with covetousness, media, and law enforcement. Humorous and joyful, with fat droplets of pathos...is it a utopian or dystopian vision? The thing is, your need to judge and then pigeonhole might not even survive the narrative.

The Flood

Eric Bramlett

Community Christian Church embraced the Big Idea and everything changed. They decided to avoid the common mistake of bombarding people with so many “little ideas” that they suffered overload. They also recognized that leaders often don’t insist that the truth be lived out to accomplish Jesus’ mission. Why? Because people’s heads are swimming with too many little ideas, far more than they can ever apply.The Big Idea can help you creatively present one laser-focused theme each week to be discussed in families and small groups. The Big Idea shows how to engage in a process of creative collaboration that brings people together and maximizes missional impact. The Big Idea can energize a church staff and bring alignment and focus to many diverse church ministries. This book shows how the Big Idea has helped Community Christian Church better accomplish the Jesus mission and reach thousands of people in nine locations and launch a church planting network with partner churches across the country.This book is part of the Leadership Network Innovation Series.

Focus the Message---Multiply the Impact

The Big Idea

Community Christian Church embraced the Big Idea and everything changed. They decided to avoid the common mistake of bombarding people with so many 'little ideas' that they suffered overload. They also recognized that leaders often don't insist that the truth be lived out to accomplish Jesus' mission. Why? Because people's heads are swimming with too many little ideas, far more than they can ever apply. The Big Idea can help you creatively present one laser-focused theme each week to be discussed in families and small groups. The Big Idea shows how to engage in a process of creative collaboration that brings people together and maximizes missional impact. The Big Idea can energize a church staff and bring alignment and focus to many diverse church ministries. This book shows how the Big Idea has helped Community Christian Church better accomplish the Jesus mission and reach thousands of people in nine locations and launch a church planting network with partner churches across the country. This book is part of the Leadership Network Innovation Series.

Focus the Message--Multiply the Impact

I wish I had loved more. I wish I had been smarter about money. I wish I had thought about God more. We all have regrets about the past. Many of them come from our attempts to fulfill unmet longings. Dave and Jon Ferguson call this back and forth between longing and regret the Sorry Cycle—and they want to help us escape it. In Starting Over, Dave and Jon show us how to recognize specific regrets and then release them to God as we learn to see our regrets as opportunities to start over. Finally, we can see God redeem our regrets as he takes the worst things in our lives and uses them for a greater good. Your regrets don’t need to keep you from the joy God has for your life. As you apply the recognize-release-redeem process to your financial, relational, and personal regrets, you will find new freedom in living out your God-given dreams. Fall in Love with Your Regrets It sounds impossible. How can we learn to love our mistakes and failures? Instead, we go over and over them in our mind. Could they ever bring us—or anyone else—good? Drawing from scientific research and biblical truths, Jon and Dave Ferguson give us tools to redeem our mistakes in five key areas: relationships, health, purpose, finances, and spirituality. Along the way, they teach us lifelong skills for getting unstuck when regret threatens to trap us again. We also learn how to help others escape the Sorry Cycle and experience the Starting Over Loop. It is possible to learn to love our regrets because through them we see God at work. We see that our weakness does not limit what God can do. Whatever regret is trapping you in the Sorry Cycle, God is big enough to redeem it. What could you do with a life beyond regret?

Jesus challenges us to heal the hurting, feed the hungry, include the lonely, and help people find their way back to God. Most people listen to the missional challenge of Jesus as if it were a good motivational talk—something to inspire us, but not something we can actually achieve. Others hear the challenge of Jesus and become frustrated with how little they’ve done. The mission Jesus gave us was not just meant to inspire us, nor was it intended to frustrate us. Jesus gave us this mission because he wants us to actually do it! Within each person lies a potential movement that could change the world. The beginning of such a movement is simple: you living a life as a Christ follower that is worth reproducing. You will reproduce what you say. You will reproduce what you do. You will reproduce what you don’t do. You will reproduce who you are. Each of us has the ability to catalyze a movement that can accomplish the mission of Jesus. Some of us have the ability to impact 10 people; some of us have influence over hundreds, while others have the potential to reach thousands. The Rapidly Reproducing Church will present a Biblical strategy that explains how every Christ follower can successfully “reproduce” himself and maximize his impact for the kingdom of God. The purpose of this book is to communicate a simple strategy that will engage every Christ follower and challenge every leader to become a reproducing leader. Our hope is that every church will become a reproducing church. This book will lay out a brief, but solid theology for a reproducing strategy and then give very practical “how-to’s” for reproducing Christ followers, leaders, artists, groups/teams, venues, sites, churches and networks of churches. Weaved throughout this book will be the amazing story of Community Christian Church, started by five friends who used these reproducing strategies to grow one of the most influential churches in the U.S and develop a network of reproducing churches.

How You and Your Friends Can Start a Missional Church Movement

Exponential

The authors explain that the potential to complete the Jesus mission lies within every Christian as they learn to reproduce their faith as individuals and through church growth.

“God, if you’re real, make yourself real to me.” Each of us spends our lives on a journey toward God. Yet often our most deeply felt longings—for meaning, for love, for significance—end up leading us away from, instead of toward, our Creator and the person he made us to be. Finding Your Way Back to God shows you how to understand and listen to your longings in a whole new way. It’s about waking up to who you really are, and daring to believe that God wants to be found even more than you want to find him. It’s about making the biggest wager of your life as you ask God to make himself known to you. And it’s about watching what happens next.

Take the Next Step Perfect for individual or group study The companion Participant’s Guide explores the idea that we all want to find our way home – and back to God. The participant’s guide offers Bible investigation, life application questions, and prayer exercises help you take positive action on your desire to find God.

In dem vorliegenden Band ermutigen Dave und Jon Ferguson zu einer vertrauensvollen Nachfolge, die bereit ist, Gott alles zuzutrauen und mit seiner Kraft zu rechnen. Dabei zeigen sie einen einfachen und konkreten Weg auf, wie unser Umfeld mit dem Evangelium erreicht werden kann. Einfach, aber dennoch sehr herausfordernd! Und seit über 25 Jahren bewährt - in aller Welt! Eingeflochten in ihre Einsichten ist die erstaunliche Geschichte der Community Christian Church, die von fünf Freunden gegründet wurde und sich nicht nur zu einer der einflussreichsten Kirchen in den USA entwickelt hat, sondern auch zu einem internationalen Netzwerk der Ermutigung und der Inspiration. Anhand der Entwicklung von Community werden verschiedene "Reproduktionsprinzipien" verdeutlicht, die auch in unserem Kulturkreis umsetzbar sind. Jesus gab seinen Anhängern einen klaren Auftrag, weil er möchte, dass alle Menschen das Evangelium hören. Um diesen Auftrag geht es in EXPONENTIAL. Stimmen zum Buch: Es gibt nur ein einziges Buch, das ich allen Mitgliedern unserer Gemeindeleitung gegeben habe: EXPONENTIAL von Dave und Jon Ferguson. Die Informationen in ihrem Buch sind apostolisch, strategisch und sehr gut durchdacht. Die Umsetzung könnte Großartiges auslösen. (Friedhelm Holthuis, leitender Pastor der CGW, internationaler Sprecher, Mitglied des BFP-Vorstandes) Dave und Jon Fergusons Buch EXPONENTIAL ist ein "must read" für jeden Leiter in Deutschland. Deren Gedanken sind tiefsinnig, praxisnah, einfach zu begreifen und eine gewaltige Herausforderung in der Umsetzung. (Dr. Dietrich Schindler, Berater für Gemeindegründung in Europa) EXPONENTIAL wird junge Leiter extrem inspirieren und gleichzeitig langjährige Praktiker zu einem Denken und Handeln in neuen Kategorien herausfordern. Genau das braucht Deutschland. (Artur Siegert, Gründer und leitender Pastor der Kirche für Oberberg)

Ermutigung für eine Kirche, die wird, was sie ist

What If You Could Change the World without Changing Your Daily Routine? When you’ve been transformed by God’s love, you can’t help but want others to experience the same grace and freedom. But how do you share it without scaring them away or offending them? For most Christians, “evangelism” is an intimidating word that suggests handing out tracts to strangers or doing other awkward things. But what if there was a more organic, more authentic way to share your faith with your friends, neighbors, and coworkers? Dave and Jon Ferguson have found five simple, straightforward practices that will allow any believer to do just that. And by consistently living them out, you can affect not just individual lives but your entire neighborhood and community—one person at a time.

Jon Ferguson

Books

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