Why Some Prayers Work, Why Some Don’t, and How You and God Can Change Things for Good

How would it feel to enter into prayer with confidence and assurance – certain that God heard you and that your prayers would make a difference? It would likely feel amazing and unfamiliar. That’s because often our prayers seem to be met with silence or don’t appear to change anything. Either response can lead to disappointment or even despair in the face of our ongoing battles and unmet longings – especially when we don’t know if we’re doing something wrong or if some prayers just don’t work. New York Times bestselling author John Eldredge confronts these issues directly in Moving Mountains by offering a hopeful approach to prayer that is effective, relational, and rarely experienced by most Christians. In a world filled with danger, adventure, and wonder, we have at our disposal prayers that can transform the events and issues that matter most to us and to God. In this new, eight-week study, Moving Mountains shows you how to experience the power of daily prayer, learn the major types of prayers – including those of intervention, consecration, warfare, and healing – and to discover the intimacy of the cry of the heart prayer, listening prayer, and praying Scripture. Things can be different, and you personally have a role to play with God in bringing about that change through prayer. It may sound too good to be true, but this is your invitation to engage in the kind of prayers that can move God’s heart as well as the mountains before you. In the Moving Mountains Study Guide, bestselling author John Eldredge shows how we labor under the misconception that prayer is asking God to intervene instead of partnering with him to get things done. This faulty assumption leads to untold confusion and grief when we ask of God but can’t sense He hears us–or even cares. Rather, Jesus says, “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven” (Matthew 16:19). When we operate from this position, we approach prayer with far greater confidence. We understand we have a role in making change happen and are not victims of circumstance–that we are sons and daughters of God bestowed with tremendous authority.

What If God Designed Marriage To Make Us Holy More Than To Make Us Happy?

In this six-session video series, author and speaker Gary Thomas invites you to see how God can use marriage as a discipline and a motivation to reflect more of the character of Jesus. Your marriage is much more than a union between you and your spouse. It is a spiritual discipline ideally suited to help you know God more fully and intimately. Sacred Marriage shifts the focus from marital enrichment in ways that can help you love your mate more. Whether it is delightful or difficult, your marriage can become a doorway to a closer walk with God. Sessions include:

• God’s Purpose for Marriage
• The Refining Power of Marriage
• The God-Centered Spouse
• Sacred History
• Sexual Saints
• Marriage: The Love Laboratory

Everything about your marriage – from the history you and your spouse create, to the love you share, to the forgiveness you both offer and seek by turn – is filled with the capacity to help you grow in Christ’s character. Together with your spouse, or with other couples who want to enrich their marriages along with you, Sacred Marriage can help every couple build their relationship around God’s priorities and embrace the profound and soul-stretching reality of Christian marriage. How do you make positive changes that will last in your marriage? Apply what you learn. In addition to life-changing insights, the Sacred Marriage Participant’s Guide provides a wealth of discussion questions that will spark meaningful conversation between you and your spouse, the couples in your group, or to simply ponder by yourself. You’ll also find assessments, activities, and highlights all created to help you engage deeply and prayerfully with the content of this study.

Make 2016 the Year You Learn How To Master the “How To” of Living a Healthy Life!

In this six-session study, Made to Crave, New York Times bestselling author Lysa TerKeurst helps women understand how cravings for lasting spiritual satisfaction are often mistaken for cravings for food. According to Lysa, craving isn’t a bad thing. But the challenge is to realize God created us to crave so we would ultimately desire more of Him in our lives, not more food. Many of us have misplaced that craving, overindulging in physical pleasures instead of lasting spiritual satisfaction. The Made to Crave study will help you…

• Break the “I’ll start again Monday cycle” and start feeling good about yourself today.
• Stop beating yourself up over the numbers on the scale and make peace with the body you’ve been given.
• Discover how weight loss struggles aren’t a curse but, rather, a blessing in the making.
• Replace justifications that lead to diet failure with empowering go-to scripts that lead to victory.
• Eat healthy without feeling deprived.
• Reach a healthy weight goal while growing closer to God through the process.

In the six-session study, Made to Crave Action Plan, the follow-up to Made to Crave, Lysa helps you discover how to put into action, those things you learned through the original study plan. Trying to get healthy can be overwhelming and complicated. Eat carbs…don’t eat carbs. Eat fish…don’t eat fish. Pay attention to calories…don’t pay attention to calories. all this conflicting information can be daunting and confusing. But it all becomes clear in the Made to Crave Action Plan! It will help you implement a long-term plan of action for healthy living. You’ll be encouraged by Bible teaching from Lysa, uplifted by testimonies from women like Christian music chart-topper Mandisa, and empowered with healthy living tips from Dr. Ski Chilton, an expert in molecular medicine – all while charting a permanent course for successful, healthy living. A life-changing journey like this is always better with friends, so gather a group of women from your church, family or neighborhood and start living a healthier life today! All the Made to Crave and Made to Crave Action Plan videos are in your Study Gateway library, but be sure to check out the Study Guides to further encourage group discussion, document your personal journey toward healthy living, and to reference the quick healthy living tips that will help make your journey a success.

Generosity was the hallmark of the early church. It changed everything. It changed the world. It could happen again.

How to Be Rich is a Bible study from pastor Andy Stanley exploring 1 Timothy 6:18. Andy biblically redefines what wealth is, how to use it, and helps you practice being rich so you will be good at it if you should ever be so fortunate. The early Christians took this command seriously. Generosity was the hallmark of the early church. They did for those who could not do or would not do anything in return. That was new. That got people’s attention. Is that how people in our communities would describe us? This four-session study is perfect for a small group or classroom setting. It will force conversation and reflection around the topic of what to do with what we have. Jesus could not have been any clearer. It’s not what you have that matters. It’s what you do with what you have that will count for you or against you in the kingdom of heaven. Andy will encourage you and your group to look at richness differently, which might just lead our families, communities, and world to looking at Christians differently. The How to Be Rich book by Andy Stanley will help enrich your learning experience, allowing you to dig deeper into Andy’s teaching and apply what you learn to your everyday life. Today’s wives and mothers have been hoodwinked; convinced that serving their family is a subservient and antiquated role. Because of culture, family, friends, or lack of biblical teaching, many moms miss how valuable and powerful their calling really is. Some have bought into the pressure to be “Supermom.” Others have believed the myth that they can “do it all” and do it perfectly. Karen Ehman, popular author and speaker with Proverbs 31 Ministries, and Ruth Schwenk, of www.thebettermom.com, say it’s time to stop the “Mommy Wars.” They want to encourage and inspire women to embrace their roles as mothers wholeheartedly yet realistically, whether they work outside the home, have a home business, or are stay-at-home moms. This six-session video series will help you find a fresh new vision for an age-old calling as you tackle the challenge and embrace the blessings of motherhood. Sessions Include:

• Build Bridges, Not Fences: When Others Mother Differently
• Mothering Matters: Seeing the Hard Years as the Heart Years
• At the Top of the Tightrope: When You Try to Do It All
• Pressing the Pause Button: Taking Your Schedule from Racing to Rest
• In Armor of Their Own: On Revealing the Picture God’s Painting
• Raising Children on Your Knees: When Your Child Makes a Bad Choice

Whether you go through the Hoodwinked series alone or with a group of friends, the accompanying Study Guide provides helpful questions to ponder and discuss, along with weekly challenges to help you put what you learn into action. With more than a million copies sold, Saving Your Marriage Before It Starts has become the gold standard for helping today’s engaged and newlywed couples enjoy lifelong love. The eight-session video study has been expanded, updated, and honed by years of feedback, professional experience and the latest research, making it more helpful and informative than ever. This study will help couples:

• Uncover the misbeliefs of marriage
• Learn to communicate with instant understanding
• Discover the secret to resolving conflict
• Master the skills of money management
• Get your sex life off to a great start

In addition to these topics, Saving Your Second Marriage Before It Starts will help couples face the myths of remarriage and learn how to blend a family successfully. Saving Your Marriage Before It Starts and Saving Your Second Marriage Before It Starts are simply the most popular and proven means for launching lifelong love. The study is more than just a video series about marriage — it is a life-changing experience. And when used with the coordinating his/her workbooks, you’re building a rock-solid foundation for enduring friendship, romance, and passion.

The NEW Daniel Plan Essentials Series is the groundbreaking healthy lifestyle program that could change your life – inside and out!

FAITH * FOOD * FITNESS * FOCUS * FRIENDS

New to your Study Gateway Library just in time to start the New Year off right! In this five-session study, pastor and bestselling author, Rick Warren, with doctors Daniel Amen and Mark Hyman, explore the spiritual and health benefits of following a lifestyle based on Daniel’s fast found in Scripture. Each session highlights testimony from those who have incorporated The Daniel Plan into their everyday lifestyles, plus tips on getting started and medically based information on maintaining a healthy lifestyle. The Daniel Plan is about abundance, not deprivation. This is why the plan is both transformational and sustainable. Because we’re always better together, grab a friend, family member, coworker, or your small group and experience The Daniel Plan in community with others to get your best results! Don’t put it off! Start your journey to a healthier lifestyle today! The Daniel Plan Jumpstart Guide, Journal, Study Guide, and Cookbook are all the tools available to help make the program easy and successful!

Christmas can be just the beginning of your journey into discovering the GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD!

There’s a new story unfolding. Individuals, families, small groups, and entire churches are experiencing God’s Word like never before! The Story draws everyone into the grand, unfolding story of the Bible as one sweeping narrative, arranged chronologically from Genesis to Revelation. To understand the Bible, says author and pastor Randy Frazee, you need bifocal lenses, because two perspectives are involved. The Lower Story, our story, is actually many stories of men and women interacting with God in the daily course of life. The Upper Story is God’s story, the tale of his great, overarching purpose that puts the individual stories together like panels in one unified mural. Bestselling author Max Lucado also adds some introductory insights. Through these 31 video sessions, The Story study opens your eyes to God’s master plan as it unfolds in the lives of the Bible’s characters. Discover the heart of God’s Upper Story and the joy that comes as you align your story with God’s. *The Story Youth Video Series is also available in your Study Gateway Library. The Story Participant’s Guide is designed for use by individuals, family members, small group members, or Sunday school classes. Each of the 31 sessions provide questions for discussion and helpful guidance so you can apply what you are learning to your life.

Discover The Big Picture Of God’s Story From Genesis To Revelation

The Bible is the inspired Word of God, and over the centuries it has changed people’s lives and led them to God. Yet sometimes it can be a difficult book to understand. The culture in which the Bible was written is so different from our own that at times we struggle to understand what it means or how it is relevant to our modern lives. In A Brief Survey of the Bible, John Walton, professor of Old Testament at Wheaton College, and Mark Strauss, professor of New Testament at Bethel Seminary in San Diego, address this problem by giving you the background and context you need to successfully understand even the difficult parts of the Word of God. They provide you with an overview of the key themes of the major books in the Bible, show what the stories and teachings meant to the people at the time, and explain how the inspired words of the biblical authors apply to your own situation today. By the end of this fourteen week study, you will walk away with a greater understanding of the Bible, how all the books work together, and what your heavenly Father has done to make a way for you to come to him. This series features:

• An introduction to the course
• Nine sessions of teaching on the Old Testament from John Walton
• Four sessions of teaching on the New Testament from Mark Strauss

Perfect for personal or a small group study, the A Brief Survey of the Bible Participant’s Guide provides discussion questions and notes to help you get the most out of every session. It includes an overview of each book of the Bible and a daily reading plan. The between-session Scripture passages, reading tips, and key stories will help you dig into the teaching, with additional facts to help you understand the situations behind every story.

It’s Impossible To Be Spiritually Mature While Remaining Emotionally Immature

If you desire to take steps in your Christian life to break free from bondage to the past and experience healing, the Emotionally Healthy Spirituality series is for you. This eight-session Bible study will help you discover the integration of emotional health and contemplative spirituality. Many sincere followers of Christ, followers who are really passionate for God, join a church, participate weekly in a small group, serve with their gifts, and who are considered “mature,” remain stuck at a level of spiritual immaturity – especially when faced with interpersonal conflicts and crises. The Emotionally Healthy Spirituality video study offers a strategy for discipleship that address this void, giving you powerful pathways to transformation that will help you mature into a faith-filled believer with authenticity and a profound love for God. This study can be used for personal reflection, but is also perfect for a small group setting. The eight sessions include:

1. The Problem of Emotionally Unhealthy Spirituality
2. Know Yourself that You May Know God
3. Going Back in Order to Go Forward
4. Journey through the Wall
5. Enlarge Your Soul through Grief and Loss
6. Discover the Rhythms of the Daily Office and Sabbath
7. Grow into an Emotionally Healthy Adult
8. Go to the Next Step to Develop a “Rule of Life”

The Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Study Guide helps you dig deeper and apply what you are learning. Go from passive listening to life-changing action steps!