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Author Interview with Elizabeth Turnage

We all have the privilege this week to learn more about Elizabeth Turnage, the author of the Living Story series, which includes the following books: Learning God’s Story of GraceLiving God’s Story of Grace, and Loving God’s Story of Grace.

  • Question # 1 – Tell us a little bit about yourself: where you’re from, family, job, personal interests, unique hobbies, what do you do in your spare time, etc.

I’m from Atlanta, GA, originally, my husband and I have lived in Pensacola, FL for 22 years.

We have four children, now aged 24-18, and I always laughed when people said “Wow, you’re a great mom,” when all they knew was we had four children in 6 years. I am nuts about our wildly wonder-full young adult children, and God has given them as one of the most humbling and redemptive stories for growth in my life.

I was an English teacher for six years before “retiring” to raise children. During my time as a stay at home mom, I used my passion for teaching to lead gospel-refreshing Bible studies for real women (i.e. those whose babies threw up on the way out the door and those who came because they needed a break from their young’uns).

That’s probably when I first knew I needed to write a book, because I wanted some different materials, something that would help us live the gospel in our real daily life. I wanted to write, but I was afraid to share publicly. God persisted, calling me to risk and step into the unfamiliar and daunting terrain of the publication process. That’s how the Living Story series was born. (Learning God’s Story of Grace, Living God’s Story of Grace, and Loving God’s Story of Grace).

Hobby: I just began taking piano lessons this year for the first time in my 51-year-life, and I absolutely love it. (I didn’t say I’m good at it, but I love it!)

 

  • Question #2 – Do you have a favorite movie? What is it and why?

The Sound of Music. Does that really need an explanation?! (My kids think so, after being forced to watch it for years!)

 

  • Question #3 – What advice would you give to aspiring writers?

You absolutely require good community to pray for you and process with you. The hardest thing about writing for publication is the alternating temptation to glory or shame. That is, we can easily slip into desiring glory for ourselves; we can also fall prey to feeling shame when our work is critiqued or even worse, met with apathy. The only way through is falling again into the arms of our loving Redeemer and Friend.

 

  • Question #4 – How do you deal with writer’s block?

I’m one of those who believes firmly in sitting down and writing for a specified time, whether you feel “inspired” or not. I’ll get out a big drawing pad and brainstorm ideas or maybe take a walk and ponder and pray if I’m really stuck.

 

  • Question #5 – Favorite flavor of ice cream?

My favorite food is ice cream, and my favorite is a Marble Slab mix of dark chocolate, raspberries and almonds.

 

  • Question #6 – Favorite animal?

Definitely our empty nest/”therapy” goldendoodle, Rosie.

 

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Interested in learning more about Elizabeth Turnage?

Visit her NEW website www.elizabethturnage.com.

Read her blog www.elizabethturnage.com/blog/.

Follow her on Twitter: @elizturnage

Like her series: Living Story on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LivingStoryGrace

Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/elizabeth_turn/

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Author Interviews with Camden Bucey on Christ the Center, Reformed Forum

Christ the Center, Reformed Forum with Camden Bucey

Christ the Center: Doctrine for Life is an audio program centered on Christian reformed theology. In each episode a group of informed panelists discusses important issues and stimulate listeners to critical thinking and a better understanding of reformed doctrine designed to yield godly living. Check out the P&R author interviews listed below.

1. Aimee Byrd

Author of Housewife Theologian

Listen Here: http://reformedforum.org/podcasts/ctc297/

 

 

2. Barbara R. Duguid

Author of Extravagant Grace

Listen Here: http://reformedforum.org/podcasts/ctc301/

 

3. Dr. Richard B. Gaffin Jr.

Author of By Faith, Not by Sight

Listen Here: http://reformedforum.org/podcasts/ctc319/

 

 

4. Mark Jones

Author of Antinomianism

Listen Here: http://reformedforum.org/podcasts/ctc308/

 

The Faithful Shepherd Conference – Registration Ends April 30th!

Sign-Up Today for The Faithful Shepherd Conference.

Registration ends April 30th!!!

Questions? Contact pastors@prpbooks.com or call us at 1(800) 631-0094 and select Customer Service.

WHEN & WHERE?

May 5–7, 2014 (Monday-Wednesday)

Harvey Cedars Bible Conference

12 Cedars Avenue

Harvey Cedars, NJ 08008

Harvey Cedars is within a 2-3 hour drive of Philadelphia, Delaware and New York City, tucked away in a quiet spot on Long Beach Island at the New Jersey Shore and nestled between scenic Barnegat Bay and the Atlantic Ocean with water views on both sides.

SPEAKERS & TOPICS
harry reeder
FEATURED SPEAKER: HARRY REEDER TOPIC: How God Can Revitalize Your Flock 

HARRY REEDER is senior pastor of Briarwood Presbyterian Church in Birmingham, Alabama, and also speaks daily on the radio program In Perspective. His four talks for the conference will draw on the message of his book From Embers to a Flame. Dr. Reeder says, “God’s Word both by precept and narrative defines and delineates the biblical paradigm of church revitalization and the ten strategies to follow. The objective is never church growth. Church growth is the anticipated result.”

harry reeder
SPEAKER: EDWARD WELCH TOPIC: Peer Pressure and Pastoring 

ED WELCH is director of counseling and academic dean of the Christian Counseling and Educational Foundation (CCEF), as well as counselor, faculty member, and the author of When People Are Big and God Is Small and a number of other titles. He will be speaking on how ministry leaders can best deal with and respond to the opinions of others and the pressure put on them.

harry reeder
SPEAKER: TIMOTHY WITMER TOPIC: Seven Elements of Successful Shepherding 

TIM WITMER is founder of The Shepherds’ Institute, an organization advancing the cause of shepherding among church leaders, and author of The Shepherd Leader. He will be speaking on the seven elements of successful shepherding. He says, “If you already have a shepherding ministry or are convinced that you need to start one, this seminar will help you preclude future problems or address current weaknesses.”

harry reeder
SPEAKER: STEVE ESTES TOPIC: Dealing with Angry Sheep 

STEVE ESTES is pastor of Community Evangelical Free Church in Elverson, Pennsylvania, and coauthor with Joni Eareckson Tada of A Step Further and When God Weeps. “What to do,” he asks, “when a verbal mugging in the hallway makes you fantasize about roasting the sheep on a spit?” In his talk on dealing with angry sheep, he encourages us to learn from “him who endured such opposition from sinful men” (Heb. 12:3).

 

REGISTRATION

Conference Eligibility

Open to men who are ministers, missionaries, chaplains, elders, deacons, and seminary students. Wives are also welcome to attend! We also welcome those who are considering the post of deacon or elder and would like to be better equipped in their calling.

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To register online, click here.
phone
To register by telephone, call the Alliance at 1(800) 488-1888.
mail
To mail or fax a registration form, download the pdf here.
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To book accommodations, call Harvey Cedars at (609) 494-5689.
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To notify Harvey Cedars of food allergies, call (609) 494-5689.

Free resources for every attendee ($200 value!)

Questions? Contact pastors@prpbooks.com or call us at 1(800) 631-0094 and select Customer Service.

 

FREE RESOURCES

All attendees will receive the following free audio CDs, books, and booklets at the conference ($200 value):

Audio CDs:

  • The Preacher: Luther, Edwards, and Lloyd-Jones
  • Preaching the Gospel, Saving Lives
  • The Church: God’s Kingdom on Earth from the 2008 Quakertown Regional Conference on Reformed Theology
  • Preaching the Gospel from the Pre-Conference to the 2012 Philadelphia Conference on Reformed Theology
  • Preaching from the 2011 Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary conference, Westminster Confession into the 21st Century

Books:

Booklets:

Wives in attendance will receive a comparable selection.

 

FEES & DISCOUNTS

Conference & Six Meals

Individual $130
Group (2 people) $120/ea.
Group (3 people) $110/ea.
Group (4+ people) $95/ea.
Students (full time) $45     Includes free dorm housing*
All registrations include $200’s worth of FREE books and audio!

*Limited space available. Call Harvey Cedars, (609) 494-5689

Accomodations: Call Harvey Cedars at (609) 494-5689

On-site Housing (see rooms):

Individual bunk $20 per night
2+ occupancy room $85 per night (entire room)
Group up to 5 $75 per night (entire room)
Group up to 8 $55 per night (entire room)

The rooms feature air conditioning with linens, pillows, and towels supplied. Please bring your own pool and beach towels. Parking is free and will be marked clearly.

Off-site Housing: If the accommodations you need are unavailable, ask Harvey Cedars for information on local hotels with which we have negotiated reduced rates.

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Questions? Contact pastors@prpbooks.com or call us at 1(800) 631-0094 and select Customer Service.

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NEW RELEASE – The Heart Is the Target by Murray Capill

The Heart Is the Target: Preaching Practical Application from Every Text by Murray Capill

Price: $16.99

Pages: 272

Paperback

Summary: God’s Word is powerful, and when preached clearly and applied this impact. When it is concerned merely with teaching information, it can leave congregations unmoved, and when it sacrifices substance for relevance, it shortchanges the power of the text.

For preaching to truly change lives, biblical faithfulness and insightful application must work together—a powerful combination.

Murray Capill helps preachers to shape sermons that impact lives with lasting application. He takes preachers through the “living application” preaching process—moving the Word of God, via the life of the preacher, to the lives of the hearers. His model avoids the pitfalls of tacked-on application and enables preachers to aim at the heart from start to finish, and he outlines how they can do so in some specific preaching challenges. Here are the tools to systematically explore the application potential of any text, in any situation.

About the Author:

MURRAY CAPILL (D.Min., Westminster Theological Seminary, California) has pastored churches in New Zealand and Australia and is principal at the Reformed Theological College in Geelong, Australia, where he lectures in preaching and pastoral ministry.

 

What Others Are Saying About this Book:
“Experienced preachers are well aware of the pitfalls that pervade the terrain of application in preaching. . . . The Heart is the Target not only provides biblical and theological correctives to such errors and imbalances, but also offers practical guidance in preparing sermons that serve the transformative purposes of the Bible.”
Dennis E. Johnson, Professor of Practical Theology, Westminster Theological Seminary, California

 

“Murray Capill has obviously thought deeply and long about sermon application and clearly has a passion for it—one that is highly appealing to the reader. There is a sensitive awareness of the situation of the ‘average preacher.’ . . . I wish I had had this text in my hands when I began preaching over fifty years ago.”
— Bruce Milne, traveling preacher and teacher of pastoral leaders

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HAPPY EASTER!

Below is an excerpt from The Christ of the Empty Tomb
by James Montgomery Boice.

“One of the great historical evidences of the resurrection of Jesus Christ is the empty tomb. But the remarkable and quite startling fact is that when Peter and John arrived at the tomb on the first Easter morning it was not quite empty. The body of Jesus was gone, but something was still there. The graveclothes remained behind. The Bible suggests that there was something so striking about them that John saw them and immediately believed in Jesus’ resurrection.

That is significant, for it marks the first time there was an indication of belief by one of the disciples. As we saw earlier, Ernest Renan argued that faith in the resurrection was the result of the rumors spread by Mary Magdalene who had suffered a hallucination, thinking she had seen Jesus. But that could not be. Mary suffered no hallucination. The last thing in the world she expected was the resurrection of her Lord. And John, at least, testified that he believed some time before Mary ever returned to the tomb and met Jesus in the garden.

The time element is of great interest here. It provides valuable background to the experiences of Peter and John at the tomb. Critics have made much of the so-called discrepancies in the gospel accounts, but there are no discrepancies when the accounts are correctly understood.

Jesus had been crucified either on Friday (as the church has generally believed) or else on Thursday (which is less widely held but which seems to fit the evidence). Regardless, Jesus lay in the tomb until the resurrection, which certainly took place before dawn on Sunday morning. At that point the women came to the tomb from Jerusalem bearing spices to anoint the body. There were at least four women and probably more. Matthew says that the group included Mary Magdalene and the other Mary, that is, Mary the mother of James. Mark adds that Salome was present. Luke says that Joanna was also along and others. The women started out while it was still dark and arrived at the tomb in the early dawn while it was still difficult to distinguish objects.

On reaching the tomb the women were astonished to find the stone removed from the entrance. We must imagine them standing about, afraid to go too close, wondering what had happened. Who moved the stone? Had the tomb been pilfered? Had the body of Jesus been stolen? Had Joseph of Arimathea removed it to another place? What were they to do? At last they decided that the disciples must be told, and Mary Magdalene was dispatched to find them. Not one of them imagined that Jesus had been raised from the dead.

After a while it began to grow a little lighter, and the women grew bolder. They decided to look into the tomb. There they saw angels. The women were afraid. But an angel said, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples” (Matthew 28:5–7).

Mary meanwhile found the two chief disciples, Peter and John, presumably in John’s house where the beloved disciple had taken Mary on the day of the crucifixion (John 19:27).

The two disciples immediately started for the tomb, running and leaving Mary far behind. John was the younger man. Consequently he arrived at the tomb first, stooped to look through the narrow opening and saw the graveclothes. Then Peter arrived, out of breath and in a hurry as usual; he brushed John aside and plunged into the tomb. When John saw the graveclothes, he saw them only in a cursory manner and from outside the tomb. The Greek uses the most common word for seeing. But when Peter arrived he scrutinized the graveclothes carefully. The Scripture uses a special word (theoreo) for what Peter did. The Bible says that Peter “arrived and went into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, as well as the burial cloth that had been around Jesus’ head. The cloth was folded up by itself, separate from the linen” (John 20:6–7, italics added). At that point John entered, saw what Peter had seen, and believed in Jesus’ resurrection.

That was the first moment of belief. In that moment John became the first Christian. It was not until later that the first appearances of the Lord began. Jesus appeared first to Mary Magdalene, who arrived back at the tomb after John and Peter had returned to the city. Next He appeared to the women who were then still on their way back to the city, then to Peter alone, then to the Emmaus disciples, finally, later that night, to all the disciples as they were gathered together in the upper room. All the disciples who saw the risen Lord believed. But John believed first. And he did so before he actually saw Jesus. What made him believe? What did he see that convinced him of Jesus’ resurrection?”

*Excerpt taken from pages 75-78 of The Christ of the Empty Tomb by James Montgomery Boice.