IS LIVING TOGETHER THE ANSWER?Since the late 1960s, the number of couples living together before marriage has increased significantly, as this phenomenon was thought to be the answer to obtaining a successful marriage. The theory that couples could "practice" seemed a perfect solution to an increasingly higher divorce rate. "After all," many argued, "if we live together first, we will really know if we're compatible."Mike and Harriet McManus, co-founders of...

The New York Times Bestseller“Deeply satisfying. . . I have waited my whole life for someone to write a book like Bright-sided.” —The New York Times Book ReviewFrom the critically-acclaimed author of Nickel and Dimed comes the bestseller Bright-sided, a sharp-witted knockdown of America's love affair with positive thinking and an urgent call for a new commitment to realism.

In Shiny Objects, a cross between In Praise of Slowness and The Tipping Point, consumer behavior expert Professor James A. Roberts takes us on a tour of America's obsession with consumerism—pointing out its symptoms, diagnosing specific problems, and offering a series of groundbreaking solutions.Roberts gives practical advice for how to correct the materialistic trends in our lives which lock us into a cycle of financial hardship and stress. Shiny Obj...

We need our neighbors and community to stay healthy, produce jobs, raise our children, and care for those on the margin. Institutions and professional services have reached their limit of their ability to help us. The consumer society tells us that we are insufficient and that we must purchase what we need from specialists and systems outside the community. We have become consumers and clients, not citizens and neighbors. John McKnight and Peter Block show that we have the capacity to find...

Raising children ranks as one of life’s most rewarding adventures. Yet between Mom and Dad working full-time jobs, endless carpooling of overscheduled youngsters, and the never-ending pressures to buy and consume, family life can be incredibly—needlessly—complex. What if you could find a way to spend more time with your children, replace unnecessary activities with meaningful ones, and teach your children an invaluable life lesson in the process? Living Simply with Children

An empowering guide to creating rewarding relationships between parents and their adult children.Parents work hard to raise their children into adulthood, but popular wisdom tells them to bite their tongues and loosen the purse strings once their child is grown! But increasing life spans mean that parents and children can spend as many as five or six decades as adults together: actively parenting adult children is a reality for many families. Dr. Ruth Nemzoff, an ex...

If half of all cars bought in America each year broke down, there would be a national uproar. But when people suggest that maybe every single marriage doesn't look like the next and isn't meant to last until death, there's nothing but a rash of proposed laws trying to force it to do just that.In The New I Do, therapist Susan Pease Gadoua and journalist Vicki Larson take a groundbreaking look at the modern shape of marriage to help readers ...

A REVOLUTION IS UNDER WAY.Within a generation, more households will be supported by women than by men. In The Richer Sex, Liza Mundy takes us to the exciting frontier of this new economic order: she shows us why this flip is inevitable, what surprising adjustments will have to be made along the way, and how both men and women will feel surprisingly liberated in the end.The bestselling author and Washington Post writer goes deep inside the lives of the coup...

Money is not the only currency your ministry can use to become sustainable, grow, and thrive. In Holy Currencies, author Eric H.F. Law teaches us how the six currencies of time and place, gracious leadership, relationship, truth, wellness, and money flow through successful missional ministries. He shows how these blessings are exchanged into other currencies, forming what he calls the “Cycle of Blessings.” Learn how to use this sequence of exchanges to rejuvenate, recirculate, regenerate, ...

In a landmark book that's "intriguing [and] provocative" and presents "an original thesis [to explain] this peculiar paradox—we idealize marriage and yet we’re so bad at it” (The New York Times).Andrew J. Cherlin's three decades of study have shown him that marriage in America is a social and political battlefield in a way that it isn’t in other developed countries. Americans marry and divorce more often and have more live-in partners than Europeans, and g...

How to Protect Your Leadership Influence and PowerYou’ve worked hard to achieve your dreams and goals. Many others have done the same—only to lose it all in the end. Every day, we read about successful people in various walks of life who have lost their power and influence. They’ve been fired, forced to resign, or shamed out of public life. They no longer have a market for their gifts, and they may even face criminal proceedings. These leaders have lost th...

In today's high-speed culture, there's a prevailing sense that we are busier than ever before and that the pace of life is too rushed. Most of us can relate to the feeling of having too much to do and not enough time for the people and things we value most. We feel fragmented, overwhelmed by busyness and the tyranny of gadgets.Veteran pastor and teacher Arthur Boers offers a critical look at the isolating effects of modern life that have eroded the centralizing, focusing activities...