"Thousands of Protestant churches are perplexed by plateaued or declining attendance, while other congregations nearby thrive. Is there a way for them to combine forces, drawing on both their strengths, in order to increase their missional impact? Church merger consultant Jim Tomberlin (with co-writer Warren Bird) makes the case that mergers today work best not with two struggling churches but with a vital, momentum-filled lead church partnering with...

Rome and Canterbury tells the story of the determined but little known work being done to end the nearly five hundred year old divisions between the Roman Catholic and the Anglican/Episcopal Churches. The break was never intended, has never been fully accepted and is experienced, by many, as a painful and open wound. It is a personal account that begins the story by reviewing the relevant history and theology, looks at where we are today, and concludes...

Nineteenth-century America was rife with Protestant-fueled anti-Catholicism. Elizabeth Hayes Alvarez reveals how Protestants nevertheless became surprisingly and deeply fascinated with the Virgin Mary, even as her role as a devotional figure who united Catholics grew. Documenting the vivid Marian imagery that suffused popular visual and literary culture, Alvarez argues that Mary became a potent, shared exemplar of Christian womanhood around which...