Is there really any hope for a spiritual way of living that actually works?

Admiration, comfort, love, power, success, pleasure, escape, control: we're all addicted to something, whether we realize it or not.

In this deeply heartfelt book, author John Ortberg offers a guide for transformation when we know something needs to change but we can't do it on our own. Rooted in the teachings of Jesus and using the framework of AAs 12 steps as a guide, Ortberg offers all of us a freeing roadmap for:

• Giving up our exhausting and fruitless efforts to fix, manage, and control our own lives
• Distinguishing between when willpower is essential and when it is futile
• Discovering how God can do for us what we can't do for ourselves, and
• living authentically, joyfully and in communion with God and other people.

Ortberg shows us how to discover:

• Our spiritual attachment styles
• Our core doubts
• The benefits of practices like prayer, meditation, and mindfulness
• God's sufficiency in our inadequacy

In Steps, find what's needed to experience a new freedom, a new fellowship and a new happiness no matter our circumstances.

You're one step away from the adventure of your life. John Ortberg invites you to consider the incredible potential that awaits you outside your comfort zone.

Deep within you lies the same faith and longing that sent Peter walking across the wind-swept Sea of Galilee toward Jesus. In what ways is the Lord telling you, as he did Peter, Come?

Out on the risky waters of faith, Jesus is waiting to meet you in ways that will change you forever, deepening your character and your trust in God. The experience is terrifying. It's thrilling beyond belief. It's everything you'd expect of someone worthy to be called Lord.

The choice is yours to know him as only a water-walker can, aligning yourself with God's purpose for your life in the process. There's just one requirement: If You Want to Walk on Water, You've Got to Get Out of the Boat.

In this Christianity Today Award-winning read, bestselling author John Ortberg pushes you to take the last step that separates you from the adventure of your life. And, as a result, you will learn to:

• Recognize God's presence
• Discern between faith and foolishness
• Not only expect problems, but field them when they come
• Reorient your thoughts about failure and see it as an opportunity to grow
• Wait on the Lord
• And, ultimately, connect more deeply with God

Features discussion questions at the end of each chapter to enhance your reflection and spiritual growth. Also perfect for small group discussion.

In this thought-provoking look at what's really important in life, John Ortberg uses games as a metaphor to help us recognize and play for life's real prize: being rich toward God.

Told with humor and wisdom by this bestselling author, pastor, and game-strategist, When the Game is Over It All Goes Back in the Box reminds us that everything on earth belongs to God, and everything we win is just on loan. Being Master of the Board is not the point; playing by God's rules is. Ortberg makes sure we understand the object of the game, but he also walks us through the set-up, the rules, the strategies, and choosing the right trophies.

This book is for those who want to sort out what's fleeting and what's permanent in God's kingdom. It's the perfect playbook for individuals or groups interested in considering life's true priorities and arranging their lives with eternal prizes in mind.

When is the last time you thought about the state of your soul? Bestselling author John Ortberg guides you through practical steps to restoring your soul so you can finally experience a life of wholeness, balance, and hope.

In an age of materialism and consumerism where many people try to buy their way to happiness, many souls are starved and unhealthy, unsatisfied by false promises of status and wealth. We've neglected this eternal part of ourselves, focusing instead on the temporal concerns of the world--and not without consequence.

Including reflections from his decades-long relationship with his friend and mentor Dallas Willard, Ortberg presents another classic that will help you discover your soul--the most important connection to God there is--and find your way out of the spiritual shallow-lands to true divine depth.

Join Ortberg as he guides you through the three distinct aspects of Soul Keeping:

• Discovering what the soul is
• Learning what the soul needs
• Experiencing the joy of a restored soul

With his characteristic insight and an accessible, story-filled approach, Ortberg will help you connect more deeply every day with the God who gave you life to bring more meaning, hope, and abundance to that life.

Praise for Soul Keeping:

This book will not only help you to realize that you have a soul, an interior life, and reveal its importance, but will also give you some tools and handles to grab as you develop that life. It will help you to get grounded again, or even for the first time, with the One who first breathed that life into you, and Who desires every day to breathe more and more life into every corner of your being.

--Dr. Henry Cloud, New York Times bestselling author of Boundaries and Changes That Heal

Qu representa en realidad vivir una verdadera vida espiritual? Qu te impide vivir una vida como esta? Qu puedes hacer para obtenerla?Si est s cansado del status quo --si sospechas que el cristianismo es algo m s de lo que has experimentado-- John Ortberg se ala un camino de transformaci n y vigor espiritual que todos pueden seguir. Uno que te conduce a La vida que siempre quisiste.

Using popular games as a metaphor for our temporal lives, this six-session small group Bible study, When the Game is Over, It All Goes Back in the Box, by John Ortberg, neatly sorts out what's fleeting and what's permanent in God's kingdom.

Today is the day you choose...which game you want to win...which prize you want to collect...which priorities you want to set. It's a thrill to win at checkers or Clue or Trivial Pursuit. You sweep aside the other players and you own the board. It's also a thrill to win a promotion at work ... the new house you wanted ... that sports car you've always eyed.

But just like the game cards, the tokens, and the timer, those prizes are temporary. When the game is over, they all go back in the box. Games can cast a powerful spell, says bestselling author John Ortberg. But the wisest player remembers that the game is always going to end. So when everything goes back in the box, you'll have made what is temporary a servant to what is eternal, and you'll leave this life knowing you've achieved the only victory that matters.

When the Game is Over, It All Goes Back in the Box will teach you to:
- Live passionately and boldly
- Learn how to be active players in the game that pleases God
- Find your true mission and offer your best
- Fill each square on the board with what matters most
- Seek the richness of being instead of the richness of having

This Participant Guide is designed for use with the companion DVD (sold separately). When used together, they work as a powerful catalyst for spiritual growth.

Sessions include:
1. When the Game is Over, It All Goes Back in the Box
2. Keeping Score Where It Really Counts
3. Resign as Master of the Board
4. Calling or Comfort? Choose Your Moves Wisely
5. Playing the Game with Greatness and Grace
6. The King Has One More Move

What Are You Waiting For?

Intimacy with God can happen right now if you want it. A closeness you can feel, a goodness you can taste, a reality you can experience for yourself. That's what the Bible promises, so why settle for less? God is closer than you think, and connecting with him isn't just for monks and ascetics. It's for business people, high school students, busy moms, single men, single women . . . and most important, it's for YOU.

God Is Closer Than You Think shows how you can enjoy a vibrant, moment-by-moment relationship with your heavenly Father. Bestselling author John Ortberg reveals the face of God waiting to be discovered in the complex mosaic of your life. He shows you God's hand stretching toward you. And, with his gift for storytelling, Ortberg illustrates the ways you can reach toward God and complete the connection--to your joy and his.

Ignite a deeper, more vibrant relationship with God that impacts not just your spiritual life but every aspect of your daily life.

John Ortberg calls readers back to the dynamic heartbeat of Christianity--God's power to bring change and growth--and reveals how and why transformation takes place.

The Life You've Always Wanted offers modern perspectives on the ancient path of the spiritual disciplines. But it is more than just a book about things to do to be a good Christian. It's a road map toward true transformation that starts not with the individual but with the person at the journey's end--Jesus Christ.

As with a marathon runner, the secret to finishing a race lies not in trying harder, but in training consistently--training with the spiritual disciplines. The disciplines are neither taskmasters nor ends in themselves. Rather they are exercises that build strength and endurance for the road of growth. The fruit of the Spirit--joy, peace, kindness, etc.--are the signposts along the way.

Paved with humor and sparkling anecdotes, The Life You've Always Wanted is an encouraging and challenging approach to a Christian life that's worth living--a life on the edge that fills an ordinary world with new meaning, hope, change, and joy.

In this six-session small group Bible study, If You Want to Walk on Water, You've got to Get Out of the Boat, by John Ortberg, you'll learn how to move beyond fear to discover God's unique calling for your life!

Peter may have been the first one out of the boat, but Jesus' invitation to walk on water is for you as well. But walk on water? What does that mean?

If You Want to Walk on Water, You've Got to Get Out of the Boat helps you answer helps you answer Christ's call to greater faith, power-filled deeds, and a new way of knowing how to discern God's call, transcend fear, risk faith, manage failure, and trust God. Relating to the story in Matthew 14 to life today, teacher and bestselling author John Ortberg invites you to consider the incredible potential that awaits you outside your comfort zone.

This Participant Guide is designed for use with the companion DVD (sold separately). It's filled with insights, questions for discussion, and applications that will help you connect a new way of thinking to actual deeds and a different approach to life. Out on the risky waters of faith, Jesus is waiting to meet you in ways that will change your forever, deepening your character and your trust in God.

Sessions include:

1. What's Water Walking?
2. The Tragedy of the Unopened Gift
3. Find Your Calling and Get Your Feet Wet!
4. Facing Our Challenges, Conquering Our Fears
5. Good News for Cave Dwellers
6. Learning to Wait on Our Big God

In Soul Keeping, John Ortberg helps Christians rediscover their soul--the best connection to God there is--and find out why it's hurting and why neglecting it has set so many believers so far back spiritually.

In this six-session video-based small group Bible study (DVD/digital video sold separately), Ortberg shows that caring for your soul is necessary for your Christian life. John shows participants what your soul is, why it is important, how to assess your soul's health, and how to care for it so that we can have a meaningful and beautiful life with God and others.

When you nurture your soul your life in this world will come to make sense again; you can find your way back to God from hopelessness, depression, relationship struggles, and a lack of fulfillment. Your soul's resting place is in God, and John Ortberg wants to take participants to that home.

Sessions include:

1. What Is the Soul?
2. The Struggle of the Soul
3. What the Soul Needs
4. The Practice of Grace
5. The Practice of Gratitude
6. The Practice of Growth

Designed for use with Soul Keeping Video Study (sold separately).

In the six-session small group Bible study (DVD/digital video sold separately), God is Closer Than You Think, John Ortberg helps you to discover and enjoy a vibrant, moment-by-moment relationship with God the Father.

Today you can see God in action. Today you can hear God speaking to you. Today you can connect with God heart-to-heart. Today!

Intimacy with God can happen right now - a closeness you can feel, a reality you can experience for yourself. God is closer than you think, and connecting with him isn't the exclusive domain of monks and ascetics. It's for business people, high school students, busy moms, single men, single women...and most important, it's for YOU!

In God is Closer than You Think, Ortberg reveals the face of God waiting to be discovered in the complex mosaic of your life. This insightful and impactful small group study will help you:

• Find God where you least expect him
• Listen to God's voice
• Identify which pathway of relationship you're uniquely designed to travel
• Align yourself with the flow of the Holy Spirit
• Draw closer to God even when he seems absent

This Participant Guide is designed for use together with the God Is Closer Than You Think Video Study (sold separately) and includes discussion questions for individuals and groups. When used together they provide you with a practical tool than can transform your faith.

Sessions include:

1. God's Great Desire for People
2. Where is God in My World?
3. Partnering with God Today
4. Listening to the Voice of God
5. God Wants a Relationship with You
6. Heaven Breaking Through

Written by the dynamic leaders of church ministry across the country, this series explores life-changing topics from a biblical perspective. New Community guides don't force small groups to choose between Bible study and building community. Just the opposite. Each study delves deeply into Scripture in a way that strengthens relationships. Challenging questions encourage group members to reflect not only on Scripture but also on their own lives--individually and as a part of God's family. And unlike most Bible studies, the New Community series helps study groups convert biblical principles into practical teamwork--helping at the soup kitchen, bringing a meal to someone, writing an encouraging letter, and so on. Filled with prayer, insight, intimacy, and action, each study in this series will help group members line up their lives and relationship more closely with the Bible's model for the church.

In this five-session DVD-based small group bible study, Who Is This Man?, John Ortberg reveals how Jesus made an inescapable influence on our world and you will learn how you can make one too!

Jesus is history's most familiar figure. His impact on the world is immense and non-accidental. From the Dark Ages to Post-Modernity he is the man who won't go away

And yet ...

He did not brashly defend his movement in the spirit of a rising political or military leader. He did not lay out a case that history would judge superior in all future books. He did not start by telling his disciples, Here are proofs of my divinity; affirm them and I'll accept you.

Who Is This Man? illustrates how Jesus' influence has swept over history, bringing his inspiration to the evolution of art, science, government, medicine, and education. And how his vision for us to lead lives of dignity, compassion, forgiveness, and hope continues to inspire and challenge humanity today

Sessions include:

1. The Man Who Won't Go Away
2. A Revolution of Humanity
3. The Power of Forgiveness
4. Why It's a Small World After All
5. Three Days That Changed the World

Normal? Who's normal?

Not you, that's for sure! No one you've ever met, either. None of us are normal according to God's definition, and the closer we get to each other, the plainer that becomes. Yet for all our quirks, sins, and jagged edges, we need each other. Community is more than just a word--it is one of our most fundamental requirements. So how do flawed, abnormal people such as ourselves master the forces that can drive us apart and come together in the life-changing relationships God designed us for?

In Everybody's Normal Till You Get to Know Them, teacher and bestselling author John Ortberg zooms in on the things that make community tick. You'll get a thought-provoking look at God's heart, at others, and at yourself. Even better, you'll gain wisdom and tools for drawing closer to others in powerful, impactful ways. With humor, insight, and a gift for storytelling, Ortberg shows how community pays tremendous dividends in happiness, health, support, and growth. It's where all of us weird, unwieldy people encounter God's love in tangible ways and discover the transforming power of being loved, accepted, and valued just the way we are.

In this five-session small group Bible study, The Me I Want to Be, John Ortberg reveals how you can become the unique, fully alive person God intended you to be.

There is a me each of one of us wants to be... someone who's more kind and generous, patient, and loving. But there is a gap between the me I am and the me I want to be. Oftentimes we find it easy to trust God to bridge the gap between and us and him, but we struggle to really live by grace and trust God to close the gap between the me I am and the me I want to be. Becoming God's best version of you is both God's desire and the greatest task of your life. And here's the good news... he's already working on it. Your life is God's project, not yours.

The Me I Want to Be small group Bible study is a powerful look at becoming the unique, fully alive, flourishing person God intended. Pastor and author John Ortberg teaches through fives sessions how you can move toward becoming God's best version of you in four specific areas: your mind, your time, your relationships, and your experiences.

Spiritual growth can seem difficult or intimidating, but John Ortberg's humor and innovative thinking in The Me I Want to Be will leave you challenged, inspired, and hopeful about true spiritual growth happening in you and your small group.

This Participant Guide is designed for use with The Me I Want to Be DVD (sold separately) and includes discussion questions for individuals and groups. When used together they provide you with a practical tool than can transform your faith.

Sessions include:

1. Discovering the Spirit
2. Renewing My Mind
3. Redeeming My Time
4. Deeping My Relationships
5. Transforming My Experience

Jesus said the soul is worth more than the world. The soul is the key to our lives, binding our heart, our mind, and our spirit together. Shouldn't you get pretty clear on exactly what the soul is? And how to care for it? Taken from John Ortberg's book Soul Keeping, this booklet reveals what the soul's greatest need is, now and for eternity.

Have you ever thought about why your soul is hurting and if that could be standing in the way of your spiritual growth? Ortberg writes that once your soul has been properly cared for, you will find your way back to God from hopelessness, depression, relationship struggles, and lack of fulfillment. Jesus said we could find rest for our souls. Ortberg points us in that direction.

SI QUIERES CAMINARSOBRE LAS AGUASTIENES QUE SALIR DE LA BARCAEs posible que Pedro fuera el primero en salir de la embarcación, pero la invitación de Jesús es extensiva a usted hoy. Lo que le espera fuera es mucho agua y pocas probabilidades de mantenerse firme. Como seguidores de Cristo podemos seguir su llamado pero, caminar sobre las aguas?Caminar sobre las aguas es: - Enfrentar los temores y no dejar que estos digan la ultima palabra. - Descubrir el llamado de Dios y seguirlo toda la vida.- Experimentar el poder de Dios en su vida para hacer lo que no podía por sus propias fuerzas.Cristo camino sobre esas aguas con éxito, si usted quiere hacerlo solo hay un requisito: Si quiere caminas sobre las aguas, tiene que salir de la barca.

Something in us is waiting--for what, we don't know. Something different? Something better?

For Christians, perhaps the deepest expression of what we're waiting for is found in the phrase eternal life. But what is eternal life? Why do we want it? And how do we know if we have it?

In Eternity Is Now in Session, pastor and bestselling author John Ortberg dispels the myth that eternal life is something way out in outer space that we can only hope to experience after we die--and that being saved is merely about meeting the minimal entrance requirements for getting into heaven. Instead, John unpacks the biblical reality that the moment we trust Christ, we are initiated into eternal living with God as a here and now reality, one that will continue beyond our life on this earth.

Jesus defined eternal life just once, in John 17:3: . . . that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. The kind of knowing God that is eternal life is an interactive relationship, not just an affirmation of certain facts about God. With his signature wisdom and ability to make spiritual formation approachable, Ortberg explores:

• A radical rediscovery of what the Bible really says about salvation
• The New Testament definitions of the Kingdom of God, eternal life, and the good news of the Gospel
• What it really means to be a disciple and follow Jesus

Once we begin the transformative journey of truly knowing God, we can start to experience His presence, favor, and resurrection power right here on this earth--in the details, tasks, and challenges of daily, ordinary life. And as we begin to know God this way, we'll realize each moment of our lives is a vehicle to the eternity we've been longing for all along.

El alma es la clave de nuestra vida; es la que une nuestro corazón, nuestra mente y nuestro espíritu. Sin embargo, qué es en realidad? En Guarda tu alma, John Ortberg utiliza un formato popular y repleto de anécdotas para tratar el tema de lo que es nuestra alma, y de cómo podemos cuidar de ella en un mundo que con mucha frecuencia nos olvidamos de que existe en cada uno de nosotros, esperando a que la alimentemos.

The day after Jesus' death, whatever small mark he made on the world seemed destined to disappear. Instead, his impact on human history has been unparalleled, leading believers and nonbelievers alike to ask, Who Is This Man?

In Who Is This Man, bestselling author John Ortberg explores the paradox of Jesus, history's most familiar figure while simultaneously the man no one knows. Who Is This Man traces Jesus' incredible life and legacy from his days on Earth to the present moment, showing us:

• How his vision of life continues to haunt and challenge humanity
• The ways his influence has inspired movements in art, science, government, medicine, and education
• How his lessons about dignity, compassion, forgiveness, and hope continue to influence humanity

Join John Ortberg as he shares how Jesus' influence has swept over history and how his vision of life continues to impact us today.

Praise for Who Is This Man?:

Sometimes in the clutter and noise of 'religion, ' we lose sight of who Jesus is. Once again, John Ortberg helps us do what he does best: he helps us see God as he really is and connect with him amid all the noise. This book is a gift.

--Dr. Henry Cloud, psychologist, coauthor of the bestselling Boundaries books

We live in a period where the divide between the secular and the sacred has never been greater. Who Is This Man? bridges this gap by sharing in his inimitable and entertaining style the undeniable and profound impact of Jesus Christ on our world. His impact, over two thousand years later, is more profound on the day-to-day lives of people--believers or not--than the impact of any other person at any point in history. John shows how Christ came to teach us how to live and in the process changed the world forever and for good.

--Ron Johnson, CEO, J. C. Penney