William Graham Tullian Tchividjian is the Senior Pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. A Florida native, he is a visiting professor of theology at Reformed Theological Seminary and a grandson of Billy Graham. Tullian was the founding pastor of the former New City Church, which merged with Coral Ridge in April of 2009. Jesus + Nothing = Everything (Crossway 2011) is his first book since his devastating year of losing his father and being called for a congregational vote of confidence at Coral Ridge.

Sometimes you have to go through hard times to discover what, or who, you are anchored to. Sounds like this is what this book came out of.

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After serving as pastor of Student Ministries at Cornerstone in Simi Valley, CA, Chuck Bomar planted Colossae Church in Portland, Oregon. He is the founder of CollegeLeader and has created numerous resources for college ministry leaders. Chuck speaks frequently and has a tremendous heart for youth workers, especially those in college-age ministry. Chuck is married to Barbara, and together they have two daughters; Karis and Hope. Oh, and lest we forget, Chuck is a regular ConversantLife.com blogger. His latest book is Worlds Apart (Zondervan 2011).  

We've heard rumors that you drink more coffee than anyone else in Portland, and that's saying something. Talk about your strategy of frequenting cafes as the pastor of a growing church in Portland.

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Phil Cooke has produced media programming in more than forty countries around the world, and in the process was shot at, survived two military coups, fell out of a helicopter, and in Africa was threatened with prison. Meanwhile, he's helped some of the largest nonprofit organizations in the world navigate periods of dramatic disruption and change. His newest book, Jolt! (Thomas Nelson), will show you how it is possible to change your life while still maintaining your integrity and creativity. ConversantLife.com asked Phil 5 Questions about Jolt! and the messsage he wants to convey.

You use the concept of “jolt” in two different contexts—passive and active. Talk about these and why it’s crucial to be a person who is pro-actively changing.

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Brian McLaren, heralded as one of America's 25 most influential evangelicals by Time magazine, is an author, speaker, social justice activist, and pastor. His work has been covered in the New York Times, and Christianity Today. In his newest book, Naked Spirituality, McLaren shares practical wisdom for living a truly spiritual life as he presents 12 exercises for beginning and sustaining a meaningful relationship with God. Brian was kind enough to answer 5 Questions posed by ConversantLife.com.

In Naked Spirituality, you list four typical answers to the question, “What do you mean by spiritual?” Since these are all generic answers to some degree, how do you nudge people from a general desire to be spiritual to Christianity, or more specifically, to Christ?

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Shelley Leith is the author of the new book, Head-to-Soul Makeover, Helping Teenage Girls Become Real in a Fake World, and co-author of Character Makeover: 40 Days with a Life Coach to Become Your Best You. She lives in Southern California with her husband and their five children, who have been the targets of Shelley’s early attempts at character development exercises.

Head-to-Soul Makeover. The name sounds like another study for teen girls on self-esteem.

My daughter Heather came up with that name. This study is based on my book for women called Character Makeover, but Heather told me that teenagers would not show up for a study with the word “character” in the title, so she gave it this clever twist. It’s actually a ten-week study on how to develop eight different Christlike character qualities, and I use television reality shows as metaphors for the different qualities.

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You opened your best-selling book Crazy Love by saying “something is wrong with the American church.”  More than a million copies have sold to date, so do you think American church members agree.

At first I thought it was just me. Then I stood before twenty thousand Christian college students and asked, “How many of you have read the New Testament and wondered if we in the Church are missing it?” When almost every hand went up, I felt comforted. At least I’m not crazy. And I think those reading Crazy Love find this message resonating.

I think it’s far too easy to blame the American church without acknowledging that we are each part of the church and therefore responsible. But I think we all feel deeply, even if we haven’t voiced it, that the church in many ways is not doing well.

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An energetic speaker and writer, Arlene Pellicane has been featured on The Hour of Power, The 700 Club, and Turning Point with Dr. David Jeremiah. Her new book, 31 Days to a Younger You: No Surgery, No Diets, No Kidding, has just been published by Harvest House. In it Arlene offers practical solutions to look and feel younger, especially if you want to have more energy, be happier and healthier, and prevent illnesses such as diabetes and heart disease.

"All this and more is possible when you take an honest look in the mirror, both at your body and your soul, and allow God to touch your life," writes Arlene. Many women have already found value in Arlene's beauty and health tips, along with her biblical encouragement to "grow more beautiful from the inside out." 

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During this tragic time in surfing community, with the loss of World Champion Andy Irons, our souls cry out that something is wrong. Not only is something wrong in the world around us but it feels as though something is wrong inside each of us. This is what many have called the God shaped hole in each of us. Saint Augustine said that our souls will always be restless until they find their rest in God.

I would ask you to commit to pray for the Irons family during this extremely painful time. Pray that God's comfort would be very real in their lives. Also, pray that God would recycle the pain in the surfing community and draw people to Himself. Pray, too, that God would give the members of Christian Surfers great wisdom as they live as the Light of the world and bring grace and truth to the surfing communities of our world.

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Dr. Barry Corey, president of Biola University, is in Cape Town, South Africa, as one of just 400 American delegates at the Third Lausanne World Congress on Evangelism. This is the first in a series of dispatches Dr. Corey is sending about his experience at this historic event.

This has been another powerful morning here at Lausanne, Cape Town. The format in the convention center is setup around 800 tables of six. We are assigned tables for the morning sessions. More than four thousand fill the room with another 1,200 stewards and guests filling the seats and sitting and standing around the arena. It is perhaps the most representative gathering of the Christian church in history.

John Piper's talk on Ephesians 3 this morning drew our attention to the obvious tensions in gatherings like these of multinational, multicultural Christian leaders. How much do we give ourselves to the living out of the Gospel through eradicating human suffering, and how much do we give of ourselves to the awakening of the lost to the eternal suffering and the reality of hell?

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Ernie Becker V has lived five lifetimes in one. Or at least that's the way it seems. Born and raised in Las Vegas as a fifth generation contractor/developer, Ernie followed in the footsteps of his family business and was very good at it. He performed all aspects of construction development, buying and selling real estate, raising money and working closely with financial institutions. Then things started to spiral out of control. As Ernie says, "I tried to find anything I could on the outside to make me feel better on the inside."

Then Ernie discovered Christ, put his addictions down and began to work forward with what Jesus had in store for him. For ten years he became both a student and a teacher of Christians life coaching principles. Three years ago he formed E5 Coaching, LLC, as a way to help people find the life purpose he has found.

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