Books about Reshaping from Amazon.com

Two pastors outline and apply a pair of overarching biblical principles that call the current body of Christ to a deep restructuring of its life and mission

“Church is not a meeting you attend or a place you enter,” write pastors Tim Chester and Steve Timmis. “It’s an identity that is ours in Christ. An identity that shapes the whole of life so that life and mission become ‘total church.’” With that as their premise, they emphasize two overarching principles to govern the practice of church and mission: being gospel-centered and being community-centered. When these principles take precedence, say the authors, the truth of the Word is upheld, the mission of the gospel is carried out, and the priority of relationships is practiced in radical ways. The church becomes not just another commitment to juggle but a 24/7 lifestyle where programs, big events, and teaching from one person take a backseat to sharing lives, reaching out, and learning about God together.

In Total Church, Chester and Timmis first outline the biblical case for making gospel and community central and then apply this dual focus to evangelism, social involvement, church planting, world missions, discipleship, pastoral care, spirituality, theology, apologetics, youth and children’s work. As this insightful book calls the body of Christ to rethink its perspective and practice of church, it charts a middle path between the emerging church movement and conservative evangelicalism that all believers will find helpful.

.
Price: $7.99 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Called well worth reading by The Economist and earnest and entertaining by the Financial Times, Tarun Khanna s Billions of Entrepreneurs is an elegantly written book that mixes on-the-ground stories with thorough research to show how Chinese and Indian entrepreneurs are creating change through new business models and bringing hope to countless people across the globe. Khanna juxtaposes, on a variety of levels, China and India; explores how the future depends on understanding the yin and yang of these two nations; and emphasizes the increasingly important links between China, India, and the West. Khanna embraces what he calls a big tent view of entrepreneurship going beyond typical stories of high profile, young executives taking companies public and focusing on social and political entrepreneurs who are redefining the norms of daily activity.

In the book, Khanna sets out to demystify many of the questions that confound foreigners (BusinessWeek), exploring subjects that include each nation s treatment of multinationals, Chinese and Indian managerial talent, and state vs. grassroots approaches to business and entrepreneurship. Khanna s insightful analysis draws on history, economics, and political science, and is humanized by vivid portraits of the lives of individual entrepreneurs, politicians, and activists whom the author has met during his regular visits to each country. He argues that hope for prosperity in both countries lies in the hands of the billions of entrepreneurs who are alleviating social problems and historic tensions, benefiting both countries and the world at large.

According to the Financial Times: What Khanna does do, and does well, is cover vast sociopolitical and economic ground, and provide meaty information derived from conversations with people who have done business in India and China..
Price: $18.55 [Notify me when price goes down.]

"An important new book."
--Newsweek
"Mr. Barber is. . . the first to put Jihad and McWorld together in an inescapable
dialectic . . . . [It] stands as a bold invitation to debate the broad contours and future of society "
--Barbara Ehrenreich
The New York Times Book Review

"COMPELLING. . . IMPRESSIVE. . . A thorough, engaging look at the current state of world affairs."
--The American Reporter
Jihad vs. McWorld is a groundbreaking work, an elegant and illuminating analysis of the central conflict of our times: consumerist capitalism versus religious and tribal fundamentalism. These diametrically opposed but strangely intertwined forces are tearing apart--and bringing together--the world as we know it, undermining democracy and the nation-state on which it depends. On the one hand, consumer capitalism on the global level is rapidly dissolving the social and economic barriers between nations, transforming the world's diverse populations into a blandly uniform market. On the other hand, ethnic, religious, and racial hatreds are fragmenting the political landscape into smaller and smaller tribal units. Jihad vs. McWorld is the term that distinguished writer and political scientist Benjamin R. Barber has coined to describe the powerful and paradoxical interdependence of these forces. In this important new book, he explores the alarming repercussions of this potent dialectic for democracy.
A work of persuasive originality and penetrating insight, Jihad vs. McWorld holds up a sharp, clear lens to the dangerous chaos of the post-Cold War world. Critics and political leaders have already heralded Benjamin R. Barber's work for its bold vision and moral courage. Jihad vs. McWorld is an essential text for anyone who wants to understand our troubled present and the crisis threatening our future.
"CHALLENGING AND INSTRUCTIVE."
--San Francisco Chronicle
"BARBER IS WELL WORTH READING. . . FOR AN INTRODUCTION TO THE REAL WORLD, LOOK AT JIHAD vs. McWORLD."
--The Nation
"STIMULATING, TARTLY WRITTEN."
--Publishers Weekly.
Price: $2.24 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Integrate Web 2.0 trends and technologies into the enterprise

Written by a team of experts from the Web 2.0 community and Oracle Corporation, this innovative guide provides a blueprint for leveraging the new culture of participation in an enterprise environment. Reshaping Your Business with Web 2.0 offers proven strategies for the successful adoption of an enterprise 2.0 paradigm and covers the technical solutions that best apply in specific situations. You will find clear guidelines for using Web 2.0 technologies and standards in a productive way to align with business goals, increase efficiency, and provide measurable bottom line growth.

• Foster collaboration and accelerate information dissemination with blogs and wikis
• Implement folksonomic strategies to achieve business intelligence, analytics, and semantic web goals
• Capture and broadcast connection graphs and activity streams via social networks
• Bring together application data, business analytics, unstructured information, and collaborative interactions in enterprise mashups
• Enable rich Internet applications with Ajax, Ruby on Rails, Flash, FLEX, and other technologies
• Connect your Web 2.0 ecosystem through Web services, such as REST and JSON
• Ensure security and compliance management

 

.
Price: $20.51 [Notify me when price goes down.]

There has been a growing chorus of political analysts with doomsday predictions of an American public that is uncivil, disengaged, and alienated And it's only getting worse with a younger generation of Americans who do not see the value in voting.

The good news is that the bad news is wrong.

Russell Dalton uses a new set of national public opinion surveys to show how Americans are changing their views on what good citizenship means. It's not about recreating the halcyon politics of a generation ago, but recognition that new patterns of citizenship call for new processes and new institutions that reflect the values of the contemporary American public. Trends in participation, tolerance, and policy priorities reflect a younger generation that is more engaged, more tolerant, and more supportive of social justice. The Good Citizen shows how a younger generation is creating new norms of citizenship that are leading to a renaissance of democratic participation. An important comparative chapter in the book showcases cross-national comparisons that further demonstrate the vitality of American democracy.

This book will reshape how we think about the American public, American youth, and the prospects for contemporary democracy.

.
Price: $13.64 [Notify me when price goes down.]

"Compact and insightful "--New York Times Book Review "Jack Larkin has retrieved the irretrievable; the intimate facts of everyday life that defined what people were really like."--American Heritage.
Price: $8.44 [Notify me when price goes down.]

"This little book is full of insights about who we are and where we are going." --Financial Times
The most accessible book yet by one of the most influential thinkers of our time, Runaway World evaluates the ever-increasing impact of globalization today. Extending his arguments beyond the merely economic, Giddens shows how our growing interdependence directly affects our everyday lives. Neither a cheerleading endorsement of emerging markets, nor a fearful rant on the growth of terrorism or loss of American jobs, Runaway World is a book about a world that grows smaller every day, and how those changes are affecting our culture, our traditions, our families, and our politics. Identifying globalization as a true cultural force, this eloquent and important volume is the starting point for anyone concerned about our increasingly interconnected world..
Price: $12.69 [Notify me when price goes down.]