Bøger af Susan Sparks

Winner of an Ian Outstanding Book of the Year Award from best-selling author, preacher, and nationally syndicated columnist Susan Sparks!How do you hold onto hope in the midst of despair? The answer is simple! All you need is love, a tiara, and a cupcake. Using these three festive metaphors, this book offers heart-warming meditations on finding your purpose (love), claiming your worth (a tiara), and holding onto your joy (a cupcake) - tools that can get you through the worst of times. Join Rev. Susan Sparks to welcome joy into your life no matter what the circumstances.

Bestseller and winner of the Writer's Digest Award, Miracle on 31st Street is a collection of holiday meditations that will lift your spirits any time of the year! Stress, unforeseen crises, commitments, aging parents, kids, money worries . . . none of it goes away. But if you manage it right, you can recreate the joy of Christmas every day of the year no matter what the circumstances.Through the tools taught in this book (and the FREE accompanying journal workbook and online Advent calendar), you will be able to: -Reduce stress and develop consistent self-care;-Claim and prioritize time for yourself;-Reframe your perspective;-Discover tools for dealing with negativity, difficult people, and corrosive emotions;-Restore your sense of purpose;-Renew your ability to see miracles in everyday life.Just a few minutes a day and you can go from Grinch to gratitude - any time of the year! But don't wait around . . . years of stress and silent resentment can lock in like the weight of the Grinch's sled. Remember happiness is not a once a year event. Join the Miracle on 31st Street Community and reclaim your joy today!ABOUT THE AUTHOR"A preacher with a motorcycle, cowboy boots, a wicked sense of humor, and a heart that warms you like a huge Southern-style breakfast. That's my pastor!" -Tamron Hall, Broadcast journalist and television hostA trial lawyer turned standup comedian, and Baptist preacher, Susan Sparks is America's only female comedian with a pulpit. Susan is the senior pastor of the historic Madison Avenue Baptist Church in New York City (and the first woman pastor in the church's 170-year history). A TEDx speaker and nationally syndicated columnist, Susan is also a professional comedian touring with a standup Rabbi and a Muslim comic in the Laugh in Peace Comedy Tour. Her work with humor and healing has been featured by O (The Oprah) Magazine, the New York Times, CBS, and the History Channel.

One in four: the number of women who will experience domestic abuse or violence.Three per day: the number of women killed in domestic disputes.Ten million: the number of children exposed to domestic violence each year.AND THEY ARE BEHIND CLOSED DOORS EVERYWHERE, IN EVERY WALK OF LIFE.Imagine an attractive, high-powered, female executive who realizes that her twenty-year relationship has turned her into a victim of domestic abuse. Imagine there are children to consider. And imagine the emotional abuse she has endured, abuse that has escalated as she questions her own culpability in allowing it, becomes physical and potentially fatal.Every year, domestic abuse - whether physical, financial, or emotional - affects one in four women in the country. That's more than are affected by breast, ovarian, and lung cancers combined. Susan Sparks wants to change this.SPARKS IN LOVE is a survivor's story. Giving you a look from the inside, it shows what happens when you fall in love with the wrong person and ignore the warning signs. Highlighting the signs of domestic abuse with stories from her own life, Sparks takes the reader on a journey designed to expose both the subtle and overt aspects of abuse.A cautionary tale to those entering relationships, as well as reassurance to those still enmeshed in abuse, the message is clear: there are safe ways out and life after abuse. Each victim has the right to become a SODA(TM): a Survivor of Domestic Abuse.Eminently readable, poignant and informative, compelling and horrifying, SPARKS IN LOVE is an inspirational telling of one woman's story that becomes everywoman's story for the one in four women who become victims of domestic abuse.

Waiting in the wings is an untapped power that can transform the craft of preaching. It isn't studied or taught because it has been mistaken as trivial or simply the means to get a laugh. What is this ignored superpower? The art of stand-up comedy. In Preaching Punchlines: The Ten Commandments of Comedy, Susan Sparks brings two decades of experience as a preacher and a professional stand-up to mine the strategies comedians have employed for years. Lessons include framing messages that people will listen to, remember, and share; finding your creative voice; building bridges and community; and bringing full authenticity in the pulpit. The art of stand-up comedy is not just about jokes; it's about developing intimacy, honesty, and trust-three dynamics that must be present before any sermon is truly heard.Praise for Preaching Punchlines: The Ten Commandments of Comedy: "With what I've learned, I just may show up preaching at a church near you." -Lewis Black, Comedian "...this lively, practical, and searching book...will make seasoned (i.e., jaded) preachers think again and look at what is demanded of them in what ought to be the joyful role of communicating the divine comedy of healing and transfiguration." -Rowan (not Atkinson, alas) Williams, Former Archbishop of Canterbury "A preacher with a motorcycle, cowboy boots, a wicked sense of humor, and a heart that warms you like a huge Southern-style breakfast. That's my pastor!" -Tamron Hall, Broadcast journalist and television host

In this personal and funny look at humor as a spiritual practice, Rev. Susan Sparks-an ex-lawyer turned comedian and Baptist minister-presents a convincing case that the power of humor radiates far beyond punch lines.