Community First

You are meant to be in relationships that bring joy and connection—that help you know soul-deep peace and leave you feeling loved instead of lonely. Instead, surface-level friendships, filtered social media feeds, unresolved conflicts, and unhealthy relationships can often seem to harm our self-worth, spiritual growth, and mental health—and keep us from the very relationships that could bring that true connection.

It’s not like she’s the only woman to ever have a baby. At 35. On her own. But Anne Lamott makes it all fresh in her now-classic account of how she and her son and numerous friends and neighbors and some strangers survived and thrived in that all-important first year. From finding out her baby is a boy (and getting used to the idea) to finding out her best friend and greatest supporter, Pam, will die of cancer (and not getting used to that idea), with a generous amount of wit and faith (but little piousness), Lamott narrates the great and small events making up a woman’s life.

Modern society is plagued by fragmentation. The various sectors of our communities - businesses, schools, social service organizations, churches, government - do not work together. They exist in their own worlds. As do so many individual citizens, who long for connection but end up marginalized, their gifts overlooked, their potential contributions lost.

299 Days: The Community, the third book in the 299 Days series, reunites Grant Matson with his family after his wife, children, and in-laws accept that the only way to survive the Collapse is to flee the comfort of their suburban lives and join him at his isolated cabin in the woods. With riots becoming more violent, power outages more widespread, and the military crumbling, Grant and others throughout Washington State realize they must organize if they want to endure.

Where does one go, you might ask, when the world falls apart? When the immutable facts of your life—the mundane, the trivial, the take-for-granted minutiae that once filled every second of every day—suddenly disappear? Where does one go in such dire and unexpected circumstances? I went home, of course.

As a response to the increasing violence in our culture, the widening ideological divides, and the growing gap in economic well-being, there is greater awareness that a deeper sense of community is desperately needed. But even as we acknowledge the need to build community, the dominant on-the-ground practices about how to engage people, civically and organizationally, remain essentially unchanged. We still believe community is built with better messaging, more persuasion, and social events for people to get to know each other better. All of which is naïve.

In 1978, when Jamiyla was two years old, her mother, Ummi, quit her job, converted to Islam with her husband, and moved into an exclusive Muslim society in Brooklyn. Once inside the Community, the family was separated by its powerful and charismatic leader, Dwight York, who was hiding behind the name Imam Isa. Instead of the devotional refuge they’d imagined, the Community was a nightmare of controlled abuse and unspeakable secrets. Forty years later, Jamiyla was ready to excavate and understand a past buried in bad dreams, disturbing memories, and inexplicable rage.

In 16-year-old Mike Hernandez's life, only one thing is clear: Gay is not okay. His family's life revolves around the church, a church run by the vocally intolerant Pastor Myers, so Mike has resolved to spend his life in the closet. His only escape - besides the occasional, anonymous gay make-out session - is his art. He pours his complicated emotions into risque drawings he keeps in a secret sketchbook. A sketchbook he carries everywhere. When his sketchbook goes missing in the middle of Sunday school, Mike is sure his life is over.

He’s lost everything. She’s afraid of what she’s got. Sometimes, first love needs a second chance... In the space of six months, Nick Hanson’s perfect life has fallen apart. Faced with the loss of his best friend, his fortune, and his job, he’s returned to the New Hampshire town of Fable Notch to wait out the disaster. For Nick, this is just an unfortunate interlude— a chance to hatch a plan that will have New York begging for his return. Until he crosses paths with an injured dog and his past comes knocking... For veterinarian Dani Vaughn, Fable Notch has always been home, so ...

Engage Gen Z. Future-Proof Your Brand. In today’s fast-changing digital landscape, brands are struggling to capture the attention of Gen Z, a generation that values authenticity, collaboration, and community like never before. The old playbook of one-way messaging and transactional loyalty programs is no longer enough. Enter web3 marketing, a revolutionary approach that builds lasting connections through gamification, transparency, and a community-first ethos. This groundbreaking guide provides everything you need to thrive in the web3 era.

Ada always looks forward to her summers at the family villa with her mother and grandmother in a Turkish seaside town. It’s easy to leave life in California behind when the days are filled with boat rides, games at the beach, and long swims with friends. But no matter how much Ada feels she belongs in the country where her mother grew up, deep down, her connection to the culture seems as fleeting as the seasons. It’s certainly no help that her mother has lost her own sense of self, rootless and disoriented after so many years abroad.

Naeem is far from the model teen. Moving fast in his immigrant neighborhood in Queens is the only way he can outrun the eyes of his hardworking Bangladeshi parents and their gossipy neighbors. Even worse, they're not the only ones watching. Cameras on poles. Mosques infiltrated. Everyone knows: Be careful what you say and who you say it to. Anyone might be a watcher.

A broken heart, a new beginning, and a secret that could change everything... Aurora "Rory": After my world came crashing down—my ex-fiancé, my business partner, the man I thought I knew—betrayed me in every possible way, I needed an escape. When my best friend mentioned a rundown Victorian mansion in Wintervale, Montana, something inside me said it was time for a fresh start. So I bought it, sight unseen, hoping to turn it into a quant Airbnb and rebuild my life in this quiet, snowy town. What I didn’t expect? The charmingly gruff contractor, Cass Whitlock, whose touch sends sparks ...

After the death of her husband Jill is looking for somewhere to fit in to alleviate her lost feelings. She turns toward a local church and gets even more than salvation there!

As more and more people diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorders live in the community, opportunities for interactions with first responders (police, fire, EMT, etc.) have increased exponentially. Training for first responders has been non-existent or not always been optimal, however, and this has unfortunately led to misunderstandings with tragic consequences, including people with ASD being shot and killed and first responders being injured. In First Responders and People Diagnosed on the Autism Spectrum: What Each Needs to Know About the Other, Dr. Bobby Newman provides the information ...

What does it mean to be a good citizen at school? Young listeners will learn what it looks like to be a part of a school community.

Gun rights and control are well-trodden subjects, with prior work supporting the right of citizens to own firearms, discussing the failure of gun control efforts, or warning about or exhorting citizen gun ownership, among other things. Although social media in their many forms have only come to dominate modern U.S. life during the past decade, there has been little academic exploration of gun owner communities on the Internet and social media.

Introducing Disaster Ready, the ultimate guide to surviving and thriving in the face of any disaster. This comprehensive eBook is your one-stop-shop for all things emergency preparedness. With a comprehensive 20-chapter guide, Disaster Ready covers everything you need to know to keep yourself and those around you safe and secure during disasters of all types. Chapter 1 lays the foundation for your knowledge by discussing the various types of disasters and how they can affect you. From there, you'll move into risk assessment to determine what disasters are most likely in your area and how to...

If you are hungry for a deeper understanding of your life and your relationships, join author D. A. Combs for an engaging and riveting study of god's eternal plan for community. Incorporating topics vitally relevant to the church today, Pastor Combs tackles the issues of community, gender relationships, family relationships, and equality folding them into a biblical understanding within the framework of god's plan for his creation.