Nelson Books

As CEO of the Blueprint for Life ministry, Michael Kendrick is devoted to helping others discover God's purpose for their lives. Your Blueprint for Life guides listeners toward a Christ-honoring life - one that brings joy spiritually, financially, relationally, physically, and professionally. With practical guidance for discovering passion, gifts, and callings, Your Blueprint for Life gives listeners concrete strategies for achieving the life they were created to lead, such as:

• Intentionally carve out a specific time each day to hear from God
• Prune your relational portfolio
• Step into your children's world
• Remember you are a steward of God's resources, not an owner of your resources

For anyone who has ever wondered why they were put on earth, Your Blueprint for Life not only answers the question, but it also gives listeners a solid guide to understanding and achieving God's vision for their lives.

©2015 Michael Kendrick (P)2015 Thomas Nelson Publishers

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YOUR BLUEPRINT FOR LIFE by Michael Kendrick

Great leaders understand that their team is only as strong as its weakest link. And healthy, nurtured relationships are key in making your team operate as a well-oiled machine. In Relationships 101, John Maxwell offers time-tested principles for connecting with people and building positive working relationships within an organization. The unique, pocket-size format puts straightforward, practical information at your fingertips. Topics include:

• What Do I Need to Know About Others?
• How Can I Become a Better Listener?
• What Does It Mean to Have Integrity with People?
• How Can I Serve and Lead at the Same Time?

©2004 John C. Maxwell (P)2015 Thomas Nelson Publishers

RELATIONSHIPS 101 by John C. Maxwell

"Teamwork is always at the heart of great achievement," says New York Times best-selling author John C. Maxwell. "The question isn't whether teams add value. The question is whether we will acknowledge that fact and work to become better team players."

This concise, power-packed game plan can help you create an environment that results in victory and fulfillment for the whole team. Learn to:

• Build a team that lasts
• Create positive energy on the team
• Harness a team's creativity
• Identify weak players who negatively impact a team
• Judge if the team can accomplish the dream

Everyone wants to be part of a winning team. Now is your chance to build one!

©2009 John C. Maxwell (P)2015 Thomas Nelson Publishers

TEAMWORK 101 by John C. Maxwell

Ask the best leaders in any organization how they learned to be successful, and you often hear the same answer: They had good mentors. Now, international leadership expert John Maxwell gives the bottom line on mentoring in one short, easy-to-listen-to volume.

In Mentoring 101 he gives the steps needed to effectively reproduce your success in someone else. He explains how to choose the right person to mentor, how to create the right environment for leaders to thrive and grow, and how to get started.

What if you spent your entire life achieving but never shared your wisdom with anyone else? Don't let your success end with you. As a mentor you can create a legacy that will last long after you are done listening.

©2008 John C. Maxwell (P)2015 Thomas Nelson Publishers

MENTORING 101 by John C. Maxwell

The best leaders know that success is about more than winning - it's about improving and developing. Self-Improvement 101 shares best-selling author John C. Maxwell's tips, tactics, and inspiration that compel leaders to reach ever higher levels.

Drawing from the wisdom in his books Your Road Map for Success, Talent Is Never Enough, Developing the Leaders Around You, Failing Forward, The 360 Degree Leader, Winning with People, and Leadership Gold, John C. Maxwell provides in Self-Improvement 101 the essentials all leaders need to keep striving for excellence no matter where they are or what they are doing. After all, great leaders who are growth oriented rather than goal oriented never "arrive"; they just keep building upon what they are learning.

©2009 John C. Maxwell (P)2015 Thomas Nelson Publishers

SELF-IMPROVEMENT 101 by John C. Maxwell

Most of us are eager to achieve success in life. But are we really sure what actions yield true, lasting success? Do you KNOW that you're taking steps in the right direction?

Success is different for every person. But the principles for the journey don't change. In Success 101 John Maxwell distills success down to its essential components. In this short and easy-to-listen-to volume, he shows you exactly what success looks like. He also offers specific steps you can take and ways you can overcome obstacles that might otherwise keep you from achieving success. Success breeds success - in you, in those closest to you, and in everyone you lead.

©2008 John C. Maxwell (P)2015 Thomas Nelson Publishers

SUCCESS 101 by John C. Maxwell

In January 1983 Burt Folsom read a story in Time about Mitch Rutledge, a man on death row with an IQ of 84 who said he was sorry for what he did. "Forget him", the last line of the story read. But Burt wrote Mitch a letter and discovered a man more interesting and intelligent than the article revealed.

Burt and his wife, Anita, began a friendship with Mitch and saw him become a leader and role model for others in prison, teaching himself to read and write (starting with copying down the spelling of items he knew from TV commercials) and becoming a national spokesman on prison life.

Death on Hold is the amazing story of their friendship and of grace, reconciliation, and redemption for a man without hope who was given a future.

©2015 Burton and Anita Folsom (P)2015 Thomas Nelson Publishers


DEATH ON HOLD by Burton Folson Jr and Anita Folsom

He's a comedian. He's a YouTube sensation. And now he becomes an author. Best known for his song parodies and riffs on yoga pants and homeschooling, Tim Hawkins now shares his perspective on life in the 21st century in his long-awaited debut book. Tim's topics are as wide-ranging as his stand-up comedy, including marital communications ("Marriage needs a challenge flag, like in pro football"), worship music ("Pick the right key, because I'm not Barry White and I'm not a Bee Gee"), and food ("Eating a Krispy Kreme donut is like eating a baby angel"). Diary of a Jackwagon reveals a witty and relatable voice reminding listeners that for life's many difficulties, laughter is always the best medicine - when there aren't any pills left.

©2015 Rockshow Comedy, Inc. (P)2015 Thomas Nelson Publishers

DIARY OF A JACKWAGON by Tim Hawkins

In his eagerly anticipated follow-up to the enormously successful Seven Men, New York Times best-selling author Eric Metaxas gives us seven captivating portraits of some of history's greatest women, all of whom changed the course of history by following God's call upon their lives - as women.

Each of these world-changing figures - Joan of Arc, Susanna Wesley, Hannah More, Maria Skobtsova, Corrie ten Boom, Mother Teresa, and Rosa Parks - is an exemplary model of true womanhood. The teenaged Joan of Arc followed God's call and liberated her country, dying a heroic martyr's death. Susanna Wesley had 19 children and gave the world its most significant evangelist and its greatest hymn writer, her sons John and Charles. Corrie ten Boom, arrested for hiding Dutch Jews from the Nazis, survived the horrors of a concentration camp to astonish the world by forgiving her tormentors. And Rosa Parks' deep sense of justice and unshakeable dignity and faith helped launch the 20th-century's greatest social movement.

Writing in his trademark conversational and engaging style, Eric Metaxas reveals how the other extraordinary women in this book achieved their greatness, inspiring listeners to live lives shaped by the truth of the Gospel.

©2015 Eric Metaxas (P)2015 Thomas Nelson Publishers


SEVEN WOMEN by Eric Metaxas

Pastor-teacher John MacArthur helps listeners understand Jesus' parables and how they relate to the whole of his message.

Jesus was a master storyteller, and the parables he told were ingeniously simple word pictures with profound spiritual lessons. Understanding the parables is a crucial matter for followers of Jesus. Jesus told parables so his people might comprehend his message about the kingdom of God clearly.

Master expositor and Bible commentator John MacArthur has spent a lifetime explaining the word of God in clear and comprehensible terms. In Parables, he helps Christians understand the essential lessons contained in the most famous and influential short stories the world has ever known.

©2015 John MacArthur (P)2015 Thomas Nelson Publishers


PARABLES by John MacArthur

One woman undertakes a worldwide search to learn the secrets of a great marriage - and finds one foundational truth that could change everything.

Fawn Weaver was a happily married woman running a successful business - and then something happened. Maybe it was divorce-rate reports on the evening news, The Real Housewives of Orange County, or any daytime talk show on which husbands and wives dramatically reveal their betrayals. Everywhere she looked, Fawn saw negative portrayals of marriage dominating the airwaves and dooming everyone to failure.

Looking at Keith, the love of her life, she knew that wasn't true. She was determined to find and connect with women just like her: happy and optimistic about marriage, deeply in love with their spouses, and committed to building a strong marriage that stands the test of time. On a whim, she started the blog HappyWivesClub.com and sent the link to a few of her new friends. What started as a casual invitation to five women exploded into an international online club with 150,000 members in more than 100 countries.

Happy Wives Club is Fawn's journey across the world to meet her friends and discover what makes their marriages great. Join her on this exciting, exotic trip across six continents and through more than 18 cities. Walk the streets of Mauritius, the historic ruins in Italy, and the vistas of New Zealand and Australia. Go from Cape Town to London, Manila to Buenos Aires, Winnipeg to Zagreb. Along the way, you will meet everyday women whose marriage secrets span cultures. You will hear their stories, witness their love, and be inspired by the proof that happy, healthy marriages do exist - and yours can be one of them!

It turns out great marriages are all around us - when we look for them. Go on a trip with Fawn and learn the best marriage secrets the world has to offer.

©2014 Thomas Nelson (P)2014 Thomas Nelson

HAPPY WIVES CLUB by Fawn Weaver

New York Times best-selling author of Jesus > Religion challenges the accepted thinking of contemporary Christianity with the world-changing message Jesus actually brought.

Jesus was most upset at people for seeing but not seeing. For missing it. For succumbing to the danger and idolatry of forcing God into preconceived ideals. What if there were a better way? What if Jesus came not to help people escape the world but rather to restore it? Best-selling author and spoken word artist Jefferson Bethke says that "Christians have the greatest story ever told, but we aren't telling it". So in this new audiobook, Bethke tells that story anew, presenting God's truths from the Old and the New Testaments as the challenging and compelling story that it is - a grand narrative with God at the center. And in doing so, Bethke reminds listeners of the life-changing message of Jesus that turned the world upside down, a world that God is putting back together.

©2015 Jefferson Bethke (P)2015 Thomas Nelson Publishers


IT'S NOT WHAT YOU THINK by Jefferson Bethke

Two decades ago, millions of listeners worldwide thrilled to the story told in the international best seller Not Without My Daughter - subsequently made into a film starring Sally Field - that told of an American mother and her six-year-old child's daring escape from an abusive and tyrannical Iranian husband and father. Now the daughter returns to tell the whole story - not only of that imprisonment and escape but of life after fleeing Tehran: living in fear of re-abduction, enduring recurring nightmares and panic attacks, attending school under a false name, and battling life-threatening illness - all under the menacing shadow of her father.

This is the story of an extraordinary young woman's triumph over life-crushing trauma to build a life of peace and forgiveness. Taking listeners from Michigan to Iran and from Ankara, Turkey, to Paris, France, My Name Is Mahtob depicts the profound resilience of a wounded soul healed by faith in God's goodness and in his care and love. And Mahmoody reveals the secret of how she liberated herself from a life of fear, learning to forgive the father who had shattered her life and discovering the joy and peace that comes from doing so.

©2015 Mahtob Mahmoody (P)2015 Thomas Nelson Publishers

MY NAME IS MAHTOB by Mahtob Mahmoody

When it comes to finances, many of us feel strapped and stressed, buried under bills, worried about an uncertain future. Even if money is plentiful, we long for greater wisdom to manage it well. In Money-Making Mom, finance and family blogger Crystal Paine shares real-life stories, practical tips, and hard-won wisdom from the failures and successes that have carved her family's path to financial freedom. Paine blends insight with inspiration as she shares creative ways to manage money, generate income, and - most importantly - live a life of deeper meaning, fulfillment, and generosity than you might have ever imagined possible.

©2015 Crystal Paine (P)2015 Thomas Nelson Publishers

MONEY-MAKING MOM by Crystal Paine

A penetrating look at the necessity of constitutional limits upon government and exceptional men to lead those governments, uniquely taken by overlaying the life and writings of Winston Churchill with the American experiment.

Churchill faced his own death, often and bravely. He led millions of people who did the same. Why did he and they do these things, things that we still remember and honor them for doing?

Many think Churchill's achievements during the greatest period in his life, the Second World War, called out an aspect of his character and ability suited for that unique circumstance but not for most others in which he lived. Churchill's Trial is an attempt to discover that something.

Active in politics for 55 years that spanned the most traumatic events so far in history - the greatest wars, the greatest depression, the greatest political transformations, the greatest social upheavals, the greatest advancements of technology and therefore of human power - Churchill left one of the richest records about his life and actions.

Today, we all face obstacles and necessities, and we all spend much of our time doing things that we must do, often things we would rather not do. For the statesman, these things are both numerous and grave: numerous because peoples and the matters that concern them are myriad; grave because they involve justice and injustice, life and death. To cope with them is a special capacity and art. The ability to cope with them is constantly and urgently required, but those who can do it at a high level are not common. There are lessons to be learned, both positive and negative, from Churchill's life and leadership that can help us to live our own lives, cope with our own problems, and serve the cause of our own country as it appears today.

©2015 Larry Arnn (P)2015 Thomas Nelson Publishers

CHURCHILL'S TRIAL by Larry P. Arnn

The world seems to have figured out the formula for manufacturing material success, but when it comes to finding true, lasting happiness, we are as lost as ever. We yearn for more or less or something that's just different from what we have right now. Deep down we know there must be satisfaction for our longing. We just don't know where to find it.

In Sandcastle Kings, Rich Wilkerson uses four powerful stories from the seventh chapter of Luke to explain why spiritual fulfillment cannot be found in ourselves, in other people, in material things, or even in religion. By studying the stories of the centurion's faith, the resurrection of the widow's son, Jesus' message about John the Baptist, and the anointing by the woman with the alabaster jar, you will be able to face your doubts and insecurities and overcome your anxiety, discontentment, and depression. Wilkerson wants you to understand that the only answer for your spiritual bankruptcy is Jesus and that until you turn to him, you will never experience the lasting peace and joy you so desperately crave.

©2015 Rich Wilkerson (P)2015 Thomas Nelson Publishers

SANDCASTLE KINGS by Rich Wilkerson Jr.

The enemy wants us to feel rejected, left out, lonely, and less than. When we allow him to speak lies through our rejection, he pickpockets our purpose. Cripples our courage. Dismantles our dreams. And blinds us to the beauty of Christ's powerful love.

In Uninvited, Lysa shares her own deeply personal experiences with rejection - from the incredibly painful childhood abandonment by her father to the perceived judgment of the perfectly toned woman one elliptical over.

With biblical depth, gut-honest vulnerability, and refreshing wit, Lysa helps listeners:

• Release the desire to fall apart or control the actions of others by embracing God-honoring ways to process their hurt
• Know exactly what to pray for the next 10 days to steady their souls and restore their confidence
• Overcome the two core fears that feed our insecurities by understanding the secret of belonging
• Stop feeling left out and start believing that "set apart" does not mean "set aside"
• End the cycle of perceived rejection by refusing to turn a small incident into a full-blown issue

©2016 Lysa TerKeurst (P)2016 Thomas Nelson Publishers

UNINVITED by Lysa TerKeurst

One of America's most heralded young divers, David Boudia twice went for Olympic gold, training obsessively and wholeheartedly for success. In his first Olympics, he failed miserably, not winning a single medal. Four years later saw a different story: He mounted the podium twice, winning both gold and bronze. The difference? In the intervening years, he'd changed the focus of his quest from seeking glory for himself to giving glory to God.

In Greater Than Gold, Boudia provides behind-the-scenes access to the rarefied world of world-class athletics while also showing listeners that when they place their hope in God, they receive what they've been seeking all along.

©2016 David Boudia (P)2016 Thomas Nelson Publishers

GREATER THAN GOLD by David Boudia

As cohost of HGTV's My Big Family Renovation, Brandon Hatmaker understands what it takes to rehab a home. But as a pastor (and husband of best-selling author Jen Hatmaker), he's more interested in rehabbing faith. And in A Mile Wide, he helps listeners transform an anemic spiritual life based on a limited understanding of God into a faith of true depth, intimacy, and power.

Offering fresh perspective on eight essentials of Christianity - the Gospel, identity, Scripture, discipleship, kingdom, mission, community, and justice - Hatmaker provides practical applications that tap in to the richer life Christ promised his people, individually and as a community. God wants more than simply to save us: He's also determined to transform us, restore us, and use us to reveal the coming of his kingdom right here, right now.

©2016 Brandon Hatmaker (P)2016 Thomas Nelson

A MILE WIDE by Brandon Hatmaker

Shannan Martin had the best life she could imagine. She lived with her husband and three adorable kids in a cute little farmhouse on six rambling acres and had enough money, plenty of friends, a great church, and a safe, happy existence. Then the bottom dropped out when they lost their jobs and God called them to something radically different. Their world shifted to a small house on the other side of the urban tracks, an income on life support, failing local schools, and the county jail (where her husband is chaplain). And yet their plunge from "nice, safe, and happy" was the best thing that ever happened to them.

Falling Free chronicles the Martin family's pilgrimage from the faulty, me-centric wisdom of this world to the topsy-turvy life of God's more being found in the less, challenging listeners to rethink their own assumptions about faith and the good life. Anyone who yearns for something beyond status quo, middle-class Christianity but hesitates out of insecurity or safety concerns will find encouragement, food for thought, and practical guidance in this sweetly subversive book.

©2016 Shannan Martin (P)2016 Thomas Nelson

FALLING FREE by Shannan Martin

Harper Audio proudly traces its roots back to 1952, when Dylan Thomas first recorded for our Caedmon label. For more than five decades, HarperAudio/Caedmon has been synonymous not only with distinguished poets reading their works, but also with equally distinguished authors and readers performing classic and contemporary texts.

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