Jefferson Bethke

Discover the satisfaction of becoming the man God created you to be. In a world that’s grown increasingly confused about--and hostile toward--the very notion of masculinity, authors Jefferson Bethke and Jon Tyson send a powerful call to men everywhere: it's time to step into the light of Jesus' vision for you as a man. There's a shadow that's settled over the hearts of men today. Masculinity is in crisis. Critiques about the dangers of toxic masculinity and the abuses of patriarchal systems have grown louder than ever. The very notions of masculinity and manhood are under attack. In response to cultural shifts, some have doubled down on old stereotypes in ways that just add to the conflict and confusion. The result? Many men simply feel paralyzed--worried about saying the wrong thing, unsure what to do with their ambitions or strengths, simultaneously tempted and shamed by a hypersexualized and pornified culture. Our models and mentors have failed us. Based on their years of working in men's ministry, Bethke and Tyson have good news for men looking for clarity and courage in this age of quiet desperation. In Fighting Shadows, they help men:Overcome the temptations of escapism, passivity, or overcompensationCombat the most harmful shadows that men battle today, including loneliness, apathy, distraction, lust, and shameEmbrace masculinity as a God-given gift, not a curse to be avoided, suppressed, or battled An entire generation of men is being told they should abdicate the responsibility and joy of living into God's calling on their lives—don't be one of them. If you're a man who's wondering what to do with your strength, your longings, and your gifts, it's time to step out of the shadows. Jesus has a vision for you.

Discover the satisfaction of becoming the man God created you to be. In a world that’s grown increasingly confused about--and hostile toward--the very notion of masculinity, authors Jefferson Bethke and Jon Tyson send a powerful call to men everywhere: it's time to step into the light of Jesus' vision for you as a man. There's a shadow that's settled over the hearts of men today. Masculinity is in crisis. Critiques about the dangers of toxic masculinity and the abuses of patriarchal systems have grown louder than ever. The very notions of masculinity and manhood are under attack. In response to cultural shifts, some have doubled down on old stereotypes in ways that just add to the conflict and confusion. The result? Many men simply feel paralyzed--worried about saying the wrong thing, unsure what to do with their ambitions or strengths, simultaneously tempted and shamed by a hypersexualized and pornified culture. Our models and mentors have failed us. Based on their years of working in men's ministry, Bethke and Tyson have good news for men looking for clarity and courage in this age of quiet desperation. In Fighting Shadows, they help men:Overcome the temptations of escapism, passivity, or overcompensationCombat the most harmful shadows that men battle today, including loneliness, apathy, distraction, lust, and shameEmbrace masculinity as a God-given gift, not a curse to be avoided, suppressed, or battled An entire generation of men is being told they should abdicate the responsibility and joy of living into God's calling on their lives—don't be one of them. If you're a man who's wondering what to do with your strength, your longings, and your gifts, it's time to step out of the shadows. Jesus has a vision for you.

Baggage has gotten a bad rap. We think it's all bad. We think it makes us less likely to have good, healthy relationships today. But baggage isn't just the bad stuff that happened to us in the past. It's the lessons we've taken from the pain we carry. It's how what we've been through has actually made us stronger and more capable than we imagine. And it's how we're going to make our current relationships work. Far from minimizing past pain, pastor Ike Miller shows you how to go through the baggage you carry from a difficult childhood and pull out the good stuff. The intentionality you've developed. The empathy you've gained. The trust you value so highly. Miller shares from his own past in a dysfunctional family impacted by alcoholism and divorce, and his present as part of a healthy and loving family, to illustrate how to stop letting your past sabotage your present. You'll find no platitudes or pat answers here. Rather, you'll discover untapped riches of experience and knowledge you already have that can make your relationships thrive and change the course of your life and legacy.

In Alyssa Bethke's newly revised edition of 31 Ways to Show Him What Love Is, you will discover practical and inspiring tips for bringing more romance, joy, and vibrancy to your marriage. In 31 Ways to Show Him What Love Is, Alyssa Bethke gives wives thirty-one specific tips for strengthening and deepening their relationship. Each day you will find a new suggestion for encouraging and loving your husband. Topics include:Serving each otherOffering forgivenessLaughing togetherPraying for one anotherAffirming each other through wordsAnd even making a favorite snack From serious to lighthearted, each tip challenges you to make your marriage a priority and reminds you of the importance of a healthy, vibrant relationship. Designed with a new cover and revised content, this book takes you on a one-month journey that will bring you closer to your husband than ever before.

In Jefferson Bethke's newly revised edition of 31 Ways to Show Her What Love Is, you will discover practical and inspiring tips for bringing more romance, joy, and vibrancy to your marriage. In 31 Ways to Show Her What Love Is, Jefferson Bethke gives husbands thirty-one specific tips for strengthening and deepening their marriage relationship. Each day, you will find a new suggestion for encouraging and loving your wife. Topics include:Serving each otherOffering forgivenessLaughing togetherPraying for one anotherAffirming each other through wordsAnd even making a favorite snack. From serious to lighthearted, each tip challenges you to make your marriage a priority and reminds you of the importance of a healthy, vibrant relationship. Now with a new cover and revised content, these books will take you on a one-month journey to bring you closer to your wife than ever before.

Retitled, repackaged, and including new content, Love Is delivers a compelling message that urges Christians to reject the distorted views of love that have damaged our hearts, minds, and souls and to embrace God’s biblical definition of what love truly is. So many young people enter adulthood with expectations of blissful dating followed by a romantic marriage but then discover they’ve been duped. Because they learned about love and sexuality from faulty sources—social media, their friends, Disney fairy tales, pornography, or even their own rocky past—they have no idea what healthy, lifelong love is supposed to be like. The results are often disastrous, with this generation becoming one of the most relationally sick, sexually addicted, and divorce ridden in history. Looking to God’s design while drawing lessons from their own successes and failures, the Bethkes explode the fictions and falsehoods that have led to broken relationships. One by one, they peel back lies that include:the belief that every person has only one soul mate,that marriage will complete you,and that pornography and hook-ups are harmless. Drawing from Jeff’s “prodigal son” personal history and from Alyssa’s “True Love Waits” experience, the Bethkes blend personal storytelling with biblical teaching to offer readers an inspiring, realistic vision of love, dating, marriage, and sex. Including a new chapter filling readers in on the Bethke’s married relationship today, this updated edition offers a solidly biblical view of romantic love.

Create a Flourishing Family That Makes an Impact for the Kingdom52 big ideas that can become family conversation starters9 “Dig Deeper” sections to exploreHow to craft a Family Summit—a multiday event to infuse vision and life in your family“We are steeped in cultural forces that are disrupting the healthy, flourishing families for which we were made. But families who are choosing to opt in to something so much better are tasting—and sharing!—the goodness of God.” —Jefferson BethkeThis handbook is meant to help you process and apply the ideas found in Take Back Your Family.

New York Times bestselling author Jefferson Bethke delivers a powerful critique of the nuclear family ideal and calls for a sweeping new paradigm that brings not only longed-for stability but also radical blessings to the world. The West's multi-century experiment with the nuclear family has failed. Its toxic hyper-individualism has left us with an unprecedented number of broken homes and rampant confusion over what a family is supposed to be. Jefferson Bethke delivers the solution we've been seeking: a plan for taking back our families from the modern myth that has derailed us and a vision for returning to the life-giving, biblical model of multi-generational teams. In Take Back Your Family, Bethke uncovers the historic events that led to our obsession with the nuclear family, then exposes the devastating effects of our current "me culture." Now, writing from the visceral perspective of a father with three young children, he shares the values and strategies he and his family lean on in their quest to live as a community bonded by a shared mission, committed to mutually growing and thriving together. By returning to God's original design for families on earth, he says, we can participate in the kingdom work that restores and fulfills our innermost desires for connection, contentment, and meaning.

New York Times bestselling author Jefferson Bethke delivers a powerful critique of the Western notion of the nuclear family and calls us to a sweeping new paradigm that brings not only longed-for stability but also radical blessings to the world. The West's multi-century experiment with the nuclear family has failed. Its toxic hyper-individualism has left us with an unprecedented number of broken homes and rampant confusion over what a family is supposed to be. Jefferson Bethke delivers the solution we've been seeking: a plan for taking back our families from the modern myth that has derailed us and a vision for returning to the life-giving, biblical model of multi-generational teams. In Take Back Your Family, Bethke uncovers the historic events that led to our obsession with the nuclear family, then exposes the devastating effects of our current "me culture." Now, writing from the visceral perspective of a father with three young children, he shares the values and strategies he and his family lean on in their quest to live as a community bonded by a shared mission, committed to mutually growing and thriving together. By returning to God's original design for families on earth, he says, we can participate in the kingdom work that restores and fulfills our innermost desires for connection, contentment, and meaning.

In a society where hustle is the expectation, busyness is the norm, and constant information is king, we've forgotten the fundamentals that make us human, anchor our lives, and provide meaning. Jefferson Bethke, New York Times bestselling author and popular YouTuber, has lived the hustle and knows we must stop doing and start becoming. Our culture makes constant demands of us: Do more. Accomplish more. Buy more. Post more. Be more. In following these demands, we have indeed become more: More anxious. More tired. More hurt. More depressed. More frantic. But it doesn't have to be that way. To Hell with the Hustle is your wake-up call to slow down and reclaim your life in an overworked, overspent, and overconnected world. If you're feeling overwhelmed with the demands of work, family and community or if you're tired of being anxious, lonely, and burned out, To Hell with the Hustle will give you the tools you need to:Proactively set boundaries in your lifeGet comfortable with obscurityFind the best way to push back against the demands of contemporary lifeDiscover the importance of embracing silence and solitudeHandle the stressors that life throws at usJoin Bethke as he discovers that the very things the world teaches us to avoid at all costs--silence, obscurity, solitude, and vulnerability--are the very things that can give us the meaning, the peace, and the richness we're truly seeking. Praise for To Hell with the Hustle:"Ever feel like you need to work harder, put in more time to get ahead, or do everything in your power to be the best? That's the hustle. It can push you to places you don't want to go, and I've gone there more than I care to admit. In his latest book, To Hell with the Hustle, Jefferson Bethke will help you understand why the hustle can seem so alluring, show you how to avoid the traps it’s created in our culture, and find true joy chasing after Christ instead."--Craig Groeschel, pastor of Life. Church and New York Times bestselling author

The Love That Lasts workbooks for men and women are the companion guides to the Love That Lasts book. Love That Lasts Men's Workbook and Love That Lasts Women's Workbook are interactive, journal-themed workbooks for individual writing and couple's conversation addressing the 12 essential ways to a Love That Lasts. Great for dating and married couples.

One of the secrets to a healthy relationship in order for it to grow is to feed and take care of it. No relationship becomes healthy, vibrant or joyful from complacency. In fact, the minute proactivity leaves the relationship is the minute it can begin to breakdown. In 31 Creative Ways to Love and encourage Him and Her, Jefferson and Alyssa Bethke lay out simple ways to bring the beauty, joy and vibrancy back to a relationship. Each day brings a new adventure that can range from being serious to whimsical to humorous. Take this one month journey with your significant other and come out the other side with a stronger and more healthy relationship than before.

In Love That Lasts, New York Times bestselling author of Jesus > Religion Jefferson Bethke and his wife, Alyssa, expose the distorted views of love that permeate our culture and damage our hearts, minds, and souls. Drawing from Jeff’s “prodigal son” personal history and from Alyssa’s “True Love Waits” experience, the Bethkes point to a third and better way. Blending personal storytelling with biblical teaching, they offer readers an inspiring, realistic vision of love, dating, marriage, and sex. Young people today enter adulthood with expectations of blissful dating followed by a romantic, fulfilling marriage only to discover they’ve been duped. They learned about love and sexuality from social media, their friends, Disney fairy tales, pornography, or even their own rocky past, and they have no idea what healthy, lifelong love is supposed to be like. The results are often disastrous, with this generation becoming one of the most relationally sick, sexually addicted, and divorce ridden in history. Looking to God’s design while drawing lessons from their own successes and failures, the Bethkes explode the fictions and falsehoods of our current moment. One by one, they peel back lies such as,the belief that every person has only one soul mate,that marriage will complete you,and that pornography and hook-ups are harmless.

The Love That Lasts workbooks for men and women are the companion guides to the Love That Lasts book. Love That Lasts Men's Workbook and Love That Lasts Women's Workbook are interactive, journal-themed workbooks for individual writing and couple's conversation addressing the 12 essential ways to a Love That Lasts. Great for dating and married couples.

The Love That Lasts workbooks for men and women are the companion guides to the Love That Lasts book. Love That Lasts Men's Workbook and Love That Lasts Women's Workbook are interactive, journal-themed workbooks for individual writing and couple's conversation addressing the 12 essential ways to a Love That Lasts. Great for dating and married couples.

Join Jefferson Bethke, New York Times bestselling author of Jesus > Religion, as he challenges the accepted view of contemporary Christianity with the world-changing message that Jesus actually brought. Jesus was most upset at people for seeing but not seeing. For succumbing to the danger and idolatry of forcing God into preconceived human ideals. But what if there were a better way? What if Jesus came not to help people escape the world but instead to restore it? It's Not What You Think tells the familiar stories of the scripture in a radically new light, presenting God's unchanging truths from the Old and New Testaments as the challenging story that it is: a mysterious, compelling narrative with God at the center. Along the way, Bethke reminds us of the life-changing message of Jesus that turned the world upside-down--a world that God is putting back together--teaching us how to:Uncover our true purpose and satisfy our longing for significanceFind the kingdom of God wherever we areEmbrace the gifts of fellowship and communityPraise for It's Not What You Think:"With a deep discernment of the times we're living in, Jefferson spotlights many misinterpreted truths in the Bible and puts a voice to the true heart of God’s Word. His desire to bring us into a more intimate encounter with God jumps off of each page. Christians need this book--now more than ever!"--Lysa TerKeurst, New York Times bestselling author of Forgiving What You Can't Forget and president of Proverbs 31 Ministries"It's easy to get stuck in life. To let our faith grow stagnant, our walk grow weary, and our hope grow silent. Jefferson isn't okay with that and has created a book that turns what we think we know upside down. Creative, honest, refreshing. I'm a huge fan of the heart that explodes from this book."--Jon Acuff, New York Times bestselling author of Do Over: Rescue Monday, Reinvent Your Work & Never Get Stuck

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERAbandon dead, dry, religious rule-keeping and embrace the promise of being truly known and deeply loved. Jefferson Bethke burst into the cultural conversation with a passionate, provocative poem titled "Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus." The 4-minute video became an overnight sensation, with 7 million YouTube views in its first 48 hours (and 23+ million in a year). Bethke's message clearly struck a chord with believers and nonbelievers alike, triggering an avalanche of responses running the gamut from encouraged to enraged. In his New York Times bestseller Jesus > Religion, Bethke unpacks similar contrasts that he drew in the poem--highlighting the difference between teeth gritting and grace, law and love, performance and peace, despair, and hope. With refreshing candor, he delves into the motivation behind his message, beginning with the unvarnished tale of his own plunge from the pinnacle of a works-based, fake-smile existence that sapped his strength and led him down a path of destructive behavior. Along the way, Bethke gives you the tools you need to:Humbly and prayerfully open your mindUnderstand Jesus for all that he isView the church from a brand-new perspective Bethke is quick to acknowledge that he's not a pastor or theologian, but simply an ordinary, twenty-something who cried out for a life greater than the one for which he had settled. On this journey, Bethke discovered the real Jesus, who beckoned him with love beyond the props of false religion. Praise for Jesus > Religion:"Jeff’s book will make you stop and listen to a voice in your heart that may have been drowned out by the noise of religion. Listen to that voice, then follow it--right to the feet of Jesus." --Bob Goff, author of New York Times bestsellers Love Does and Everybody, Always"The book you hold in your hands is Donald Miller's Blue Like Jazz meets C. S. Lewis's Mere Christianity meets Augustine's Confessions. This book is going to awaken an entire generation to Jesus and His grace." --Derwin L. Gray, lead pastor of Transformation Church, author of Limitless Life: Breaking Free from the Labels That Hold You Back