Every church is driven by something. Tradition, programs, finances, personalities, events, seekers and even buildings can each be the controlling force in a church. But Rick Warren believes that in order for a church to be healthy it must become a purpose driven church, built around the five New Testament purposes given to the church by Jesus.
Culture Shift, written for church leaders, ministers, pastors, ministry teams, and lay leaders, leads you through the process of identifying your church’s distinctive culture, gives you practical tools to change it from the inside-out, and provides steps to keep your new culture aligned with your church’s mission. Real transformation is not about working harder at what you’re already doing or even copying another church’s approach but about changing church culture at a foundational level.
Authors: Robert Lewis and Wayne Cordeiro
There’s no shortcut to a strong church. It takes vision, time, work, and a divine strategy. Strategic Church will give you the tools to build and equip a strong, relevant, life-changing local church as you follow God’s vision. Whether you’re a lead minister, small-group leader, worship pastor or church member, you’ll find clear and proven principles in this book to help you thrive as a builder of Christ’s church.
By Frank Damazio
Most of us have prodigals in our lives, whether a child, brother, sister, husband, wife, or friend. The ache for these dear ones is like no other. They may hurt us and disappoint us, but somehow we cannot stop loving them. And yet we cannot live their lives for them. The Prodigal-Friendly Church looks at why people leave the church, how we can retain them, how we can reach those who have already gone, and how we can help those who return feel like they belong.
Jeff Lucas offers no easy recipes for success, but plenty of truthtelling, hope, and encouragement. This book discusses the principles of Reach: How do we reach those who’ve already left the church? Return: How do we help people return to the church? Retain: How do we retain the people we’ve worked so hard to reach? Ultimately we are called to bring our prodigals to the cross of Christ, for there we find the mingling of our own utter helplessness and God’s total power to intervene and save. When the Father’s house is filled with the Father’s love, there is hope that the prodigals will come home.
The Irresistible Church: 12 Traits of a Church Heaven Applauds.
After more than twenty-five years of ministry in Hawaii, Wayne Cordeiro knows how to do church as a team. In his signature style, he shares this expertise with pastors, lay leaders, and people in the pew who want to see their churches become more vibrant. He presents twelve practical proven steps to develop a church God wants to bless, including ways to help people become part of a community, develop a culture of serving, turn visitors into regular attendees, and much more. This short, easy-to-read book is one pastors will want to share with their leadership team.
Ever wonder why your kids, parents, and even coworkers think and feel so differently than you do on core issues? Rick and Kathy Hicks contend and demonstrate that many of our core values are shaped largely by what was going on in our culture and world when we were about ten years old. By recognizing the factors that give rise to our own values and those of other generations, we can achieve greater mutual understanding and reconciliation with our children, peers, and coworkers, rather than finding ourselves in conflict. An effective tool for bridging the generation gap.
For the past forty years, the homosexual activist movement has sought to implement a master plan to utterly destroy the family. Unelectable and unaccountable rogue judges have made a habit of inventing rights that not only don’t exist in the Constitution but also contradict both the will of the people and the actions of the legislative branch.
Christians around the world have scrambled, wondering how to respond. How do we discuss this intelligently? What can we do to make our voices heard? In his newest release, Marriage Under Fire, Dr. Dobson addresses the dire ramifications of judicial activism and presents compelling arguments against the legalization of homosexual unions—mobilizing the Christian community to respond to a call to action.
Community – Taking your small group off life support. By Brad House.
Community within the church today is hemorrhaging. Attention spans are dwindling, noise levels are increasing, and we can’t seem to find time for real relationships.
The answer to such social fragmentation can be found in small groups, and yet the majority of small groups―at least in the traditional sense―are often not the intentional, transformational community we really want and need. Somehow we need to get our groups off life support and into authentic community.
Pastor Brad House helps us to re-imagine what gospel-centered community looks like and shares from his experience leading and reproducing healthy small groups. With wisdom and candor, House challenges us to think carefully about our own groups and to take steps toward cultivating communities that are able to glorify Jesus, bless one another, and participate in the mission of God.
Crushed offers a sympathetic look into the suffocating battlefield of full-time Christian ministry. The amount of pressure that pastors endure in their everyday ministry to their congregations is almost unimaginable to the average churchgoer; Crushed presents clear steps to help and protect the leaders of your church. Written by Dr. Gary L. Pinion.
Our heartfelt burden is to help deacons get out of the boardroom and building-maintenance mentality and into the people-serving mentality. Deacons, as the New Testament teaches and as some of the sixteenth-century reformers discovered, are to be involved in a compassionate ministry of caring for the poor and needy. The deacons’ ministry, therefore, is one that no Christ-centered, New Testament church can afford to neglect. It’s through the deacons’ ministry that we make Christ’s love a reality for many people. A ground-breaking study of all the biblical texts on the subject, The New Testament Deacon: Minister of Mercy will help you build a strong ministry in your church.
