Best of
Ecclesiology

2020

Lead: 12 Gospel Principles for Leadership in the Church


Paul David Tripp - 2020
    For every celebrity pastor exiting in the spotlight, there are hundreds of lesser-known pastors leaving in the shadows. Why are so many pastors leaving the ministry? Best-selling author Paul David Tripp suggests that lurking behind the failure of a pastor is a weak leadership community.Turning to Scripture for guidance, Tripp presents readers with twelve leadership-community principles necessary for a gospel-centered leadership model. Here is a book with a message for those new to ministry as well as those experienced in it--God's abiding presence is your hope in leadership.

Truth We Can Touch: How Baptism and Communion Shape Our Lives


Tim Chester - 2020
    They are God's promises to us in physical form.What is happening when someone passes through the waters of baptism? What's the significance of eating bread and drinking wine together as a church on Sunday mornings? What's the point of these physical substances?Tim Chester guides us through the Bible, explaining how the sacraments, embodying the promises of God in physical form, were given to us to strengthen our faith and shape our lives. The physical bread, wine, and water are a confirmation of our union with Christ. Chester aims to help us treasure baptism and Communion and approach them rightly, so we can receive the full benefit God intends them to physically bring us.

Why Should I Join a Church?


Mark Dever - 2020
    Albert Mohler Jr., President, The Southern Baptist Theological SeminaryDiscover the importance of local church membership.Many of us have questions about what it means to live as a Christian in the context of a local church. You may even catch yourself asking, If I believe in Jesus, why do I need to join a church? To put it simply, when you are saved from your sin, you are saved into a community characterized by fellowship and accountability. Best-selling author Mark Dever presents 7 biblical reasons why church membership is essential for displaying the gospel in your life.

Devoted to God's Church: Core Values for Christian Fellowship


Sinclair B. Ferguson - 2020
    Believing also involves belonging. Being a Christian, by definition, involves belonging to the church. This is not a book full of ideas about how your church ought to change or what it needs to do in order to grow or to be successful. Rather it is about how we fit into our own church. There are hallmarks of church life that should be stamped on all our churches because they are applicable everywhere and anywhere -- New Testament values for any size of church, in any part of the world, at any time. Devoted to God's Church will serve to help new Christians understand what it is to be part of a church, and will also be a refreshing reminder to every Christian of what it should look like to belong to the family of God.

What Church Can Be: An Optimistic Vision with Some Blueprints


Matthew Kruse - 2020
    The average Bostonian – wounded by one of the worst scandals in American church history and convinced that they have no need for “religion” – is out on church. And yet, by God’s grace, Kruse has not only helped birth a beautiful and viable church that is thriving among the locals there, but he’s also helped build a family of contextualized churches who are loving and leading New Englanders to the grace of the gospel.In What Church Can Be, Kruse fuses theological exposition with personal memoir and a bevy of helpful blueprints into an optimistic and executable vision for leaders who are seeking to build healthy church cultures that foster gospel advance.

Future Church: Seven Laws of Real Church Growth


Will Mancini - 2020
    We continue to watch consistent church attendance shrink, and our desire to reach the lost is infected with a need for self-validation by growing our numbers at any cost. If we believe that God wants his church to grow, where do we go from here? What is the future of the church?Drawing from his 20 years and 15,000 hours of consulting, author Will Mancini shares with pastors and ministry leaders the single most important insight he has learned about church growth. With plenty of salient stories and based solidly on the disciple-making methods found in Scripture, Future Church exposes the church's greatest challenge today, and offers 7 transforming laws of real church growth so that we can faithfully and joyfully fulfill Jesus's Great Commission.

In the House of Friends: Understanding and healing from Spiritual Abuse in Christian Churches


Kenneth J. Garrett - 2020
    It identifies the tactics used by the leaders and outlines strategies for healing.

Why Should I Be Baptized?


Bobby Jamieson - 2020
    Albert Mohler Jr., President, The Southern Baptist Theological SeminaryAfter his resurrection, Jesus commanded his disciples to go and "make disciples of all nations, baptizing them" (Matthew 28:19). In this booklet, pastor Bobby Jamieson unpacks Scripture's teaching on the importance of baptism in the local church, responding to seven reasons people often give for not being baptized.

God's Design for the Church (Foreword by Glenn Lyons): A Guide for African Pastors and Ministry Leaders (The Gospel Coalition)


Conrad Mbewe - 2020
    

Divine Renovation Beyond the Parish


James Mallon - 2020
    

Aiming to Please: A Guide to Reformed Worship


Wes Bredenhof - 2020
    All aspects of the service come under scrutiny: Is singing hymns biblical? Should the congregation say the votum? Why collection bags? Lord's Supper in the pews? And what about the role of organists, drums, the celebration of Christmas, and the use of projectors? Does covenant theology make a difference to how we worship? These topics and many more are addressed from the stance that we are not to worship God in any other manner than he has commanded in his Word.

This Is the Church


Sarah Raymond Cunningham - 2020
    . . This update to the classic children's rhyme is an introduction to church for a new era, a whirlwind tour through all the wonderful things church can be and do and mean. From megachurches to little chapels to underground meetings, from welcoming to helping to feeding the hungry, church can be and do a lot of things. But ultimately that old rhyme said it best: the church is the people!With gently rhyming text by Sarah Raymond Cunningham and the vibrant and diverse illustrations of Ariel Landy, This Is the Church is an ideal gift for baptisms, confirmations, or any occasion in which children are welcomed into the life of the body of Christ.

Be filled with the Spirit


Stuart Olyott - 2020
    On the one hand it has been used in some places to justify extremes of behaviour and unbiblical practices; on the other hand, some have simply taken it as a fact that all Christians are by definition filled with the Spirit, and that there is little or nothing further to say. This book avoids both extremes, but it begins with a clear statement by the author: when the apostle tells believers to be filled with the Spirit (Ephesians 5:18) it is because some of them are not. Yes, it is possible to be a true Christian who has never experienced this spiritual reality. He goes on to say: This is not what the Lord wants. He wants every Christian everywhere to be filled with the Spirit. He wants this for His own sake, for their sake, and for the sake of His churches and the world. But how can this happen if believers don t know what the filling of the Spirit is? The following pages are a brief summary and explanation of what the Bible teaches on this important subject. As you read it I trust that you will be enlightened, enriched, and drawn into a more intimate walk with our Lord Jesus Christ. Short and readable as it is, this may nevertheless be the most important book (outside the Bible) you have read in a long time.

Conversations on When Everything Is Missions: Recovering the Mission of the Church


Denny Spitters - 2020