This is a well-recognized crisis, but the cause of this crisis will surprise many. In his new book, A Weed in the Church, Scott Brown identifies the problem — age-segregated youth ministry — and says it is a weed growing in the church that needs to be rooted out. Brown argues that Scripture defines and wholeheartedly encourages ministry to youth, but that the premises of modern youth ministry are at odds with biblical teaching and must be reformed. Discover the problem of youth ministry in its historical context, and find hopeful solutions built on Scriptures’ sure foundation.

    Whatever your role, odds are you've known your share of the frustration and disillusionment that comes with turf battles, conflicting vision, and marathon meetings. You may have asked yourself, "How did it get this way?"With twenty years of front-line ministry experience, Larry Osborne understands congregations (as baffling as they can sometimes be) and he know how the best-intentioned teams can become disrupted and disunified. With this book, he aims to shore up the foundation of a healthy team--what does a unified and thriving church leadership look like and how can it be achieved?Sticky Teams is divided into three main sections, dealing with key aspects of what it takes to develop long-term, efficient harmony:Landmines and Roadblocks exposes the organizational structures, policies, and traditions that can unintentionally sabotage even the best of teams. You'll discover strategies for managing conflicts and getting around obstacles.Equipped for Ministry explores what it takes to get everyone on the same page and headed in the same direction. Chapters deal with practical tips for board, staff, and congregational alignment.Communication examines what it takes to keep everyone on the same page, with a special emphasis on some especially dicey areas and issues of ministry, such as conversations about money.Whatever your situation; from start-up phase, to mid-sized, to megachurch, Osborne has been there. As the pastor of North Coast Church, he's walked his board, staff, and congregation through the process of becoming more genuinely unified, and, because of that, better able to carry out God's design for his church.With warm encouragement and insight, he shares expertise that most pastors and leadership teams learn only from long experience: how to invest the time to create church harmony and how to lead so that unity is maintained long-term.

    The book includes discussion questions, an appendix for facilitating discussions, and a bibliography of additional resources.

    The authors, both pastors at The Journey Church of the City in Manhattan, offer specific strategies for beginning a church from scratch, based on their own experiences in launching a church with no members, no money and no staff and watched membership skyrocket to more than a thousand people in three years!  They offer clear, practical how to strategies for quickly raising funds, creating a team, planning services, effective evangelism and rapidly developing a growing membership. Specific advice is included for reaching that often difficult to target demographic, the 20 to 40 year old. You will also get an insider’s look at The Journey Church of the City as a model for church planting. The helpful strategies here will help you remove many of the barriers, questions and doubts encountered in starting a church from scratch. If these principles work in NYC, they will work for you!

    They have inherited a model of leadership that equates leading worship with being a rock star. But leading worship is more than a performance, it's about shaping souls and making disciples. Every worship leader is really a pastor.The Worship Pastor is a practical and biblical introduction to this essential pastoral role. Filled with engaging, illustrative stories it is organized to address questions of theory and practice, striving to balance conversational accessibility with informed instruction.Part One presents a series of evocative "vignettes"--intriguing and descriptive titles and metaphors of who a Worship Pastor is and what he or she does. It shows the Worship Pastor as Church-Lover, Disciple Maker, Corporate Mystic, and Doxological Philosopher.Part Two covers specific roles related to ministry within the worship service itself--the Worship Pastor as Theological Dietician, Caregiver, Mortician, Emotional Shepherd, War General, Prophetic Guardian, Missional Historian, and Liturgical Architect.Part Three looks at ministry beyond the worship service--the Worship Pastor as Visionary Teacher, Evangelist, Artist Chaplain, and Team Leader.While some worship leaders are eager to embrace their pastoral role, many are lost and confused or lack the resources of time or money to figure out what this role looks like. Pastor Zac Hicks gives us a clear guide to leading worship, one that takes the pastoral call seriously.

    A pastor's responsibilities are unique, demanding that he nurture his own spiritual life as well as that of the people in his care. Derek Prime and Alistair Begg provide practical advice for both the spiritual and practical aspects of pastoral ministry. Topics include prayer, devotional habits, preaching, and specific ministry duties.

    Some struggle to redefine these categories and some seek to reclaim them, while others reject them outright, with or without providing new terms to guide us forward.But words and their meaning matter; our confusion has a cost. Competing priorities pressure us to stretch our mission definitions as wide as they can go, releasing our people to creatively engage in service of every description. Some churches turn away from traditional mission efforts all together, giving preference to local service and evangelism while outsourcing any cross-cultural effort to those who surely must be more effective than we would be.As an unfortunate result of these tendencies, many of our churches lack a coherent, compelling sense of what we're all about as we engage with the world. And if we lose our scriptural moorings, how far will our missions efforts drift?Matthew Ellison and Denny Spitters call us to refocus our gaze on the gospel and the Great Commission. They assert that thinking must come before doing and shape our world mission practices and priorities. When Everything Is Missions is for church and ministry leaders and all who look to clarify their own answers to questions like these:What is the mission of God? What is the mission of the Church? Is every Christian a missionary?

    Gain an insight into the work of the pastor. It is based on the thesis that the pastor, being the shepherd of the flock, feeds the flock upon God?'s Word; the bulk of pastoral work is therefore through the ministry of the Word. This edition includes biographical information by Frank Lyall.

    The question is: what is discipling us?    The majority of Christians today are being discipled by popular media, flashy events, and folk theology because churches have neglected their responsibility to make disciples. But the church is not a secondary platform in the mission of God; it is the primary platform God uses to grow people into the image of Jesus. Therefore, as church leaders, it is our primary responsibility to establish environments and relationships where people can be trained, grow, and be sent as disciples.    There are three indispensable elements of discipleship:Learning to participate in the biblical story (the Bible)Growing in our confession of who God is and who we are (theology)Regularly participating in private and corporate intentional action (spiritual disciplines)Deep Discipleship equips churches to reclaim the responsibility of discipling people at any point on their journey.

    Even among megachurches with their modern technology and huge number of members, whole generations are now missing. In order to reach the 18-35 year olds, churches need to incorporate alternative worship services into their ministries that meet the unique needs of the emerging generations. In a conversational, narrative style, author Dan Kimball guides church leaders on how to create alternative services from start to finish. Using anecdotes from his own experience at Graceland, Kimball presents six creative models, providing real-life examples of each type. Emerging Worship covers key topics including • Developing a prayer team • Evaluating the local mission field and context • Determining leaders and a vision-based team • Understanding why youth pastors are usually the ideal staff to start a new service • Recognizing the difference in values between emerging worship and the rest of the church • Asking critical questions beforehand

    Should preachers ask for a public response in evangelistic meetings?

    ­­­­Momentum confronts some of the issues that have hindered personal and corporate Revivals from continuing. The authors share their own perspectives and experiences that they have seen in their own lives on this topic. Every believer has access to live in a momentum that was initiated from the beginning of time. So let’s embrace our inheritance and step into the momentum of the Kingdom!

    In a liminal season it simply is not helpful to pretend we understand what needs to happen next. But leaders can still lead.How to Lead When You Don't Know Where You're Going is a practical book of hope for tired and weary leaders who risk defining this era of ministry in terms of failure or loss. It helps leaders stand firm in a disoriented state, learning from their mistakes and leading despite the confusion. Packed with rich stories and real-world examples, Beaumont guides the reader through practices that connect the soul of the leader with the soul of the institution. --Phill Martin, Chief Executive Officer, The Church Network

    Pastors are often pulled in multiple directions and must "become all things to all people" (1 Cor. 9:22). What does the New Testament say (or not say) about the pastoral calling? And what can we learn about it from the apostle Paul?According to popular New Testament scholar Scot McKnight, pastoring must begin first and foremost with spiritual formation, which plays a vital role in the life and ministry of the pastor. As leaders, pastors both create and nurture culture in a church. The biblical vision for that culture is Christoformity, or Christlikeness. Grounding pastoral ministry in the pastoral praxis of the apostle Paul, McKnight shows that nurturing Christoformity was at the heart of the Pauline mission. The pastor's central calling, then, is to mediate Christ in everything. McKnight explores seven dimensions that illustrate this concept--friendship, siblings, generosity, storytelling, witness, subverting the world, and wisdom--as he calls pastors to be conformed to Christ and to nurture a culture of Christoformity in their churches.

    One of the best and most comprehensive books ever written on the work of the ministry.