How do you moderate meetings, manage a church budget, and counsel struggling congregants, all while preparing sermons every week? The new pastor’s time is also inundated with something else—advice! Too much of it! Where do you begin? What you need during your make-or-break first year is practical, realistic preparation for ministry. Drawing from more than three decades of his own experience, Pastor Wingard gives essential help for navigating the principal duties of the minister. Find the tools you need to get established in your ministry and lead with confidence.

    He heard the gospel at a Fellowship of Christian Athletes meeting, at which he wasn’t even supposed to be, and he gave his life to Christ.  Two words changed Cooper’s life: But God.These two words can change every single person’s life— But God.  Each word is only three letters long. The phrase is short, but the implications are huge. The path may look bleak, dim, and hopeless…but GOD changes everything…We’ve all sinned - whether it is sex outside of marriage, a bitter heart, alcohol or drug abuse, cheating, or lying.  Maybe you’re at a place in your life where it just feels like things are falling apart.  Perhaps you’re portraying one thing on the outside and living something else on the inside. Maybe you are simply going through the motions of a life that’s not quite what you hoped it would be.  These moments drag us down - leaving us feeling hopeless and lost. You need something to happen in your life to change. You need a But God… moment.The But God moments are when God comes in and offers a new path and hope for our lives.  These moments occur when we are at are lowest, and turn our down-trodden worlds around for the better.  It is up to us to recognize and seize these moments when they occur and follow the renewed path God offers.

    Tozer deals with revival issues: the problem of "sleeping" Christians controlling church affairs, the problem of getting out of the ecclesiastical rut, the difficulty of breaking the status quo and more. This is Tozer, pulpit-style -- humor included.

    Revised with three new sermons, inclusive language, and NRSV texts, it is still as fresh and provocative as ever.

    His application of family systems theory to congregational life has enormously clarified its operative systems and especially its emotional system. In this sequel, Richardson employs the same methodology to address the roots of personal issues that may hinder pastors' ability to function effectively as leaders within their congregations, and may in fact cause them deep difficulties. He especially addresses pastors' own families of origin, a major but often hidden component in how they function emotionally in their congregations. When anxiety arises, unresolved familial issues and old family patterns return, often unhelpfully. Richardson explores these patterns, how they operate in church situations, and how pastors can do their own family-of-origin assessment. His volume will become a standard tool for analysis of patterns in ministerial behavior and developing strong personal effectiveness.

    This is a call for those whose hearts burn to see it revived— who burn with reformation’s fire. Who long to see the purity of worship restored and the Lord’s house of prayer once again reflect the fullness of His glory and the wonders of His heart. The Reset is not simply a book on worship, it’s an appeal to the broader worshiping community to once again re-order their lives and practices in accordance with the sacred and priestly calling they were given and zealously return to the heart of worship.

    What did God have in mind when He saw Joshua as a young slave in Egypt? How did He mold and shape Joshua to prepare him for service?Through Joshua and numerous examples from their own lives, the authors create a picture of God's ways, offering deep insight that listeners can apply to their own lives.Purpose, Obedience, Faith, Character, and Influence are among the themes that are included in the book; key truths are emphasized at the end of each chapter.

    As long-held beliefs on love, faith, and God are challenged by the aggregate of changes that have overhauled our world, many of us are left feeling confused and uncertain while old norms are challenged and redefined at breakneck speed.In Wrestling with God, Ronald Rolheiser offers a steady and inspiring voice to help us avow and understand our faith in a world where nothing seems solid or permanent. Drawing from his own life experience, as well as a storehouse of literary, psychological, and theological insights, the beloved author of Sacred Fire examines the fears and doubts that challenge us. It is in these struggles to find meaning, that Rolheiser lays out a path for faith in a world struggling to find faith, but perhaps more important, he helps us find our own rhythm within which to walk that path.

    Men and women pursued it at the risk of persecution, job loss, and eviction from their homes, temples, and society.What if we actually followed their lead? Perhaps it would change how we read the Bible. Maybes it would help us understand our own faith and what we believe. Perhaps we would change the world again.In Irresistible, pastor and author Andy Stanley shows how distortions of the gospel have left us with an anemic version of Christianity that undermines our credibility and our evangelistic effectiveness. He takes readers on a fascinating journey back in time to recover a faith so rich, so dynamic, so disruptive, that it could not be ignored, marginalized, or eradicated.Rather than working harder to make Christianity more interesting, we need to recover what once made faith in Jesus irresistible to the world.

    Her narrative, along with Root’s insights, help you uncover the action of God as it pertains to your own youth ministry, and encourage you to discover how you can participate in that action. As you join this theological journey, you’ll find yourself exploring how theology can and should influence the way you do youth ministry.

    Made in the image of God and called to follow a risen Lord through the world God made--we're anything but normal. Given all that, it should not be surprising to us when miraculous things happen in our midst. Still, many of us are intimidated at the thought of it, and we stop short of trying so we won't disappoint God with our lack of faith, or--if we're being honest--so we won't be disappointed when God fails to deliver. InMiracle Work Jordan Seng tells remarkable stories of physical healings and prophetic messages. He reflects on the possibility and limitations of a contemporary ministry that believes in the power of God, and helps us train and prepare ourselves for when God works through us in the lives of others. Read Miracle Work for a better understanding of what it means to be agents of grace, healing and even miracles in a world that desperately needs the good news of God's loving, healing touch.

    Maybe you chose to be, maybe someone else chose it for you—no matter how you got here, God has a plan to use you in ministry. You and your youth worker know that you’re new at this thing. You have leadership abilities, but you’re still a student—so how do you do it? Doug Fields has been a youth pastor for a long time, and he has helped a few students here and there figure out how to be leaders in his ministry. Now he’s here to help you. You may be afraid or overwhelmed, or you may feel privileged … or even a little cocky ... whatever the case, the tools in this book will help you get the most of your time as a leader. Here’s a little bit of what’s inside: • Learning how Jesus led others • Lightening the load of your adult leaders • Discovering the secrets of getting others involved• Deepening your own faith by serving others • Balancing your schedule—family, school, faith, leadership • Becoming an encourager You’ve been entrusted with leadership responsibilities, and Help! I’m a Student Leader! is full of hands-on leadership ideas and guidance that’ll help you discover the leadership role that you were created to fill.

    As a comprehensive and powerful application of the biblical call to mission, Winning on Purpose sets forth the Accountable Leadership strategy. This model of leadership brings together standards for mission, boundaries, and accountability, and then shows how these standards come to life through the performance of four key players: the board, the pastor, the staff, and the congregation. To read a sample from the book click here

    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.

    Hughes chronicles the history of Churches of Christ in America from their inception in the early nineteenth century to the 1990s, taking full account of the complexity of their origins, the mainstream of their heritage for almost two hundred years, and their voices of protest and dissent, especially in the twentieth century. From The Critics "Hughes...here provides the definitive history of the Churches of Christ from their beginnings in the Stone-Campbell movement of the early 19th century through the split with the Disciples of Christ at the turn of the century and all the way into the 1990s. Central to this richly detailed and highly readable narrative is Hughes's assertion that this religious movement has evolved from a 19th-century sect into a 20th-century denomination." - Choice "Because of Hughes's elegant writing and his awareness of the social history surrounding the developing denomination, this study transcends mere denominational history and should be read as cultural history. It should remain the standard volume on the subject for years to come." - Publishers Weekly "Hughes provides a clear, balanced account of an American religious movement that has heretofore received insufficient scholarly attention." - Journal of American History "An excellent denominational history of Churches of Christ.... Richard T. Hughes, who admirably balances an empathy born of his lifelong membership in the denomination with the standards of a professional historian, labored on this book for a decade and a half, and the result is a study both thoroughly researched and clearly written." - American Historical Review "Hughes is the foremost interpreter today ofthe Churches of Christ, as this book illustrates.... Well written and meticulously documented, this book could serve as the definitive history of this movement for a generation." - Religious Studies Review