Winning on Purpose: How to Organize Congregations to Succeed in Their Mission


John E. Kaiser - 2006
    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

Understanding Church Discipline


Jonathan Leeman - 2016
    But Jesus commands it. Paul practiced it. And churches benefit from it. Why practice church discipline? It shows love for the individual caught in sin, love for the whole church, love for non-Christian neighbors, and love for the glory of Christ. In the Church Basics Series, trusted church experts write practical, trustworthy resources on issues like Church Discipline, the Lord's Supper, and Baptism that every pastor can hand every church member.

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.

Kingdom Calling: Vocational Stewardship for the Common Good


Amy L. Sherman - 2011
    That's the vision of Proverbs 11:10, in which the --the people who see everything they have as gifts from God to be stewarded for his purposes--pursue their vocation with an eye to the greater good. Amy Sherman, director of the Center on Faith in Communities and scholar of vocational stewardship, uses the as a springboard to explore how, through our faith-formed calling, we announce the kingdom of God to our everyday world. But cultural trends toward privatism and materialism threaten to dis-integrate our faith and our work. And the church, in ways large and small, has itself capitulated to those trends, while simultaneously elevating the "special calling" of professional ministry and neglecting the vocational formation of laypeople. In the process, we have, in ways large and small, subverted our kingdom mandate. God is on the move, and he calls each of us, from our various halls of power and privilege, to follow him. Here is your chance, keeping this kingdom calling in view, to steward your faith and work toward righteousness. In so doing, you will bless the world, and as you flourish, the world will celebrate.

It's Better to Build Boys Than Mend Men


S. Truett Cathy - 2004
    In an age when kids all around us are growing up without strong, positive guidance from their parents (who are busy, distracted, gone, or choose to be buddies instead of parents), children need someone they can look to with respect to help them build their lives. When he was thirteen years old, Truett Cathy, founder of Chick-fil-A, had such a man step into his life: a Sunday school teacher who modeled love, respect, hard work, and discipline. Cathy decided to follow that model, and today he has some 130 foster grandchildren, many of whom have broken their family's generational cycle of neglect through the encouragement of Cathy and other adults who reached out to them. In It's Better to Build Boys Than Mend Men, Truett Cathy lays out a simple model for adults desiring to reach out to youth and challenges readers to allow God to work through them to change the life of a child. His book is filled with stories illustrating the principles of discipline, trust, reputation, generosity, common sense, peer pressure, and family stability. Readers who follow their hearts into children's lives will find that their own lives are enriched as well.

Ancient-Future Evangelism: Making Your Church a Faith-Forming Community


Robert E. Webber - 2003
     Part 1 of Ancient-Future Evangelism surveys evangelism and Christian formation throughout the church and then translates the process for twenty-first-century Christians. Webber presents evangelism as four distinct stages and suggests three accompanying rites of passage that can be easily adapted to any church tradition. Part 2 underscores how the four-fold process of faith formation is interwoven with three theological principles: Christ as victor over evil, the church as witness to God's salvation, and worship as a witness to God's mission accomplished in Jesus. Ancient-Future Evangelism will appeal to both emerging evangelicals as well as traditional church leaders. It relates faith to Christian practice by drawing wisdom from the past and translating those insights into the present and future life of the church.

Work: Its Purpose, Dignity, and Transformation


Daniel M. Doriani - 2019
    God knows the good you do when you serve him faithfully at work, even if you don't see it yourself.The product of twenty years of thought, Work: Its Purpose, Dignity, and Transformation ennobles and motivates men and women in their labors. Providing historical background and inspiring stories of God-honoring workers, Daniel Doriani explains the Bible's teaching on the nature, glory, misery, and eventual restoration of work. You will learn what it means to be faithful at work, even in risky places, and what steps you can take to transform your workplace and the world through the reformation of work.

Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking


Malcolm Gladwell - 2005
    Never again will you think about thinking the same way.Malcolm Gladwell redefined how we understand the world around us. Now, in Blink, he revolutionizes the way we understand the world within. Blink is a book about how we think without thinking, about choices that seem to be made in an instant - in the blink of an eye - that actually aren't as simple as they seem. Why are some people brilliant decision makers, while others are consistently inept? Why do some people follow their instincts and win, while others end up stumbling into error? How do our brains really work - in the office, in the classroom, in the kitchen, and in the bedroom? And why are the best decisions often those that are impossible to explain to others? In Blink we meet the psychologist who has learned to predict whether a marriage will last, based on a few minutes of observing a couple; the tennis coach who knows when a player will double-fault before the racket even makes contact with the ball; the antiquities experts who recognize a fake at a glance. Here, too, are great failures of "blink": the election of Warren Harding; "New Coke"; and the shooting of Amadou Diallo by police. Blink reveals that great decision makers aren't those who process the most information or spend the most time deliberating, but those who have perfected the art of "thin-slicing" - filtering the very few factors that matter from an overwhelming number of variables.

Loves God, Likes Girls: A Memoir


Sally Gary - 2013
    "LOVES GOD, LIKES GIRLS--A MEMOIR" is one woman's recollection of her journey, allowing faith to plunge her into deeper discovery of the truth about her sexuality.

The Art of Non-Conformity: Set Your Own Rules, Live the Life You Want, and Change the World


Chris Guillebeau - 2010
    You'll discover how to live on your own terms by exploring creative self-employment, radical goal-setting, contrarian travel, and embracing life as a constant adventure.Inspired and guided by Chris's own story and those of others who have pursued unconventional lives, you can devise your own plan for world domination-and make the world a better place at the same time.

The Traveler's Gift: Seven Decisions that Determine Personal Success


Andy Andrews - 2002
    Once a high-flying executive in a Fortune 500 company, he now works a part-time, minimum wage job and struggles to support his family. Then, an even greater crisis hits: his daughter becomes ill, and he can’t afford to get her the medical helps she needs. When his car skids on an icy road, he wonders if he even cares to survive the crash.But an extraordinary experience awaits David Ponder. He find himself traveling back in time, meeting leaders and heroes at crucial moments in their lives—from Abraham Lincoln to Anne Frank. By the time his journey is over, he has received seven secrets for success—and a second chance.

Unoffendable: How Just One Change Can Make All of Life Better


Brant Hansen - 2015
    The idea of our own “righteous anger” is a myth. It is the number one problem in our societies today and, as Dallas Willard says, Christians have not been taught out of it. But what if Christians were the most unoffendable people on the planet?In Unoffendable you will find concrete, practical ways to live life with less stress, including: Adjusting your expectations to fit human natureReplacing perpetual anger with refreshing humility and gratitudeEmbracing forgiveness and beginning to love others in unexpected waysIn a humorous and conversational style, Unoffendable seeks to lift religious burdens from our backs and allow us to experience the joy of gratitude, perhaps for the first time, every single day of our lives—flourishing the way God intended.

The Great Connection


Arnie Warren - 1997
    It defines who you are so you can believe in yourself. It explains the DISC behavioral styles in a story with characters representing each style. Because it's a story, the reader can identify with the characters--how they speak and how they act--and therefore more easily identify and connect with their friends in business and personal environments. This is the unique factor contributing to the book's success.

Mistakes Leaders Make


Dave Kraft - 2012
    But some mistakes are more costly than others and can result in the end of effectiveness, the loss of important relationships, and disqualification from ministry.Using the story of a fictitious church team to demonstrate the problems, principles, and practice of finding solutions, leadership expert Dave Kraft uncovers the top 10 critical mistakes leaders make and shows you how to avoid them so you can have ministry and relationships that last.

Game of Work, The: How to Enjoy Work as Much as Play


Charles Coonradt - 1999
    Since its original printing in 1984, The Game of Work helped thousands of companies and hundreds of thousands of managers and employees experience increased job enjoyment while producing extraordinary results.