But since most pastoral guidebooks available today date back to 1980 or earlier, this new resource by Mac Brunson and James W. Bryant will offer fresh experience-based encouragement to all pastors in their pursuit of excellence and development in their God-called profession.Among the twenty chapters are "The Pastor and His Call," "The Pastor and His Family," "The Pastor and His Staff," "The Pastor and Worship," "The Pastor and Finances," "The Pastor, Wedding, and Funerals," "The Pastor, Politics, and Moral Issues," and "The Pastor and His Denomination."

    In this short book, a highly respected biblical counselor and successful author offers practical guidance for all Christians--pastors and laypeople alike--who want to develop their "helping skills" when it comes to walking alongside hurting people.Written out of the conviction that friends are the best helpers, this accessible introduction to biblical counseling will equip believers to share their burdens with one another through gentle words of wisdom and kind acts of love. This book is written for those eager to see God use ordinary relationships and conversations between ordinary Christians to work extraordinary miracles in the lives of his people.

    But is this level of physical and spiritual weariness inevitable? Just as a car needs to be regularly refueled, retuned, and repaired in order to keep running, a balanced life can be sustained only when a man takes proper steps to stay on track. In this hopeful book, experienced pastor and counselor David Murray shares stories from his own life and the lives of friends, offering gospel-centered advice for avoiding, assessing, and recovering from burnout. With chapters on rest, relationships, routines, and more, this book lays out a host of practical remedies men can use to reset their lives on a more sustainable course--resulting in renewed energy, joy, and purpose.

    Today the church is awakening to the truth that ministry is not just the domain of clergy, but belongs to the entire body of Christ. God is moving her to complete her unfinished business of placing the ministry back in the hands of the people. Unfinished Business has played a pivotal part in helping the church reclaim ministry at the grassroots level. First published in 1990 as The New Reformation, it has become a classic resource for church life. Expanding on and updating the original material with fresh examples and references to eight key important movements, this new edition lays foundations for the church to move from: · Passive to active · Maintenance to mission · Clergy to people of God · Teacher/caregiver to equipping enabler Pointing us back to the church as an organism, not an institution, author Greg Ogden shows how each of us is called to help finish the Reformation’s unfinished business: expressing the priesthood of every believer practically in the church, the world, and all avenues of life.

    He guides churches away from an internal focus to emphasize participation in their community and surrounding culture. In this important book, Mancini offers an approach for rethinking what it means to lead with clarity as a visionary. Mancini explains that each church has a culture that reflects its particular values, thoughts, attitudes, and actions and shows how church leaders can unlock their church's individual DNA and unleash their congregation's one-of-a-kind potential.

    Confident that seminary equipped them with the tools they need for the journey ahead, they find themselves discouraged when the realities of their first call don't line up with what they came to expect from assigned readings and classroom discussions. This book, with contributions from fifteen veteran pastors, including Daniel L. Akin, Juan Sanchez, Phil A. Newton, Scott Sauls, offers real-world advice about the joys and challenges of the first five years of pastoral ministry--bridging the gap between seminary training and life in a local church. Armed with wisdom from those who have gone before them, young pastors will find encouragement to stand firm in the thick of the realities and rigors of pastoral ministry.

    Leaders administrate the new program, and members go on a raid. But picture a church where evangelism is just part of the culture. Leaders share their faith consistently and openly. Members follow, encouraging one another to make evangelism an ongoing way of life.Such is the way of evangelism presented by this brief and compelling book. No program here. Instead, it just might give your church a new way to live and share the gospel together.

    In many churches, the primary objective of the church discipleship of people into mature followers of Jesus has been outsourced to programs and large-scale efforts to train and teach. But is that happening? Are people growing in spiritual depth and missional determination?Twenty-five years ago, the leaders of Randy Pope s rapidly growing church took serious stock of their own spiritual development and realized all of them had benefitted from a personal discipleship relationship that had helped them grow in their faith and discover where God was calling them to service. As a church, they decided to make personal discipleship their do-or-die aim: applying one person s real life to another s to accomplish something far bigger than that single life. Perimeter calls their approach life-on-life missional discipleship and Insourcing tells their story.Randy Pope writes for church leaders who recognize the value of discipleship and need practical ideas for reorienting church ministries around personal discipleship. Readers will be encouraged that a wide scale personal discipleship program is attainable for any church."

    The ingrown church is a common phenomenon. It is the "norm" for contemporary evangelical and Protestant churches. But ingrownness is a pathology. It can destroy the vital spiritual health of a church. It must, therefore, be combated with the norms of Scripture. And that is why this book was written. Outgrowing the Ingrown Church is a masterful mix of biblical principle, objective analysis, and personal experience. It traces the author's own growing awareness of the problem of ingrownness in his calling as a pastor, seminary professor, and evangelist/missionary. In his own discovery of the power and presence of God he discovered the tendency of the church to live by its own power and resources. This is a book written to help change churches by changing the individuals who read it. It offers one an unparalleled challenge to be evaluated, revitalized, and then used by God for the work of ministry. Thus it is a book not merely for pastors, but for the whole body of Christ. "I have never been as excited about any book concerning church growth as when I read this book . . . . (His biblical) principles, if followed, transform individual lives and then lead to a movement within a church to change the whole congregation," writes John Guest in the foreword.

    In this book, John MacArthur laments the drift of American Christianity towards compromise with culture and issues a call for the church to recover its prophetic, unadulterated voice in order to have a renewed impact on society.

    Luce issues a revolutionary wake-up call to the church and home about the cultural battle for America's teens' hearts, minds, and souls.

    But far from faulting teens, Dean placesthe blame for this theological watering down squarely on the churches themselves. Instead of proclaiming a God who calls believers to lives of love, service and sacrifice, churches offer instead a bargain religion, easy to use, easy to forget, offering little and demanding less. But what is to bedone? In order to produce ardent young Christians, Dean argues, churches must rediscover their sense of mission and model an understanding of being Christian as not something you do for yourself, but something that calls you to share God's love, in word and deed, with others. Dean found that themost committed young Christians shared four important traits: they could tell a personal and powerful story about God; they belonged to a significant faith community; they exhibited a sense of vocation; and they possessed a profound sense of hope. Based on these findings, Dean proposes an approachto Christian education that places the idea of mission at its core and offers a wealth of concrete suggestions for inspiring teens to live more authentically engaged Christian lives.Persuasively and accessibly written, Almost Christian is a wake up call no one concerned about the future of Christianity in America can afford to ignore.

    Few, if any, address for a contemporary audience the biblical foundations of the government of the church. But this should be a priority for us, because God emphasizes the government of his church throughout Scripture. Why should we be church members? How do church officers reflect Jesus' reign over us? Where do the church's responsibilities begin and end? Where do ours? These, and other important questions, are answered in Guy Prentiss Water's vital examination of How Jesus Runs the Church. At a time when church authority is treated with contempt, it's important that we honor God in our churches more than ever.

    The time has come for us to honestly name the ways we are different and similar so that we can serve together in unity, grace and trust.Women in ministry experience unique challenges in their church settings which continue to hinder their vocational, professional, and personal success. Women in ministry need a trusted and comprehensive resource not only to be able to survive but to thrive in their places of call. She provides theoretical, theological, and practical frameworks and strategies for flourishing as a woman in ministry and engages critical reflection on the practice of ministry in light of current feminist theory, biblical interpretation, and experience.Covering everything from biblical arguments for and against women in the church to what not to wear, this book offers background information and tools for negotiating the many and varied issues that woman in ministry face, including leadership, the authority and office of the clergy, and structures and power in the church. A trusted and comprehensive resource for women in ministry, equipping them to thrive in their places of call, and for the men who serve alongside them. "For women in ministry, one 'a-ha' moment after another spills from the pages of this book. Decades after ordination opened for women in mainline churches, the struggle for acceptance and equality goes on. This is an important book which narrates the deep costs of sexism and imagines a new form of women's leadership rooted and grounded in authentic love and genuine hospitality. In telling the truth about persistent sexism in the church, Karoline Lewis, paradoxically, blesses her readers with hope. This hope emerges in naming the challenges for women leaders and then pointing the way forward." - Leanne Van Dyk, President and Professor of Theology, Columbia Theological Seminary, Decatur, GA

    In this classic, J. Oswald Sanders illustrates biblical leadership principles through the lives of David, Moses, Nehemiah, the Apostle Paul, David Livingston, and Charles Spurgeon.This world needs more leaders who are guided by God and devoted to Christ. Christianity needs to put forth a powerful voice to be heard above the cacophony of immorality and deception in much of today's leadership. Spiritual Leadership will encourage you to place your talents and powers at His disposal so you can become a leader used for His glory.This timeless classic will equip leaders of all generations to press on in service for Jesus Christ. Spiritual Leadership has easy-to-understand modern language and a study guide to assist each leader as they grow and successfully apply the principles in this book. Prepare to be stretched, challenged, and motivated to apply the leadership principles of character, passion, and especially godliness. Spiritual Leadership is a necessary tool for today's leaders.