The Emotionally Healthy Church offers a strategy for discipleship that accomplishes healthy living and actually changes lives.

    Glenn Packiam wants to empower readers to find great joy, purpose, and passion in their daily living. While bread may be one of the most common items on our dinner tables, Jesus chose to take it at the Last Supper and invest deep, wonderful, and transcendent meaning in it. Like the bread that was blessed, broken, and given; readers will see how God uses ordinary experiences to cultivate their mission and their brokenness to bring healing to the world. The ordinary is not the enemy; it is the means by which God accomplishes the miraculous. Through clear biblical teaching and practical steps, Packiam leads the reader into a more purposeful, directed, hopeful future.

    In fact, you can see Nancy Wilson's thirty years of experience most clearly in how she reacts to the difficult stuff -- the stuff that can make you (especially if you're married to a pastor) feel inadequate and under-qualified.True Companion offers friendly, practical, and above all Christ-centered wisdom on how to help your husband in his vocation, how to deal with the "congregation at home" (kids), how much (or how little) a pastor's wife needs to be involved in the church, what sins tend to spring up in a pastor's home, how to deal with adversity from enemies (or from friends), and a host of other issues.

    Many moderns, even Christians, try to deny the importance of these virtues by sinking deeper into their selfishness, only to complain of greater loneliness.The heart of Christian reality is a society—a Trinity—of persons living with and for one another. God created us to live in bonds of society and friendship, not as lone rangers. The Christian faith presents friendship and hospitality not as luxuries but necessities. God does not save us in isolation but in community with other people. There is no possibility of living to the glory of God apart from godly companions.In this book Steve Wilkins seeks to call us back to the joyous obligations of friendship and hospitality. He spells out the biblical virtues that nurture both, as well as the stumbling blocks that will hinder us.

    If Jesus had been born in our day, the council that condemned Him would have included a couple of well-known evangelical pastors, a few outspoken pro-life leaders, a conservative-libertarian-leaning politician, and at least one Bible-thumping fundamentalist. Jesus was murdered by church people, for churchy reasons.In Blood-Bought World, Toby Sumpter pinpoints the raw spots where modern-day Christians have allowed respectability, comfort, fear, love, fitness, authenticity, or other idols to become “fig leaves” to shield us from the Persons of the Trinity. We have relegated God to Sunday school presentations instead of following Jesus on the path to real authority and power: the cross. God's undiluted sovereignty demolishes every false human claim of autonomy. Men and women who know Jesus have no patience for a polite social club with religious jargon. The real Christian faith, delivered to the saints and driven by the Holy Spirit, is a wild, rambunctious, healing force set on the redemption of the world. That is what "being Christian" means: Hello, World! Jesus bought this place with His blood. Deal with it.

    Written by MacArthur and his colleagues at The Master's Seminary, this guide outlines the biblical priorities essential to effective ministry.Other contributors include: Richard L. Mayhue, James F. Stitzinger, Alex D. Montoya, James M. George, Irvin A. Busenitz, James E. Rosscup, Donard G. McDougall, Robert L. Thomas, David C. Deuel, George J. Zemek, and S. Lance Quinn.

    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."

    The result is pastors trained in biblical exposition, well-ordered worship, and good theology, but with little practical know-how about one of the most important functions they will be expected to perform: conflict resolution.The Peacemaking Pastor provides a survey of the nature and kinds of conflict typical in the pastorate to bring to light the need to recover the ministry of reconciliation. Poirier, chairman of the board of Peacemaker Ministries, shows pastors the importance of a reconciliation ministry, gives them a theological framework for peacemaking, and provides practical tools for facilitating the peacemaking process. Written by a pastor for pastors, this insightful book will encourage and equip seminaries and ministry leaders in their original calling-promoting a culture of peacemaking in the church.

    Some of the topics you will find in this book are: Renew your bonds of love with other believers. Participate in the partnership of the gospel. Contribute your spiritual gifts to help others. Share your possessions according to God's plan.

    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.

    Today the American church is in a similar position, on the precipice of a great spiritual recession. While we focus on a few large churches and dynamic leaders that are successful, the church's overall membership is shrinking. Young Christians are fleeing. Our donations are drying up. Political fervor is dividing us. Even as these crises eat at the church internally, our once friendly host culture is quickly turning hostile and antagonistic. How can we avoid a devastating collapse?In The Great Evangelical Recession, award-winning journalist and pastor John Dickerson identifies six factors that are radically eroding the American church and offers biblical solutions to prepare evangelicals for spiritual success, even in the face of alarming trends. This book is a heartfelt plea and call to the American church combining quality research, genuine hope, and practical application with the purpose of igniting the church toward a better future.

    And it's not just happening on the nominal fringe; it's happening at the core of the Faith. What are the factors that could cause the next generation to be lost from the local church? Ken Ham from Answers in Genesis commissioned Britt Beamer from America's Research Group to find out. In the first scientific study of its kind, Beamer surveyed a thousand 20-30 year olds who used to go to Evangelical churches on a regular basis but have since left it behind. The results are not just surprising, they are shocking: Those who faithfully attended Sunday school are more likely to leave the church than those who do not! Those who regularly attended Sunday school are more likely to believe that the Bible is less true! Over half of those who faithfully attended church feel that the church is not relevant to real life today. Statistic by statistic, Ham and Beamer blow the lid off basic assumptions and implications regarding faith, the age of the earth, the inerrancy of the Bible and the great disconnect that is taking place between our children and their church experience. The trends are frightening, but Already Gone shows how to fight back in our families, our churches and our world. We can make a difference today that will affect the statistics of tomorrow!"

     Do you want more from your church experience?Does the pure gospel put you in a place of awe?Are you ready to rethink church as you know it?  Sit with Pastor Francis Chan and be reminded that you are a part of something much bigger than yourself, something sacred.   In his most powerful book yet, Chan digs deep into biblical truth, reflects on his own failures and dreams, and shares stories of ordinary people God is using to change the world.   Chan says, “We’ve strayed so far from what God calls Church. We all know it. We know that what we’re experiencing is radically different from the Church in Scripture. For decades, church leaders like myself have lost sight of the inherent mystery of the Church. We have trained people sitting in the pews to become addicted to lesser things. It’s time for that to change.”   When Jesus returns, will He find us caring for His Bride—even more than for our own lives? Letters to the Church reminds us of how powerful, how glorious the Church once was … and calls us to once again be the Church God intended us to be.

    He didn't see an outcast from society, he saw a child of Israel. He didn't see a sinner, he saw a person in the image of the Creator. Are we able to see others with the eyes of Jesus? Seeing rightly is the beginning of renewal, forgiveness, healing and grace. Seeing rightly, says Mark Labberton, is the beginning of how our hearts are changed. Through careful self-examination in the Spirit, we begin to bear the fruit of love toward others that can make a difference. Here is a chance to reflect on why our ordinary hearts can be complacent about the evils in the world and how we can begin to see the world like Jesus. With each chapter broken into brief segments punctuated by questions, this book is ideal for both personal reflection and group discussion. See what happens when you take a chance on the dangerous act of loving your neighbor. Your vision might just be changed forever.

    The result? A society measurably less religious but decidedly more spiritual. Less influenced by authority than by experience. More attuned to images than to words. How does the church adapt to such a culture? Or should it, in fact, eschew adapting for maintaining a course it has followed these last two millennia? Or something in between? These are exactly the questions asked in The Church In Emerging Culture by five Christian thinker-speaker-writers, each who advocate unique stances regarding what the church’s message should be (and what methods should be used to present it) as it journeys through this evolving, postmodern era. The authors are: Andy Crouch–Re:Generation Quarterly editor-in-chief Michael Horton–professor and reformed theologian Frederica Mathewes-Green–author, commentator, and Orthodox Christian Brian D. McLaren–postmodernist, author, pastor, and Emergent senior fellow Erwin Raphael McManus–author and pastor of the innovative and interethnic L.A.-based church, Mosaic Most unique about their individual positions is that they’re presented not as singular essays but as lively discussions in which the other four authors freely (and frequently) comment, critique, and concur. That element, coupled with a unique photographic design that reinforces the depth of their at-once congenial and feisty conversation, gives you all-access entrée into this groundbreaking discourse. What’s more, general editor Leonard Sweet (author of SoulTsunami and AquaChurch, among several other acclaimed texts) frames the thought-provoking dialogue with a profoundly insightful, erudite introductory essay–practically a book within a book. The Church In Emerging Culture is foundational reading for leaders and serious students of all denominations and church styles.