This accessible work biblically explains what the Lord's Supper is, how it relates to a local church's life together, who should celebrate the Lord's Supper, and how we should approach it.

    Part of the 9Marks Building Healthy Churches series.

    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.

    Andy writes,            “Our goal is to create weekend experiences so compelling and helpful that     even the most skeptical individuals in our community would walk away with      every intention of returning the following week…with a friend!”Later he says,            “I want people to fall in love with the Author of Scripture. And while we can’t            make anyone fall in love, we can certainly arrange a date.”  For the first time, Andy explains his strategy for preaching and programming to “dual audiences”: mature believers and cynical unbelievers. He argues that preaching to dual audiences doesn’t require communicators to “dumb down” the content. According to Stanley, it’s all in the approach.You’ll be introduced to North Point's spiritual formation model: The Five Faith Catalysts. Leaders responsible for ministry programing and production will no doubt love Andy’s discussion of the three essential ingredients for creating irresistible environments.  For pastors willing to tackle the challenge of transitioning a local congregation, Andy includes a section entitled: Becoming Deep and Wide.If your team is more concerned with who you are reaching than who you are keeping, Deep & Wide will be more than a book you read; it will be a resource you come back to over and over!“Couldn't be prouder of my son, Andy. And I couldn't be more excited about the content of this book. I wish a resource like this existed when I was starting out in ministry.”-          Dr. Charles Stanley, Founder, In Touch Ministries“Deep and Wide pulls back the curtain for all of us to see what is required behind the scenes to build a prevailing church.  I was both challenged and inspired by this book.”-          Bill Hybels, author of Just Walk Across the Room“The most common question I get from pastors is, ‘How do I get the people in my church to be open to change?’ From now on my answer will be, ‘Read Deep and Wide by Andy Stanley’.  Thanks Andy.  Great book!”-          Craig Groeschel, Pastor, LifeChurch.TV, author, It: How Churches and Leaders Can Get It and Keep It“No one has given me more practical handles for establishing a focused vision than Andy Stanley. Deep and Wide is a rich resource to help all of us stay intentional about the main thing - building a church that reaches people who are far from God.”-          Steven Furtick, Lead Pastor, Elevation Church

    Albert Mohler became the youngest president in the 153-year history of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He was the driving force behind the school's transformation into a thriving institution with an international reputation characterized by a passionate conviction for truth. In the process he became one of the most important and prominent Christian voices in contemporary culture.What will it take to transform your leadership?Effective leaders need more than administrative skills and vision. They need to be able to change the hearts and minds of those they lead. Leadership like this requires passionate beliefs that can stand up to pressure from without and within.Now for the first time, Dr. Mohler reveals 25 principles to crystallize your convictions, revolutionizing your thinking, your decision-making, your communication, and ultimately those you lead.

    Balancing thoughtful analysis of pertinent passages with thorough application for practical use in a contemporary context, Anyabwile answers the questions, "Who should we look for to lead and serve in the church?" and "What should they do to fulfill their calling?"

    But this renewed interest in poverty alleviation is doomed to fail if it is not rooted in the local church--God's established means of drawing downtrodden people into a transformative relationship with himself. Emphasizing the priority of the gospel, Mez McConnell and Mike McKinley, both pastors with fruitful ministries among the poor, offer biblical guidelines and practical strategies for planting, revitalizing, and growing faithful churches in hard places--in our own communities and around the world.

    What was historically agreed upon is now readily questioned and the very essentials of the Christian faith are in jeopardy. It's time to reclaim the core of our beliefs.To that end, D. A. Carson, Tim Keller, Kevin DeYoung, and other influential leaders have created this volume to defend the traditional gospel and to strengthen the church.The Gospel as Center will help you join in the movement--the movement dedicated to a Scripture-based reformation of ministry practices and the centrality of the gospel--and stand united under the conviction that what holds us together is worth fighting for.

    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."

    Whether you attend a small group or lead one, this book will raise your vision and inspire you to excel in the areas of service to which God has called you. And if you don't attend a small group? All the more reason you may want to read Why Small Groups? and let it change your life. The authors are all pastors from various Sovereign Grace Ministries churches.

    After traveling the globe and speaking to thousands of churches worldwide, Paul David Tripp has discovered a serious problem within pastoral culture.He is not only concerned about the spiritual life of the pastor, but also with the very community of people that trains him, calls him, relates to him, and restores him if necessary.Dangerous Calling reveals the truth that the culture surrounding our pastors is spiritually unhealthy--an environment that actively undermines the wellbeing and efficacy of our church leaders and thus the entire church body.Here is a book that both diagnoses and offers cures for issues that impact every member and church leader, and gives solid strategies for fighting the all-important war that rages in our churches today.

    When the gospel is rightly declared and applied to God’s people, the church becomes “a creature of the Word.” She understands, embraces, and lives out the reality of Christ’s birth, life, death, and resurrection in more than her doctrinal statement. The gospel impacts all the church is and does.Creature of the Word lays out this concept in full, first examining the rich, scripture-based beauty of a Jesus-centered church, then clearly providing practical steps toward forming a Jesus-centered church. Authors Matt Chandler, Eric Geiger, and Josh Patterson write what will become a center- ing discussion piece for those whose goal is to be part of a church that has its theology, culture, and practice completely saturated in the gospel.

    Vine work is the Great Commission.And there is trellis work: creating and maintaining the physical and organizational structures and programs that support vine work and its growth.What’s the state of the trellis and the vine in your part of the world? Has trellis work taken over, as it has a habit of doing? Is the vine work being done by very few (perhaps only the pastor and only on Sundays)? And is the vine starting to wilt as a result?The image of the trellis and the vine raises all the fundamental questions of Christian ministry: * What is the vine for? * How does the vine grow? * How does the vine relate to my church? * What is vine work and what is trellis work, and how can we tell the difference? * What part do different people play in growing the vine? * How can we get more people involved in vine work? In The Trellis and the Vine, Colin Marshall and Tony Payne answer these urgent questions afresh. They dig back into the Bible’s view of Christian ministry, and argue that a major mind-shift is required if we are to fulfill the Great Commission of Christ, and see the vine flourish again.

    What makes for good preaching?In this accessible volume--written for preachers and preachers in training--pastor David Helm outlines what must be believed and accomplished to become a faithful expositor of God's Word.In addition to offering practical, step-by-step guidance for preachers, this short book will equip all of us to recognize good preaching when we hear it.

    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.