Book picks similar to
Next Wave: Discovering the 21st Century Church by Steve Pike
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The Master Plan of Evangelism
Robert E. Coleman - 1962
We are called to do the same. But evangelism can be difficult--even intimidating. With all the evangelism resources available, where should you turn to find advice on how to share the Good News with others? Robert E. Coleman says the answers aren't found in TV evangelism, easy-evangelism guidebooks, or the latest marketing techniques. Rather, he looks to the Bible, to the ultimate example found in Jesus Christ. For more than forty years this classic, biblical look at evangelism has challenged and instructed over three million readers. Now repackaged for a new generation, The Master Plan of Evangelism is as fresh and relevant as ever. Join the movement and discover how you can minister to the people God brings into your life.
Move: What 1,000 Churches Reveal about Spiritual Growth
Greg L. Hawkins - 2011
Today’s pastors bring tremendous effort and passion to this task, but they are often disappointed by people who sit in the pews for years, knowing about Jesus but never really knowing him. In 2004, Willow Creek Community Church in suburban Chicago undertook a three-year study to measure spiritual growth called the REVEAL Spiritual Life Survey. Over the next six years, additional data was collected from over a quarter million people in well over a thousand churches of every size, denomination, and geographic area. Move presents verifiable, fact-based, and somewhat startling findings from the latest REVEAL research, drawing on compelling stories from actual people—congregation members of varying spiritual maturity, as well as pastors who are equally candid as they share their disappointments and their successes. It provides a new lens through which church leaders can see and measure the evidence of spiritual growth. The local church is uniquely equipped to foster spiritual growth and challenge people to pursue a life of full devotion to Christ. Move helps pastors and church leaders inspire and direct that challenge with confidence as they lead their congregations to move closer to Christ.
Book of Mormon Seminary Home-Study Guide
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints - 2008
For your study this school year, you will first complete reading assignments from the scripture text for this course—the Book of Mormon—and then you will complete the individual lessons. Once a week you will meet with a seminary teacher to submit your work and participate in a weekly lesson.Seminary is a daily religious education program. Prayerfully studying your scriptures should be a daily practice. You will need to work on your seminary assignments each school day, even though you will not attend a seminary class each day. There are 32 units to be completed during the course. The reading chart on page viii shows what you should study for each unit. Your teacher will help you understand when each unit is due. The lessons in this study guide should each take about 30 minutes to complete, in addition to your daily scripture study.You should have two scripture study journals (or two notebooks), separate from your personal journal, in which you will write the assignments from the study guide activities. Each week that you meet with your teacher, you should turn in the scripture study journal containing the completed assignments from the study guide activities you completed for that week. Your teacher will read and respond to the assignments and return that scripture study journal to you the following week. You could also write your responses on paper in a loose-leaf binder and turn in the pages you did that week. Then, when your teacher returns the pages, you could put them back into the notebook."
The Care of Souls: Cultivating a Pastor's Heart
Harold L. Senkbeil - 2019
And he offers practical and fruitful advice� "born out of his five decades as a pastor� "that will benefit both new pastors and those with years in the pulpit.In a time when many churches have lost sight of the real purpose of the church, The Care of Souls invites a new generation of pastors to form the godly habits and practical wisdom needed to minister to the hearts and souls of those committed to their care.
Gospel Fluency: Speaking the Truths of Jesus Into the Everyday Stuff of Life
Jeff Vanderstelt - 2017
Is it possible this difficulty is because we're trying to speak a language we haven't actually spent time practicing?To become fluent in a new language, you must immerse yourself in it until you actually start to think about life through it. Becoming fluent in the gospel happens the same way--after believing it, we have to intentionally rehearse it (to ourselves and to others) and immerse ourselves in its truths. Only then will we start to see how everything in our lives, from the mundane to the magnificent, is transformed by the hope of the gospel.
Church Forsaken: Practicing Presence in Neglected Neighborhoods
Jonathan Brooks - 2018
As soon as he was able, he left the community and moved as far away as he could. But through a remarkable turn of events, he reluctantly returned and found himself not only back in Englewood but also serving as a pastor ("Pastah J") and community leader. In Church Forsaken, Brooks challenges local churches to rediscover that loving our neighbors means loving our neighborhoods. Unpacking the themes of Jeremiah 29, he shows how Christians can be fully present in local communities, building homes and planting gardens for the common good. His holistic vision and practical work offers good news for forgotten people and places. And community stakeholders and civic leaders will rediscover that churches are viable partners in community transformation in ways that they may never have considered. God has always been at work in neglected neighborhoods. Join Pastah J on this journey and discover new hope for your community.
Gospel Coach: Shepherding Leaders to Glorify God
Scott Thomas - 2010
When leaders aren’t healthy, the result is often an unhealthy church. Leaders need someone to shepherd their soul so that they can then lead others to the Chief Shepherd, Jesus Christ. Every church leader—from fulltime ministers to volunteer leaders—needs a Gospel Coach who will come alongside them with words drawn from Scripture and godly wisdom, grounded in the gracious saving work of Jesus Christ, and presented in the context of a trusting relationship. Gospel coaching is an intentional relationship of skillful caring for others based on four ancient shepherding principles: 1) Know the sheep 2) Feed the sheep 3) Lead the sheep 4) Protect the sheep Gospel coaches inquire about the personal, spiritual, and missional aspects of a leader’s life in a loving yet focused manner, probing the heart for compulsive unbelief or selfish motivation, disobedience, and sin, leading them back to the Gospel through belief, repentance, and obedience.
Confessions of a Reformission Rev.: Hard Lessons from an Emerging Missional Church
Mark Driscoll - 2006
It’s also the story of the growth of a pastor, the mistakes he’s made along the way, and God’s grace and work in spite of those mistakes. Mark Driscoll’s emerging, missional church took a rocky road from its start in a hot, upstairs youth room with gold shag carpet to its current weekly attendance of thousands. With engaging humor, humility, and candor, Driscoll shares the failures, frustrations, and just plain messiness of trying to build a church that is faithful to the gospel of Christ in a highly post-Christian culture. In the telling, he’s not afraid to skewer some sacred cows of traditional, contemporary, and emerging churches. Each chapter discusses not only the hard lessons learned but also the principles and practices that worked and that can inform your church’s ministry, no matter its present size. The book includes discussion questions and appendix resources. “After reading a book like this, you can never go back to being an inwardly focused church without a mission. Even if you disagree with Mark about some of the things he says, you cannot help but be convicted to the inner core about what it means to have a heart for those who don’t know Jesus.”—Dan Kimball, author,The Emerging Church “… will make you laugh, cry, and get mad … school you, shape you, and mold you into the right kind of priorities to lead the church in today’s messy world.”—Robert Webber, Northern Seminary
All the Things I Meant to Tell You
Tiffany L. Warren - 2021
. . and done with trying to find “perfect” husbands. So why can't Hahna, Twila, and Kimberly have men strictly for friendship, companionship—and especially mind-blowing sex? Their solution: be sugar mamas to gorgeous young studs who promise the best of having it all. But the ladies soon find that real lust and no strings is way more complicated than they thought . . . All-business and all about the money, Hahna is drawn to Jovan, an aspiring writer. He's content with his work and Hahna, but her determination to make him appreciate the finest things in life could easily tear them apart. Cautious Kimberly is swept off her feet by handsome adrenaline-junkie Shawn—but an old flame from her past sparks an even more dangerous passion. And for Twila, a smokin’-hot Instagram model is fulfilling all her scandalous, insatiable dreams . . . until his high-maintenance demands and jealousy throw her life into chaos. Now Hahna, Kimberly, and Twila need to trust their instincts and their hearts to reclaim their joy—and the love they truly deserve.
Ten Stupid Things That Keep Churches from Growing: How Leaders Can Overcome Costly Mistakes
Geoff Surratt - 2009
Each chapter spotlights a common mistake, gives real-life examples, uses a generous dose of humor, and provides a practical course of action to recover from the error. The book draws from the experience of Seacoast Church as well as pastors such as Craig Groeschel, Chris Hodges, Perry Nobel, Mark Batterson, Dave Ferguson, Scott Chapman, Dino Rizzo, Ron Hamilton, and Dave Browning, Church leaders will be encouraged to realize that they are not the only ones who struggle, and that turning their situation around may not be as daunting a task as they think. This is a field guide for the common pastor based on actual churches of all sizes.
Church in Hard Places: How the Local Church Brings Life to the Poor and Needy
Mez McConnell - 2016
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.
Another Chance
Candie Checketts - 2003
A love story that's celebration of the gift of free agency
Unwelcome: 50 Ways Churches Drive Away First-Time Visitors
Jonathan Malm - 2014
Are you making your first-time guests feel welcome? Or are you driving them away—unintentionally—with bad signage, reserved seating, clunky communication and more? In this practical book, Jonathan Malm examines 50 ways churches make first-time visitors feel unwelcome. The transgressions range from insider lingo to awkward transitions, a cold congregation to the over-eager greeter. With all 50 church faux pas, Jonathan suggests ways to not only fix the problem, but also infuse excellence into the situation so churches can put their best foot forward with first-time guests. A few simple changes can help your church roll out the welcome mat for your guests.
How (Not) to Be Secular: Reading Charles Taylor
James K.A. Smith - 2014
This book by Jamie Smith is a small field guide to Taylor's genealogy of the secular, making it accessible to a wide array of readers. Smith's How (Not) to Be Secular is also, however, a philosophical guidebook for practitioners a kind of how-to manual that ultimately offers guidance on how to live in a secular age. It's an adventure in self-understanding and a way to get our bearings in postmodernity. Whether one is proclaiming faith to the secularized or is puzzled that there continue to be people of faith in this day and age, this is a philosophical story meant to help us locate where we are and what's at stake.
The Church on the Other Side: Doing Ministry in the Postmodern Matrix
Brian D. McLaren - 1998
Discover the importance of redefining your mission, finding fresh ways to communicate the gospel, and engaging today's culture with understanding. Brian McLaren shows you thirteen practices for navigating towards a vibrant church that can reach out and serve the conviction and confidence in today's changing new world.