Churches are growing beyond the limitations of a single service in one building. Expanding the traditional model, they are embracing the concept of one church with more than one site: multiple congregations sharing a common vision, budget, leadership, and board. Drawing from the examples of churches nationwide, The Multi-Site Church Revolution shows what healthy multi-site churches look like and what motivates congregations to make the change. Discover how your church can: • cast a vision for change • ensure a successful DNA transfer (vision and core values) to its new site • develop new leaders • fund new sites • adapt to structure and staffing change • use technology to support your worship services you’ll identify the reasons churches succeed and how they overcome common snags. The Multi-Site Church Revolution offers guidance, insights, and specific action steps as well as appendixes with practical leadership resources and self-diagnostic tools. “I wholeheartedly recommend this book for any pastor or church leader who needs to know the pertinent issues, tested solutions, and real examples of multi-site strategies that are currently being deployed around the world.” —Ed Young, senior pastor, Fellowship Church “The authors have done their homework. They have firsthand knowledge of the successes and failures of this movement, having been networking with and facilitating dialogue among churches across the country for years.” —Max Lucado, senior minister, Oak Hills Church “Look no further than this book to propel your ministry to Ephesians 3:20 proportions: exceeding abundantly above all that you could ever ask or think!” —Randy and Paula White, senior pastors, Without Walls International Church This book is part of the Leadership Network Innovation Series.

    Through this provocative project, the founder of PreachersNSneakers is helping thousands of Jesus followers wrestle with the inevitable dilemmas created by a culture obsessed with image and entertainment.In PreachersNSneakers: 9 Questions to Help You Live Your Faith in an Age of Capitalism, Consumerism, and (Wannabe) Celebrity, the author boldly confronts many of the difficult questions plaguing countless Christians’ minds, such as:Should pastors grow wealthy off of religion, and why do we get so angry when they do?Is it okay to stoke envy among others with curated “lifestyle” images on social media?Do we really believe that divine blessings are monetary, or is that just religious wallpaper to hide our own greed?Is there space in Christendom for celebrities like Kanye and Bieber to exist without distorting the good news?What about this: Is it wrong for someone like this author to call out faith leaders online and leverage “cancel culture” to affect change?PreachersNSneakers will navigate these challenging questions and many more with humor, wit, candor, and a few never-before-published hijinks. Each chapter will explore the various sides of the debate, holding space for readers to make up their own minds. The book will doubtlessly become a staple for church small groups, college ministries, and book clubs, emboldening struggling believers who want to live a more genuine faith.After all, the Lord works in mysterious colorways.

     Simply put, we have more needs than we have leaders to meet those needs. So, how do we train better leaders faster? The truth is, very few churches really have a well-thought-out leadership development plan. Growth requires continually adding healthy new leaders, who carry the church culture forward and embody its core values. Everyone knows it, but how do we achieve it?In Empowering Leadership author and leadership consultant Michael Fletcher says leaders like this can't simply be bought, nor can they be hired from someone else's leadership assembly line. Developing leaders at every level, to create an environment that attracts potential leaders, and to build better leaders faster, an organization needs more than a pipeline. It needs a culture that develops leaders organically.Finding the right kind of leaders to guide your church on a path of continual growth comes out of keeping the right focus, and that focus is not just on the leaders. In fact, as Fletcher says, It isn't about the leader. It never was about the leader. It will never be about the leader. It will always and only be about Jesus and his people. It's about the people. True leadership development includes the often messy, but necessary, interaction of life upon life. So hiring pastors and key staff roles from within the church is the very best policy--people who breathe the culture of the church and who have helped create the culture you want to maintain.If your church or organization needs a good leadership development structure, then you're holding the right book. Empowering Leadership details Michael's greatest insights on how to build better leaders faster by creating a leadership development culture in your church or organization--naturally, organically, continually. Empower your church or organization through great leadership. This book will show you how!

    This book helps readers match who they are--their unique spiritual gifts, passions, temperament, talents, and leadership style--with the ministry area for which God designed them. A practical guide, it takes dedicated Christians step by step through the process of reaching their full potential for Christ's kingdom. This new edition of Maximizing Your Effectiveness puts multiple tools, inventories, and worksheets in the hands of readers to empower them to minister according to God's unique design and purpose for their lives.

    You may think of this group as millennials—those born between 1980 and 2000—but millennials resist this label for good reason: the national narrative on them is pejorative, patronizing, and just plain wrong.Here's what we do know: Of Americans with a church background, 76 percent are described as "religious nones" or unaffiliated—and it's the fastest growing segment of the population. Close to 40 percent of millennials fit this religious profile. Roughly 80 percent of teens in evangelical church high school youth groups will abandon their faith after two years in college. It's unlikely that the evangelical church can survive if it is uniformly rejected by millennials, and yet: Millennial pastors and youth ministers are disempowered; their perspective is often not taken seriously by senior church leadership. Most millennial research is framed in categories rejected by millennials; that is, left-brained, analytical communication is lost on right-brained, intuitive millennials. Evangelicals' bias toward rational left-brained thinking makes the church seem tone-deaf. What's next? Read on. John Seel suggests survival strategies—communication on-ramps for genuine human connection with the next generation. It can be done.

    The end result is that the disciple becomes the kind of person who naturally does what Jesus did.How the church understands salvation and the gospel is the key to recovering a biblical theology of discipleship. Our doctrines of grace and salvation, in some cases, actually prevent us from creating an expectation that we are to be disciples of Jesus. A person can profess to be a Christian and yet still live under the impression that they don’t need to actually follow Jesus. Being a follower is seen as an optional add-on, not a requirement. It is a choice, not a demand. Being a Christian today has no connection with the biblical idea that we are formed into the image of Christ.In this ground-breaking new book, pastor and author Bill Hull shows why our existing models of evangelism and discipleship fail to actually produce followers of Jesus. He looks at the importance of recovering a robust view of the gospel and taking seriously the connection between conversion—answering the call to follow Jesus—and discipleship—living like the one we claim to follow.

    Still providing helpful and insightful information about theEpiscopal ethos with a certain amount of whimsy and complete accessibility, this revision maintains the best features of the original work, but adds an update and an expansion on the church today.In addition to updating out-of-date references and correcting a few inaccuracies, the revision highlights Episcopal diversity—including more women and people of color in the biographical material—as well as focusing more on Episcopalians rather than Anglicans. Some new illustrations are included as well.Some material originally presented in tabular form has been adapted into a more accessible narrative format. This includes new sections on church governance, the origins of religious belief, and a capsule summary of church history. The glossary has also been expanded.The goal is to provide a book suitable for a wide range of uses and settings: for Sunday schools, confirmations, inquirer classes—and for everyone from visitors to vestries. The revision brokers an incredible compendium of information in an informal, user-friendly, and accessible format.For lifelong Episcopalians, newcomers, and those wishing to sample and explore thebeliefs and organization of the denomination.

    He also compiles and extracts practical insights from other notable worship leaders and musicians including Louie Giglio, Mike Pilavachi, Tim Hughes, Chris Tomlin, Brian Doerkson, Darlene Zxchech, Steve Nicholson etc.

    It doesn’t matter whether a church is alive and growing or barely surviving on life support. God has a plan for it. It doesn’t matter whether a church is facing financial challenges, internal divisions, or strife among its leaders. God has a plan for it. God is able to deal with any problem a church will ever face--as long as his people earnestly seek him. As the pastor of The Brooklyn Tabernacle, Cymbala knows that God’s blessing and grace is available to us today just as much as it was in the early church, when thousands of people became believers despite the fact that the church lacked everything we consider vital: church buildings, seminaries, printed materials, sound systems, choirs, and money. None of these things mattered. What mattered was that God’s hand was on the church, working through his people to build the kingdom. Then, as now, God chose the church to manifest his presence to the world. In this companion book to The Life God Blesses, Cymbala describes the kind of church God wants to bless and use. Based on the Word of God and personal experience, The Church God Blesses describes the key elements found in a vitally alive church and offers church leaders and individual Christians a fresh and invigorating look at what God intends the church to be. The church God blesses is not necessarily the largest, newest, or loudest church in town. Instead, it’s a place where believers: * Receive solid spiritual nourishment *Can trust in God’s protection *Engage in vital praise and worship *Become effective in ministry *Learn that confession of sin is the channel to God’s power

    Acts 17:6 That was the startled cry, circa 50 AD, from a hastily assembled mob in Thessalonica. Paul and Silas had been arrested for preaching the gospel. They were viewed as revolutionaries, dangerous men who were upsetting the status quo and inciting riots. But they were just two ordinary men, walking in the power of God, sharing a simple message of his love and grace. It s been a while since we ve seen the likes of this. If you ever find church boring or you believe something is missing from our churches today, you aren t alone. Mark Buchanan believes there is a visible gap between the life Jesus offered to us and the life we re living, between the church Jesus envisioned and the church we see today. When Jesus announced that the Kingdom was at hand, this can t be what he meant. Instead of counting everything loss to be found in Christ, we ve made it our priority to be safe instead of dangerous, nice instead of holy. Author and pastor Mark Buchanan believes that we need to recover a simple idea: that God meant his church to be both good news and bad news, an aroma and a stench a disruptive force to whoever or whatever opposes the Kingdom of God and a healing, liberating power to those who seek it."

    There is a huge difference between a Peacemaker and a Pacifist! This Battle Plan for spiritual warfare, gleaned from the life and message of Jesus, especially the Sermon on the Mount and the Beatitudes, was on my heart even before I was kidnapped by terrorists and held hostage under extreme conditions in 1983. Since then, thousands of missionaries, pastors, and other Christians have been kidnapped, murdered, or forced to flee from their places of ministry in rural Colombia. Had these Christians known and understood this Battle Plan for spiritual battle, they could have been victorious instead of prematurely suffering defeat. Many who did choose to remain in the path of ever present danger have rallied around this message. A thriving underground church is multiplying in a huge area (about the size of North Korea) in the south and east of Columbia where Bibles, church buildings, formal ministry, and even house meetings have been prohibited for more than 25 years. Severe persecution in rural Colombia has actually served to bring real Christians together in deepening Christian relationships, identify the true church, and cleanse believers from corruption. This has been possible because of the remnant that has been chosen to fight the good fight of faith. About the Author Russell Stendal, a former hostage of Colombian rebels, is a lifelong missionary to that same group in the jungles of Colombia. He is an influential friend to military and government leaders in Colombia, Cuba, Mexico, Venezuela, and the United States. Russell’s ministry shares the gospel via twelve radio stations, hundreds of thousands of Bibles, books, and movies distributed through airplane parachute drops, and numerous speaking engagements for groups of leaders, prisoners, and individuals. Russell goes wherever the Lord leads, whether it’s to speak with a president or to go deep into the jungle to help an individual in trouble. He has witnessed thousands commit their lives to Christ.

    This concise survey of the impact and outworking of God's grace in the life of the believer will revitalize the most threadbare faith.

    Readers will discover how temperaments impact...being singlebeing marriedlove lifecommunicationministryThe New Spirit-Controlled Woman shows readers that God loves them, that He has wonderful plans for them, and that He provides the power and drive needed to fulfill His will.

    When the storms of life blow-as they most certainly will-are you going to stand strong, bend, or break? Popular author Erwin Raphael McManus suggests that you discover how to rise above the normal reaction and learn to stand against the wind.Through thought-provoking chapters, McManus takes readers on a journey of transformation through the landscape of their character-from where they start out "Running Free," through "Rising Out of the Ashes," developing "Divine Imagination," and finally, reaching the "Greatness of Servanthood."Readers, ages 18-35, will appreciate this international consultant's expertise on culture, change, leadership, and creativity.

    But with many decisions, there's a certain amount of danger. One wrong decision can destroy a career or a marriage. A string of wrong decisions can derail a life. So how do we know if our decisions are wise ones?Pastor Bob Merritt has found that the best way to get it right is to cultivate godly wisdom. In Get Wise, he takes God's best wisdom as found in the book of Proverbs and applies it to the top decisions every person has to make--decisions about education, work, family, friends, sex, parenting, money, and more. Topic by topic, he shows readers how to make choices that result in long-term benefits in health, reputation, peace, and finances.