Church Leadership

Today's church has a credibility problem. We've pursued the wrong priorities. We've put our hope in the wrong personalities. We've elevated popularity over witness. And it's not just the church that's lost; we are too. As culture wars rage and competing voices vie for influence, many Christians are left wondering, What does it even mean to be a Christian, anyway? Fortunately, the church has been here before—and it already has a powerful resource to help Christians find their way home: the Nicene Creed.

Many people do not realize the pain that some leaders carry. So much pressure is placed upon them that they are afraid to be seen as weak or vulnerable, so they hold in their feelings. Leaders often pour out everything they have to others, only to be betrayed and hurt by the people they love. A wounded leader is someone in leadership who has injured feelings, scars from past experiences, and damage to their soul. Does this definition sound like you?

In Deep Church, Belcher brings the best insights of all sides to forge a third way between emerging and traditional. In a fair and evenhanded way, Belcher explores the proposals of such emerging church leaders as Tony Jones, Brian McLaren and Doug Pagitt. He offers measured appreciation and affirmation as well as balanced critique.

Most Christians resist the idea that we are to pursue happiness. We are more comfortable with the idea of finding joy or being blessed. But seeking happiness seems too superficial or too flighty for people of faith. In Happy Church, Tim McConnell offers a radical call for Christians to reclaim happiness.

So much more than a question, “Who Told You That?” delivers a profound, yet practical opportunity to stimulate and exterminate the covert operation of status quo thought. It’s calculated provocation carefully positioned in the audio encourages both intentional honesty and uninhibited transparency, while providing inspiration, information, and transformation.

In Steering Through Chaos, Pastor Scott Wilson helps church leaders plan for healthy changes by making strategic choices that please God and grow your ministry. Since challenges tend to multiply during times of transition, Wilson shares wise insight on building new facilities, changing staff structure, adding services, becoming a multisite ministry, and more. During the struggles of transition, doubts inevitably arise. At those moments, leaders need assurance that they have a real and authentic vision from God. Wilson encourages you to follow the call and to lead with confidence and courage.

The American workplace exhibits a growing imbalance when it comes to human identity. Leaders are frequently defined in the absence of their critical social identifiers, but the exclusion of these identifiers is a mistake and ignores essential physical, cultural, and spiritual realities. Rather than abandoning an individual's social identities, the ones we choose and the ones we do not, Leading While Black draws on the lived experiences of executive-level leaders of the Christian faith and Black identity, and offers a testament to the power of a living God in the social fabric of public life.

Just as a physically healthy person - at an ideal weight and with good blood pressure and cholesterol numbers - might not actually be fit enough to run a 5k, so churches can appear healthy - with no obvious issues, maintaining a healthy size - and yet not exhibit fitness. A fit church is one that is not satisfied with merely coasting along with no problems. A fit church is actively making disciples, maturing in faith, developing strong leaders, reaching out to the community, and more.

You joined your church because of its intensity for God. Like no other place, it’s helped you discover the meaning of obedience. If there’s one problem, it’s the confusion that sometimes comes from your own carnal thinking. But God has given you leaders who can lovingly correct a doubting, independent spirit and help you choose God’s best for your life. How can you go wrong with a church like that? Easily, because it fits the profile of many abusive churches.

With clarity, humility, and love for the church, Peter holds out hope and brings keen analysis of trends and our cultural moment that rings true and points toward a much-needed paradigm shift--a call for the church to be essential in its theology, humble in its practice of power, relational in its focus, and trusting of a supernatural God, who is able to do abundantly to bring about a postfire superbloom.

In Health-Care and the Church: A Shared Focus, Phyllis C. Riles draws upon her extensive experience and specialized background in both arenas to reveal the complimentary parallels between the operation and goals of the Church and healthcare to promote health and wellness for spirit, soul, and body. God’s covenant promises of health to Abraham and his provision of healing through redemption by Jesus Christ are activated by a collaboration of belief and action. God and man working together has always been the divine intent.

Social worker, Pastor, author and speaker Dr. Amanda Nickson shares insights and examples from her own life of resilience through challenging times to being able to teach others skills in sustainable leadership. Having experienced both compassion fatigue to the point of burnout and compassion satisfaction, Amanda is well placed to share helpful insights into how to build sustainable and balanced lives.

While we can't determine how God will act, we can be expectant and anticipate his work. And revivals are not just experienced-they can be led. James Choung and Ryan Pfeiffer have seen revival in their own ministries, with remarkable transformation in both individuals and communities. They unpack what revival looks like, how Christians can anticipate it, and how they can experience it in their own lives and in larger movements. They provide a model of revival leadership for Christians who want to facilitate and spread revival in their contexts.

The Outreaching Church seeks to solve two problems: 1. Many people don't know how to use their skills to impact lives for the Kingdom of God. 2. Churches are struggling to grow, and most have a very difficult time establishing thriving outreach ministries. This book is a guide to solving both dilemmas: helping you fulfill God’s plan for your life resulting in thriving churches!

Many of us as women feel conflicted about Jesus’s calling on our lives because a woman trying to love God beyond her heart and soul, with her mind and strength, can be thought of as crossing some line or unspoken boundary. Bible teacher Kat Armstrong challenges us to ask, “Why am I allowing limitations on my pursuit of Jesus’s calling?”

I Sold My Soul on eBay tells the story of how and why Hemant Mehta, the nonbeliever who auctioned off the opportunity to send him to church, became an atheist and went on to attend a wide variety of church services. It also features his insightful critiques and observations of the churches he visited, including accounts of his visits to some of the best-known churches in the country.

In The Bible, God uses many ordinary people to do extraordinary things. Moses didn’t think he was a leader when God chose him; people laughed at Noah for building that ark for so many years; Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers only to rise to second-in-command of all of Egypt.

How do Christians account for the widespread presence of goodness in a fallen world? Richard Mouw, one of the most influential evangelical voices in America, presents his mature thought on the topic of common grace. Addressing a range of issues relevant to engaging common grace in the 21st century, Mouw shows how God takes delight in all things that glorify him - even those that happen beyond the boundaries of the church-and defends the doctrine of common grace from its detractors.

Engaging young adults in the local church is not as hopeless a case as statistics might have us believe, but young adults are asking six important questions about the role of the Church in their lives in 21st century culture—questions that could radically transform the Church for the good of all.

Is the way we do church making disciples of our people and helping them fulfil their God-given purpose? There can be no apathy, restlessness, or boredom in such a church! In his warm and candid style, Howard Webb shows how the scriptural model of church as a mission-centered family embracing its place is the way to both grow our people and grow the Kingdom. Here is a vision of church that has the power to transform us and our world.