Church Leadership

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.

The third in Joe Thorn's series on the confession, nature, and expression of the Church, The Life of the Church explores what the church does because of who it is. Useful for training in membership class, discipleship groups, and elder boards, The Life of the Church is at once theological, practical, and experiential. Listeners will not simply be informed, but led to a deeper conviction about their role in the body of Christ.

You may be a new believer and wonder what it means to belong to a church; you may be reluctant to commit to your church because of past experiences; you may have recently relocated and want to find a church where you feel at home; or you may love your church and desire to commit to it more deeply and serve it more fully. Whatever the case, this book will help you to see that belonging to a church is a good gift from God, the outworking of our identity as brothers and sisters in Christ, and worth your time, love, and commitment.

In Reclaiming Church, J. J. Warren continues his call to reaffirm the Church be welcoming to all, including young people like those he led at Sarah Lawrence College who "didn't know God could love them because their churches said God didn't."

Do you want to reignite your passion for the local church and see your congregation live out the Great Commission by growing and making disciples? If so, implementing the revolutionary Intentional Growth Planning™ operating system will benefit you, your church, and your community! Just as laptops and smart phones have an operating system, the church needs a biblically based operating system where its various programs and activities can effectively plug in to.

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.

Why do youth ministries crumble? And what is the cost to students, parents, volunteers and church staff? Is a sustainable youth ministry possible, even after a youth pastor leaves? Youth ministry expert Mark DeVries knows the answer is yes, because he helps build sustainable youth ministries through his coaching service called Youth Ministry Architects. So take heart: No matter what state the youth ministry at your church is in—in need of a leader and volunteers, full of battles and stress, large or small in number—it can be built to survive and to last for the long haul.

Should we actually practice church discipline today? Is it unloving? Once an ordinary part of church life, churches gradually stopped practicing church discipline in the 20th century. 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.

Il est presque devenu banal d'affirmer que l'Église catholique est en crise au Québec et en Occident. Lorsqu'on considère les abus sexuels sur mineurs, la baisse de la pratique, l'effondre­ment des vocations, la disparition des ordres religieux ou la place ambiguë des femmes, il peut sembler difficile d'espérer des jours meilleurs pour le corps du Christ. Serait-ce la fin de cette institution bimillénaire ? Et pourtant, des voix d'ici s'élèvent pour témoigner de leur espérance malgré les difficultés vécues par notre Église.

Based on a large-scale research study of small group pastors, leaders, and members, Leading Small Groups That Thrive gives church leaders both what they want - practical, straightforward, actual small group member voices and experiences, and compelling guidance on how to build transformational groups complemented with real-life examples and data of successful small groups - and what they need - substantial, challenging insights and a data-driven model grounded in the latest research on church small groups.

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.

Reggie McNeal enjoys helping leaders pursue more kingdom-focused lives. He currently serves as a senior fellow for Leadership Network and city coach for GoodCities. In his consulting and speaking, Reggie draws on his experience as a pastor, denominational leader, seminary teacher, and leadership development coach for thousands of church leaders across North America and the world.

An inside snapshot view of the innovative Seattle church called Mars Hill and its Acts 29 network. This audiobook provides - with a touch of sarcasm and humor - both principles and practices shared from the people actually doing missional church ministry with people often untouched by todays traditional and contemporary churches.

Is it time for your church to go multisite? How do you know if it's the right solution for your congregation? MultiChurch brings clarity to the multisite movement and assembles the lessons it has learned over the past 15 years. Combining insights from multisite church pastor Brad House and Christian theology professor Gregg Allison, this book will help anyone interested in multiplying gospel-centered churches to effectively evaluate and develop the best multisite model for their own church context.

Todd Wilson’s church was devoted to the gospel and had long aspired to be the kind of city on a hill Jesus talks about in the Sermon on the Mount. They wanted their hurting neighbors to see the light of Christ and be drawn to meet Jesus, and they found the answers they were looking for in Titus. In that often-overlooked book of the Bible, they discovered a call to be zealous for good works. Zealous for Good Works is an exposition of Titus with a particular focus on mobilizing the church towards acting in kindness and goodness toward her neighbors.

A great reckoning is underway in the church today: a naming and exposing of the exclusivity, abuse, racism, patriarchy, and unchecked power that have marked evangelical Christianity for far too long. What kind of church will emerge on the other side?

Though we often hear about the "gay problem" today, there is an even deeper problem in the church today-one that we often overlook. The call to follow Christ is a call to costly obedience for all, not just for gay Christians. Far too often, the church has elevated homosexuality above other sins and required a costly obedience from gays that it is unwilling to demand of others. And yet, the answer is not to weaken the demands of obedience.

What do we do when life lurches out of balance? How can we reconnect to one another and to what's sustaining, when evil and catastrophe seem inescapable? These questions lie at the heart of Stitches, Anne Lamott's follow-up to her New York Times best-selling work, Help, Thanks, Wow. In this audiobook, she explores how we find meaning and peace in these loud and frantic times, where we start again after personal and public devastation, how we recapture wholeness after loss and how we locate our true identities in this frazzled age.

What would your church look like in the future if it were to maximize the dormant gifts of the women God has brought there? In Developing Female Leaders, Kadi Cole, 20-year veteran in leadership and people development, offers a practical strategy to help church and organizational leaders craft cultures that facilitate the development of women as volunteer and staff leaders.

Institutions remain essential to human flourishing. They are the means by which communities thrive, individual vocations are fulfilled, and society is changed for the good. As a result, we all need to learn how to work effectively within institutions. That is just what Gordon Smith provides. He unpacks the core of institutional intelligence - the wisdom of working effectively within an organization. At the same time, he explains how team leaders, directors, executives, board members, key stakeholders, and employees can avoid what is often their greatest source of stress on the job,