Church Ministry

Best-selling author and ministry leader Thom S. Rainer drew an exceptional response when he posted a 500-word declaration about church membership to his daily blog. Thoughtfully expanded to book form, I Am a Church Member begins to remedy the outbreak of inactive or barely committed church members, addressing without apology what is expected of those who join a body of believers.

In When the Church Harms God's People, Langberg unveils what she has learned about how churches cause harm and why Christian communities often foster unhealthy leaders who end up hurting rather than protecting God's people. She also offers hope for the future, describing how churches can reflect Christ not just in what they teach but also in how they care for themselves and others.

There is a growing movement among young Christians returning to historic, creedal, and liturgical reflections of Christianity. Filled with stories illustrating the joy young adults have found in these ancient expressions of Christianity, Winfield Bevins introduces practices and principles that help the church engage our postmodern world.

Many Christian families have never experienced the joys and benefits of family worship. But as Donald S. Whitney makes clear, the daily worship of God by families at home is a practice rooted in the Bible and common throughout Christian history. How can people unfamiliar with family worship lead it in their own homes? How do busy households in today's culture recover faithfulness in family worship? This practical book shows you how simple and easy it can be.

Welcome to the Orthodox Church - its history, theology, worship, spirituality, and daily life. This friendly guide provides a comprehensive introduction to Orthodoxy, but with a twist: listeners learn by making a series of visits to a fictitious church, and get to know the faith as new Christians did for most of history, by immersion. Mathews-Green provides commentary and explanations on everything from how to "venerate" an icon, the Orthodox understanding of the atonement, to the Lenten significance of tofu.

In this powerful audiobook, pastor, professor, and leading cultural apologist Voddie Baucham explains the sinister worldview behind the social justice movement and how it has quietly spread like a fault system, not only through our culture, but throughout the evangelical church in America. He also details the devastation it is already wreaking - and what we can do to get back on solid ground before it’s too late.

For every celebrity pastor exiting the ministry in the spotlight, there are many more lesser-known pastors leaving in the shadows. Pastor and best-selling author Paul David Tripp argues that lurking behind every pastoral failure is the lack of a strong leadership community. Tripp draws on his decades of ministry experience to give churches twelve gospel principles necessary to combat this leadership crisis.

Congregations often seek to combat the crisis of decline by using innovation to produce new resources. But leading practical theologian Andrew Root shows that the church's crisis is not in the loss of resources; it's in the loss of life—and that life can only return when we remain open to God's encountering presence. This new book, related to Root's critically acclaimed Ministry in a Secular Age project, addresses the practical form the church must take in a secular age.

In Loving the City, bestselling author and pastor Timothy Keller looks at the biblical foundations for contextualizing the gospel as we communicate to the culture in a way that is both respectful and challenging. He articulates the key characteristics of a city vision, showing how the city develops as a theme throughout Scripture, from its anti-God origins, to its strategic importance for mission, to its culmination and redemption in glory.

Church Unique is written by church consultant Will Mancini - an expert on a new kind of visioning process to help churches develop a stunningly unique model of ministry that leads to redemptive movement. He guides churches away from an internal focus to emphasize participation in their community and surrounding culture. In this important audiobook, Mancini offers an approach for rethinking what it means to lead with clarity as a visionary. Mancini explains that each church has a culture that reflects its particular values, thoughts, attitudes, and actions.

Countless books are designed to help leaders to become better leaders. But most resources neglect the underlying emotional struggles of both emerging and established leaders, who are often isolated and suffering in silence. Leadership professor Nicholas Rowe and counselor Sheila Wise Rowe offer their expertise in helping leaders process painful and traumatic experiences. Trauma contributes to how we lead others in either empowering or dysfunctional ways. Understanding how these experiences formed us is the beginning of the path to healing.

The loss or disaffiliation of young adults is a much-discussed topic in churches today. Many faith-formation programs focus on keeping the young, believing the youthful spirit will save the church. But do these programs have more to do with an obsession with youthfulness than with helping young people encounter the living God?

Deep Discipleship equips churches to reclaim the responsibility of discipling people at any point on their journey.

Looking back to the crisis of the Reformation and beyond, Unbelievers shows how, long before philosophers started to make the case for atheism, powerful cultural currents were challenging traditional faith. These tugged in different ways not only on celebrated thinkers such as Machiavelli, Montaigne, Hobbes, and Pascal, but on men and women at every level of society whose voices we hear through their diaries, letters, and court records. Ryrie traces the roots of atheism born of anger, a sentiment familiar to anyone who has ever cursed a corrupt priest, and of doubt born of anxiety.

The church has an image problem. It is widely viewed in the world at large as being outdated, boring, irrelevant and filled with backbiting hypocrites. How different that picture is to how the Bible talks about the new family that Jesus has gathered. In this brief accessible but thorough guide to church, Sam outlines what church is and why we need it. And how, when we have got it wrong, we can move closer to what a true church should be.

America has a God-shaped hole in its heart, argues New York Times best-selling author Ben Shapiro, and we shouldn't fill it with politics and hate.

Pressure is rising. The global atmosphere is morphing as never before. It's time to pay attention to the warnings around us that point to inevitable catastrophes to come. Bible prophecy expert Ron Rhodes surveys 15 current trends that affect us on a worldwide, national, and personal scale - suggesting some inescapable consequences to our safety, rights, and way of life. You will see how the stage is being set for the end times.

Your church's sermons often include a call to evangelize. You've held evangelism training events. You give out invites to your Christmas and Easter services. So… where are all the new Christians? Is your church actually reaching the lost with the gospel? For many of us, despite having the best intentions our churches struggle to reach out with the gospel effectively. J.A. Medders and Doug Logan, Jr. have decades of experience in leading churches and mentoring pastors, and here they outline six principles for cultivating a genuine evangelistic culture throughout your church.

Being a pastor is a complicated calling. Pastors are often pulled in multiple directions and must "become all things to all people" (1 Cor. 9:22). What does the New Testament say (or not say) about the pastoral calling? And what can we learn about it from the apostle Paul? According to popular New Testament scholar Scot McKnight, pastoring must begin first and foremost with spiritual formation, which plays a vital role in the life and ministry of the pastor. As leaders, pastors both create and nurture culture in a church.

Saint, slave or scholar? Patrick of Ireland is known as all three, but who is he really? Let K. C. Murdarasi bring to light the real life of this father of the Christian faith. Kidnapped from his home and family as a young boy you would think forgiveness would have been far from his mind.Yet with God's grace Patrick returned to the land of his captivity where he preached the good news of Jesus Christ to slaves and kings alike - and left a legacy of faith that would last for centuries.