Essential Church

Why do so many young adults (18 to 22) leave the church, and what will it take to bring them back? This important question is examined and duly answered in Essential Church?, a follow-up to Thom S. Rainer's best-selling Simple Church and cowritten with his son, research expert Sam Rainer.

Churches are losing both members and vitality as increasing numbers of young people disengage. Based on groundbreaking research with over 250 of the nation's leading congregations, Growing Young provides a strategy any church can use to involve and retain teenagers and young adults. It profiles innovative churches that are engaging 15- to 29-year-olds and as a result are growing - spiritually, emotionally, missionally, and numerically.

Small Church Essentials is for leaders of smaller congregations. It encourages them to steward their role well, debunking myths about small churches while offering principles for leading a dynamic, healthy small church. Based on the popular six-hour lecture that Karl Vaters delivers to church leaders across the country, Small Church Essentials will affirm small church leaders and show them how to identify what they do well and how to do it even better.

Perhaps no subject about church generates more opinion and passion than worship. Walk with the typical church-going family on their way to the car after the service and just listen. Everybody really does talk about worship. Now, veteran worship leader and experienced ministry coach Mike Harland offers the tools worship leaders need to build biblically-faithful and effective worship ministries without bringing the disruption that often accompanies change.

Modern readers of the New Testament often notice its varying ideas about women. Some passages encouraged women to be submissive and remain silent. Yet in others, women characters owned property, headed households, or spoke with approval. Women in the New Testament World helps listeners understand this conflicting evidence. It argues that social norms of the time encouraged traditional feminine virtues. However, as Susan Hylen argues, women in the culture enacted these virtues in a variety of ways, including active leadership in households, associations, and cities.

Since a global pandemic abruptly closed places of worship, many Christians have skipped church life, even neglecting virtual services. But this was a trend even before COVID-19. Polarizing issues, including political and racial strife, convinced some people to pull away from the church and one another. Now it’s time to recommit to gathering as brothers and sisters in Christ.

It was the summer of 1961. Vince Lombardi, the iconic coach of the Green Bay Packers, started the training camp by holding something that needed no explanation. His words have since become legendary. He said, Gentlemen, this is a football. He made his point with five simple words: If we want to be successful, were going to have to remember the basics and make sure were executing the fundamentals.

It's no secret that men and women burn out in ministry every single day. While the current statistics regarding ministry burnout are alarming, there is hope. Using his own experiences as a minister, Pastor Phil shares four key insights that will help you stay sane while serving in the local church. He offers practical advice and specific instructions on topics such as managing your time, your family, and your finances. Pastor Phil also presents some thought-provoking questions and challenges his listeners to take the next step.

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?

Anne Willan, multi-award-winning culinary historian, cookbook writer, teacher, and founder of La Varenne Cooking School in Paris, explores the lives and work of women cookbook authors whose essential books have defined cooking over the past 300 years. Beginning with the first published cookbook by Hannah Woolley in 1661 to the early colonial days to the transformative popular works by Fannie Farmer, Irma Rombauer, Julia Child, Edna Lewis, Marcella Hazan, and up to Alice Waters working today.