Church Ministry

In Churchwork, Rodney Shaw provides pastors', ministry leaders', and volunteers' invaluable wisdom and insight to optimize the performance of ministry teams. With fresh perspectives on follower-centric leadership and courageous followership, this book will bring clarity to your vision. As you begin to implement the principles in this book, you can expect to see results.

Compiled with the intent to improve the preaching standards in churches at the time and to increase pastoral understanding of Christianity, Homilies is a comprehensive overview of Christian theology, the history and impact of the Reformation, and daily applications of faith and doctrine. The sermons included here dive into the issues and questions of salvation, Christian living, justification by faith, the weight of sin, and many more impactful themes and ideals.

Traditional leadership teachings and styles haven't changed much in years. But the world is changing and so are Christian leaders—women need room for their natural gifts to shine and people of color need space to elevate the values they bring into their roles. Even seasoned leaders are growing weary of the status quo, craving innovative ways to lean into new ways of thinking for the good of their organizations and the emerging generations they serve.

The Bible is clear that women as well as men are created in God's image and intended to serve him with their lives. But what does this look like for women in the church? Helping church leaders think through what a Bible-centered women's ministry looks like, this collection of essays by respected Bible teachers and authors such as Gloria Furman, Nancy Guthrie, and Susan Hunt addresses a variety of topics relevant to women.

Scripture calls parents to train and nurture their children's faith. How can churches best equip families to disciple their children? Family ministry expert Dr. Timothy Paul Jones gives church leaders a practical plan to equip parents to be the primary faith trainers in their children's lives, moving beyond mere programming into genuine spiritual transformation.

Who Are Unchurched Harry and Mary? He or she could be the neighbor who is perfectly happy without God. Or the coworker who scoffs at Christianity. Or the supervisor who uses Jesus’ name only as profanity. Or the family member who can’t understand why religion is so important. Inside the Mind...

Christian identity is in moral and political crisis. Lee Camp writes “that one major reason Christianity in America has been made into a bad public joke is our failure to rightly understand what Christianity is.” Scandalous Witness provides a way forward. Although refusing to reduce Christianity to any partisan agenda, he reminds us that the gospel is inherently political and that we are called to be political witnesses.

Organizational behavior is an important and growing field in leadership and management studies, yet it has been largely overlooked by leaders of churches and other Christian ministries. This introduction to the topic accounts for the unique dynamics of Christian organizations, gives theological foundations, and provides key insights and guidance to those studying or practicing leadership in churches and ministries.

Discipleship occurs when someone answers the call to learn from Jesus how to live his or her life as though Jesus were living it. 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...

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

From the historic Council of Nicaea in 325 to the transformative Second Vatican Council in the 20th century, this book offers a deep, clear, and accessible journey through the key moments that shaped the faith, theology, and structure of the Church. Isaac Volpe presents the conflicts, dogmatic definitions, reforms, and tensions that have marked the path of Christianity for over 1,600 years with rigor and passion. Ideal for believers, historians, theologians, and readers interested in understanding how the Church faced each doctrinal, political, and pastoral challenge throughout the centuries.

While much of church planting today is approached as an innovative new effort, church leaders can take comfort in the truth that they are simply stewards of what the faithful church has been doing for millennia. By rediscovering the foundations of our heritage, we are able to build healthier, more faithful, and more effective churches. At the same time, the act of planting new churches can breathe new life into these ancient traditions as they are applied to a variety of cultural contexts.

The first section summarizes the case laws. The author tenderly illustrates how the law is for our good, and makes clear the difference between the sacrificial laws and those that apply today. The second section vividly shows the practical implications of the law. The examples catch the reader's attention; the author clearly has had much experience discussing God's law. The third section shows that would-be challengers to God's law produce only poison and death. Only God's law can claim to express God's "covenant grace in helping us."

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.

Evangelism is not only misunderstood, it is often unpracticed. Many Christians want to share the gospel with others, but because those Christians don't grasp the fundamentals of witnessing, they feel intimidated and incapable of sharing the truth of the gospel. Yet those believers fail to recognize that God has already established who and how we are to evangelize. In The Gospel and Personal Evangelism, Dr. Mark Dever seeks to answer the four basic questions about evangelism that many Christians ask: Who should we evangelize? How should we evangelize? What is evangelism? Why should we evangelize?

Feeling fragmented and longing for wholeness? Pastor Heath Hardesty reveals how apprenticeship to Jesus can reintegrate your life, offering a fresh vision for spiritual formation that leads to true human flourishing. “Heath Hardesty is a pastor whose emerging voice needs to be heard.”—John...

Part one of the book reminds us that an individual or a church can teach sound doctrine, be faithful to the gospel, be morally upright and hard-working, and yet be lacking love and therefore, be displeasing to Christ. Love can grow cold while outward religious performance appears acceptable - even praiseworthy. Part two of Love or Die presents practical ways to cultivate love in the local church, including chapters that challenge us to study love, pray for love, teach love, model love, guard love, and practice love.

Church planting and revitalization is a unique ministry. Filled with its own challenges, pastors and church leaders have often struggled in their labors. Thankfully, the apostle Paul imparted his wisdom to his young disciple Titus through a brief, power-packed letter full of encouragement and instruction. In like manner, this collection of writings from seasoned pastors, planters, and church revitalizers contains hundreds of years of combined wisdom and experience. Dear Titus serves as a helpful companion for any church planter or leader at any stage of their ministry.

Celebrity—defined as social power without proximity—has led to abuses of power, the cultivation of persona, and a fixation on profits. In light of the fall of famous Christian leaders in recent years, the time has come for the church to reexamine its relationship to celebrity. Award-winning journalist Katelyn Beaty explores the ways fame has reshaped the American church, explains how and why celebrity is woven into the fabric of the evangelical movement, and identifies many ways fame has gone awry in recent years.

Christian organizations have come to be known mostly for what we're against. And all too often, that includes being against each other. But amid growing distrust of religious institutions, Christ-centered nonprofits have a unique opportunity to link arms and collectively pursue a calling higher than any one organization's agenda. Rooting for Rivals reveals how your ministry can multiply its impact by cooperating rather than competing with others, modeling Christlike love and generosity in the process.