Mead presents five key challenges facing today’s churches-and how they represent opportunities for the evolutionary, transformative changes he believes must take place in congregations if the church is to remain a viable institution into the twenty-first century. Readers of Mead's Once and Future Church and Transforming Congregations for the Future will want to continue the journey begun with those books. A must for congregational leaders at all levels.
In 1991 The Once and Future Church by Alban Institute founder and former director Loren B. Mead created an instant sensation in congregational circles with its prophetic insights into the life of the church in a post-Christendom era. Still often-quoted and in demand, the book stands as Alban's all-time best seller. Two subsequent titles, Transforming Congregations for the Future and Five Challenges for the Once and Future Church, extended Mead's original vision with similar success. To celebrate the tenth anniversary of the publication of The Once and Future Church, Alban released all three of these books as a single, special edition hardcover. In addition to these classic texts in beautiful, newly designed formats, this collection features an interview with Loren Mead discussing how his views have changed since the books' first publications and his current thoughts on directions for the church in the twenty-first century. This hardcover volume is the perfect gift for graduating seminary students, new congregational leaders, or for pastors whose original editions of these three books may be dog-eared or missing--and a wonderful addition to every church library. All who love the church and pray for the future of our congregations will value this opportunity to have Loren Mead's seminal works in a single, long-lived edition.
This book argues compellingly for the centrality of mission in understanding the church and provides a model for congregational leadership that will help move congregations beyond a maintenance mentality to vital engagement with the world God loves. Nessan's model of congregational leadership is strongly centered on worship life of a congregation and the entirety of the church's ministry. The chapters provide solid theological and practical direction on the themes of worship, education, fellowship, stewardship, evangelism, global connections, ecumenism, and social ministry. It is a book that will find a home in both the academy and the parish a textbook for seminarians and a guide and resource for pastors and lay congregational leaders.
In the 1980s, Miller shows, a complex set of independent developments gave rise to what is known as the Faith At Work movement. He analyses the history of the movement, examines membership profiles and modes of expression, and constructs and proposes a new framework for discussing the movement.
The revised and expanded edition includes new information, new teaching resources, and perspectives gained in the last eight years, as well as the General Convention resolutions of 2015. Beyond Business as Usual is full of resources for forming the vestry as a learning community. It deals with the "soft" side of leadership that enables the pastor and vestry together to journey along the leadership path. Each chapter can be read and reviewed at a series of vestry meetings or as part of a vestry retreat, and includes questions for group and individual discussion. The book also contains resources for vestries, based upon different preferred learning styles, for the formation part of the vestry meeting or retreat.
Scripture note: 1 C Corinthians 12:12-31 Scripture note: 1 C Corinthians 12:12-31 Tension is a term musicians often use to describe the condition of the strings on instruments like the violin, the cello, the harp or the guitar. Musicians know that the tone or pitch produced by the instrument is greatly affected by the tension of the strings carrying the sound. The outcome of good tension is good-sounding music while bad tension produces sour, flat, or sharp sounds that are unpleasant to listen to. There is good tension and bad tension in church as well. One task of effective leadership is to discern good and bad tension within the church. The outcome of good tension is success in achieving the goals and objectives of the ministry. Bad tension can result in chaos, complexity, confusion, and contradiction. Bad tension freezes a ministry in time, with no productive movement, no common ground, no unity, and an endless array of activity spiraling into uselessness. When each member of the church discovers his/her own God-given abilities to express love for God through the service of humankind, the result is not unlike a symphony of diverse instruments, chords, and sounds, all making a joyful sound in peaceful coexistence. Bad tension creates a stench in God's nostrils. It is the task of every Christian to embark upon a journey of discovery that ends in a God-given ministry niche or place of service. God calls every Christian to God's own hands to be broken, melted, molded, filled, and used to the glory of God. Leaders are part of the solution and not part of the problem. How does a vibrant and healthy congregation balance the need for stable leadership with the need for change? How do changes within a ministry impact relationship within the church? What effect does systemic change have on the entire church body? What is the role of leadership in church relations? What is a creative tension dynamic? Leaders today must learn constructive interventions that interrupt malevolent cycles of destructive behaviors in order to balance the tension between resistance and acceptance in a way that empowers ministry and inspires growth.
Written from a post-Christendom/emergent worldview, this books was born of a singular question asked in hundreds of ways: "What do we do to be faithful in this changed and changing reality?" Whether shaped by anxiety, a foretaste of coming changes, excitement, or energy at the prospects of witness and service the future holds, the question remains the same and the answers elusive. Part one addresses church functions under categories of governance, modeling, collaboration, champion, catalyst, mission, covenant, disciple, change and leadership. Part two offers further explication of the functions, including books recommended for in-depth study, application ideas, and further exploration of themes.
Despite the fact that mainline churches have been on a membership decline for the last generation, there are still active and healthy congregations where bright, able, thinking people have decided to stay and serve. In this book, Gary Charles studies these folks to find out what motivates them to remain in the church. Written in a readable, conversational style, this book describes these people--what they believe, how they understand God and faith, and what prompts them to take what has become a counter-cultural stance to stay in church.
In a postmodern culture shaped by consumerism, it’s little wonder that there is confusion about what the church is supposed to be in the 21st century. In A New and Right Spirit, Rick Barger argues passionately for congregations to reexamine what it means to be an "authentic church" in a culture where authenticity is hard to come by. He demonstrates the pitfalls of technical solutions to congregational problems and shows the way to making adaptive change. Recognizing the spiritual needs of a success-oriented society, he exhorts leaders to turn away from the story of our culture and to return to the story of the church that is grounded in Christ and the resurrection.
