How can you fulfill your calling as a ministry leader and help your church experience vitality? Learn from those who have gone before you. The Leadership Network Innovation Series Pack presents case studies and insights from leading practitioners and pioneering churches that are successfully navigating the ever-changing streams of spiritual renewal in modern society. Each book offers real stories about real leaders in real churches doing real ministry. Readers gain honest and thorough analyses, transferable principles, and clear guidance on how to put proven ideas to work in their individual setting. This value pack includes all 16 volumes in the Leadership Network Innovation Series.
In this Leadership Network Innovation series book, Ethnic Blends, Mark DeYmaz will help you navigate seven common challenges in building a healthy multi-ethnic church. The rise of multi-ethnic churches could become the new Reformation in this century. Yet the movement is in a pioneer stage, and there have been few road maps ... until now.
What is the rapidly expanding multi-site church movement all about? Experience the revolution for yourself and see why it has become the “new normal” for growing churches. A Multi-Site Church Roadtrip takes pastors, church leaders, and anyone who is interested on a tour of multi-site churches across America to see how those churches are handling the opportunities and challenges raised by this dynamic organizational model. Travel with tour guides Geoff Surratt, Greg Ligon, and Warren Bird, authors of The Multi-Site Church Revolution, and enjoy engaging and humorous on-site narratives that show you the creative ways churches of all kinds are expanding their impact through multiple locations. Hear the inside stories and learn about the latest developments. Find out firsthand how the churches in this book are broadening their options for evangelism, service, and outreach—while making better use of their ministry funds. Since each church on this tour is unique, you won’t find a cookie-cutter approach to ministry. Instead, you’ll gain some practical tools you can use to explore a multi-site direction at your own church.
The general practices related to church funding aren’t producing the same results they have in the past. There is a general acceptance that something has changed but little talk or interest is coming from traditional church leader training sources such as denominational entities and seminaries. Pastors are largely left to their own devices to “figure this out.” They need a lifeline. While some churches are experiencing exponential growth, some churches - despite their best efforts - have been unsuccessful at moving beyond survival mode. Coupled with increased competition from other nonprofits and a decline in the commitment to give to the church first, churches risk losing the funding they need. A growing number of leaders are beginning to discover there is another way and are struggling to understand what makes one church generous and another not. There is a need in the market to offer a simple, working definition of “generosity” and reveal the “secrets” some church leaders seem to have simply stumbled upon which are resulting in unexplainable ministry growth and unprecedented church funding even in the midst of tough economic times. The content of this material was developed and refined by Jim Sheppard and Chris Willard through years of ministry leadership in the local church, consulting with church leaders across a broad spectrum of church settings, and through participation in and leadership of the Generous Church Leadership Community facilitated by Leadership Network. Of particular benefit will be the collection of observations and best practices gleaned during the Generous Church Leadership Community that originated within real-life church leadership situations and scenarios by highlighting specific challenges, methods, and successes.
Most books on innovation make it sound as if successful innovation is the end result of a carefully followed recipe. But the simple fact is that when it comes to any new venture, failure is the surest horse to bet on. Respected pastor and author, Larry Osborne, explains how understanding this dirty little secret behind innovation can bring both stability and creativity to organizations, especially those with teams of people that focus on innovation, creativity, new ideas, and problem-solving. Using the wisdom and principles found in this book, you will be free to lead dynamically without causing uncertainty or insecurity in your organization. In Innovation’s Dirty Little Secret, you’ll learn: How to foster innovation’s most powerful igniters and accelerators while avoiding the most common killers of innovation How to recognize and break through ceilings of complexity and competency The six pitfalls of growth and what you can do to avoid them The three questions every leader needs to ask before launching any new endeavor
Written with a fresh voice and a dash of humor, Do Good Well is an exciting and readily adaptable guide to social innovation that not only captures the entrepreneurial and creative spirit of our time, but also harnesses the insights, wisdom, and down-to-earth experience of today’s most accomplished young leaders. Do Good Well offers a winning combination of theory, anecdote, and application, giving you the framework you need to make an impact next door or across the world. The authors present a 12-step process that empowers readers to act on their passions and concerns. This process is organized into three parts: Do What Works, Work Together, and Make It Last. They offer specific guidance for following the process through practical and prescriptive actions such building organizations, joining boards, applying for funding, creating partnerships with organizations that have similar goals, organizing conferences, and publicizing events. The book incorporates accounts of young people in action, and always reinforces the message that social innovation can be a lifestyle, made up of efforts small and large. It is not an all-or nothing proposition, and anyone can affect social change.
God declared through the Apostle Paul that the church would be a place of transformation. In 2 Corinthians 5:17 we find, Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away, and look, new things have come. Despite this, the church seems increasingly to be a place where transformation fails to occur. Surveying the landscape, however, there are some bright spots where churches are faithfully producing transformed disciples. Furthermore, as shown in Scripture and supported by new research, God designed such transformation to often happen in the context of smaller groups of people. But what characteristics are true of churches that are making transformed disciples through group-based ministry-whether small groups, missional communities, Sunday school, or some other expression of groups? In Transformational Groups, Ed Stetzer and Eric Geiger have created a new scorecard that will provide a map to transformational success for your church's groups ministry. Using data from the largest survey of pastors and laypersons ever done on the condition of groups in the church, they define a simple process to lead your groups from where they are to where God wants them to be.
Why closing the back door of your church is even more important than opening the front door wider. In Sticky Church, author and pastor Larry Osborne offers a time-tested strategy for doing so: sermon-based small groups that dig deeper into the weekend message and tightly velcro members to the ministry. It's a strategy that enabled Osborne's congregation to grow from a handful of people to one of the larger churches in the nation—without any marketing or special programming. Sticky Church tells the inspiring story of North Coast Church's phenomenal growth and offers practical tips for launching your own sermon-based small group ministry. Topics include: Why stickiness is so important Why most of our discipleship models don't work very well Why small groups always make a church more honest and transparent What makes groups grow deeper and sticker over time Sticky Church is an ideal book for church leaders who want to start or retool their small group ministry—and velcro their congregation to the Bible and each other.
A leader's ability to discover and implement innovations is crucial to adapting to changing technologies and customer preferences, enhancing employee creativity, developing new products, supporting market competitiveness, and sustaining economic growth. Gliddon and Rothwell provide an exciting and comprehensive resource for readers that are currently seeking to build success in organizations with new ideas. Innovation leadership involves synthesizing different leadership styles in organizations to influence employees to produce creative ideas, products, services, and solutions. It is a practice and an approach to organization development and organizational change. Innovation leadership commonly includes four basic stages, which are: (a) support for idea generation, (b) identifying innovations, (c) evaluating innovations, and (d) implementation. There are two types of innovations, including: (a) exploratory innovation, which involves generating brand new ideas, and (b) value-added innovation, which involves modifying and renewing ideas that already exist. The two fundamental leadership theories that are generally necessary for innovation leadership are path-goal theory and Leader Member Exchange theory. The key role in the practice of innovation leadership is that of the innovation leader. However, there are currently multiple perspectives on the definition of an innovation leader. An individual in an organization, a group within an organization, the organization itself, and even a community, state, or nation can be considered an innovation leader. The book explores each of these perspectives on the definition of an innovation leader.
