Using the analogy of the human body, Thriving Churches in the Twenty-First Century explores the ten interacting systems that make up a healthy church body such as spiritual energy, corporate intercession, spiritual disciplines, mentoring, and team ministry.
Veteran church consultant calls church leaders back to the hope that God can and does restore churches, equipping them with practical tools to bring about healthy growth.
If the church is to thrive in the twenty-first century, it will have to take on a new form as it ministers to the 120 million unchurched people in the United States. Planting Growing Churches for the 21st Century is still virtually the only available text on church planting in North America and beyond. In this third edition, readers will find material on the importance of healthy, biblical change in our churches, updated appendixes, insight on our postmodern ministry context, and strategies for reaching new population demographics such as Generations X and Y. Pastors, ministry leaders, and church planters will find the information and advice found in this book invaluable as they carry out their ministries.
The first edition of How Your Church Family Works was written nearly thirty years ago, and the reach and velocity of change in the last three decades poses a new challenge for churches. Thirty years ago, churches functioned in a fairly stable environment and focused on growth an expansion. The tide has turned now, though, and supplanted increase with decline. Bowen family systems theory—on which How Your Church Family Works is based—has not changed, but its application has to be revised for the twenty-first century. How Your 21st-Century Church Family Works, the second edition of Peter Steinke’s landmark book, addresses the radically altered landscape of church sustainability with new introductory and concluding chapters bookending updates throughout the now-classic text. Core chapters of the book feature fresh examples of emotional process that are more exemplary of the current scene. One key addition is a new trigger of anxiety for churches—the change process. Change threatens the familiar and stable and suffers from negative connotations of endangering tradition. Where gradual change has been the norm for so long, churches now see a blistering pace of disruptions, some of which have forced change too early or too late, or sometimes in unproductive directions. How Your 21st-Century Church family works embraces the anxiety caused by change, transforming it from a source of anguish to a font of opportunity.
Shows how the Church at parish, diocesan and national level can overturn its old cycle of decline and begin a new cycle of growth, transforming fragile signs of hope for the Church into a solid road to growth.
The winds of change are blowing. In this time of massive political and social upheaval, many people are questioning the relevance or established institutions like the church. At the same time, others are looking to the church in hopes that it holds the life-changing answers they desperately need.
Emphasizes the importance of ministry's core values, mission, and strategy and shows church planters how to focus on the essential ingredients for success.
In Future Faith: Ten Challenges Reshaping the Practice of Christianity, author Wesley Granberg-Michaelson provides a lucid view of how the top ten winds of change blowing through global Christian faith are reshaping the practice of Christianity today. He is uniquely qualified to identify and interpret connection points between global Christian trends and the American church. Drawing on the stories, examples, and personalities of pastors and congregations from throughout the U.S. as well as those from Africa, Asia, Latin America, who are the faces of Christianity's future, Future Faith is designed to inform and empower followers of Jesus to seek new ways of becoming the face of Christ to a rapidly changing world. Leaders and practitioners in church growth, renewal, and planting will be a primary audience for this book. Students of religion from Catholic, evangelical, Pentecostal, and historic Protestant streams will find this book an informative and stimulating resource for pondering together the future of their faith. Small groups engaged in congregational nurture and growth will find in the author a welcome companion for guiding them through the multi-cultural landscape of contemporary faith.
Follow the REAL rubric for success in starting new ministries If congregations were to look outside their doors, they may find that the people who need the good news don’t look like them and that the way to engage them is by having ministries that are REAL. REAL ministry is respectful relationships, excellence, authenticity, and love. This easy-to-understand perspective on relationships can be implemented in any setting with any group. To continue the mandate, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations,” we have to have relationships with those whom God has put in our neighborhoods. Written both in English and Spanish, each chapter contains a study guide with Bible verses and reflection questions. The author also offers real anecdotes and examples of what to do—and what not to do—so that when using the REAL rubric with any group of people, you can emulate Jesus and bring the good news to them. Church leaders wanting to be more inclusive or trying to grow in their changing neighborhood will find this book a welcome resource.