Reverend Iosmar Alvarez created this book to teach church planting leaders how to plant new, healthy, vital, and vibrant churches with multiplication DNA. Using scripture-grounded values, principles, and the author's own testimony, this book will help reach both new and diverse Hispanic/Latino people, as well as other cultures and contexts
Drawing on insights from the training practices of the English medieval craft guilds, a global survey of 500 church planters, interviews with artists and church planting trainers and the authors 30 years of ministry experience, 'The Craft of Church Planting' offers a distinctive and imaginative perspective on the methods used to train future practitioners in the art of church planting. Demonstrating how training for the next generation of church planting leaders might be informed by the historic master-apprentice model, guild learning communities, creativity and an artisan approach to ministry, this book is a vital resource to inform the methods of training for the next generation of church planters.
Many small membership churches today are faced with the sobering reality of attendance loss and overall decline. This resource provides a guide to help you find hope, alternatives, and the possibility of a new beginning. Included are tools to help you measure your church's vitality, evaluate the results, and diagnose your church's condition, along with several options for treatment plans as you seek to faithfully serve your community. Remember that we can choose our story. If we believe in our hearts there is another possibility, we can be faithful in choosing intentional pathways forward that honor God, the church founders, and generations to come. Follow the steps outlined in these pages to evaluate where you are and what the next steps on your journey need to be as you seek to be a "not yet big church," "a stable, small church," or a church that chooses to close and be repurposed for unexpected new life.
Challenging Reproductive Control and Gendered Violence in the Américas: Intersectionality, Power, and Struggles for Rights utilizes an intersectional Chicana feminist approach to analyze reproductive and gendered violence against women in the Américas and the role of feminist activism through case studies including the current state of reproductive justice in Texas, feminicides in Latin America, raising awareness about Ni Una Más and anti-feminicidal activism in Ciudad Juárez, and reproductive rights in Latin America amidst the Zika virus. Each of these contemporary contexts provides new insights into the relationships between and among feminist activism; reproductive health; the role of the state, local governments, health organizations, and the media; and the women of color who are affected by the interplay of these discourses, mandates, and activist efforts.
Manuel Ortiz explores the unique needs and concerns of Hispanics in the U.S., overviewing population changes, addressing key missiological issues and concerns for justice, describing models for effective ministry, and emphasizing the need for leadership training.
In light of more recent conversations about religion and its import as a factor in the global geopolitical and cultural spheres, augmented by the "contracting" of relationship among people and nations, Communication and the Global Landscape of Faith highlights geographical, architectural, and a partial issues as significant and edifying dimensions of the study of communication and religion. Insights are gleaned through the prism of the philosophical, built, performative, political, and intercultural landscapes.
Alejandro de la Fuente and George Reid Andrews offer the first systematic, book-length survey of humanities and social science scholarship on the exciting field of Afro-Latin American studies. Organized by topic, these essays synthesize and present the current state of knowledge on a broad variety of topics, including Afro-Latin American music, religions, literature, art history, political thought, social movements, legal history, environmental history, and ideologies of racial inclusion. This volume connects the region's long history of slavery to the major political, social, cultural, and economic developments of the last two centuries. Written by leading scholars in each of those topics, the volume provides an introduction to the field of Afro-Latin American studies that is not available from any other source and reflects the disciplinary and thematic richness of this emerging field.
