Take Your Church's Pulse
Take Your Church's Pulse

Author: Tim Koster

Publisher: Multiplication Network Ministries

Published: 2014-10-07

Total Pages: 220

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Take Your Church's Pulse presents ten vital signs of a healthy church--five key commitments and five key functions. It then introduce you to a church-health diagnostic tool you can apply to your setting. Thousands of pastors and leaders around the world have found this paradigm helpful in organizing the ministry and mission of the local church. This book and the free diagnostic tool it presents are most useful if accompanied by a healthy process of conversations. With such a process, led by the Spirit, this book can help you discern a preferred future for your community of faith. Koster and Wagenveld write: "A healthy community of faith is rooted first of all in the character and nature of God. It understands its mission and purpose in the world and organizes its life and work to be faithful and effective in its context. None of these vital signs stands alone. It is a combination of factors that together make up a faithful and fruitful organism, the living Church of our Lord Jesus Christ. There is no magic in the number ten, but for the teaching purposes it has worked quite well in different cultural contexts in providing ideas and a language for discussing important issues in congregational life and mission." The intended audience for this book is any pastor, leader, or church member who is interest in having healthy conversations with others to strengthen the local church.

The U-Turn Church
The U-Turn Church

Author: Kevin G. Harney

Publisher: Baker Books

Published: 2011-06-01

Total Pages: 245

ISBN-13: 1441232141

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

You don't need to tell pastors that the majority of churches in America are in a state of stagnation or decline. Most of them are ministering in such a church. Now two pastors who turned their churches around show leaders how they can help usher in a new season of health, faithfulness, growth, and vision in their churches. The U-Turn Church walks readers through the roadblocks of tradition, lack of vision or leadership, structural problems, and concerns about denominational distinctives to forge a new way forward into a hope-filled future. Through the stories of two churches that have experienced healthy transformation, readers will see that there is not just one right way to reverse decline. They will receive practical help and wisdom born of experience as they begin their own U-Turn journey.

The Sacred Pulse
The Sacred Pulse

Author: April Fiet

Publisher: Broadleaf Books

Published: 2021-12-14

Total Pages: 249

ISBN-13: 1506469094

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Contemporary life is leaving us frazzled, overwhelmed, and out of sorts. Our life's rhythm is often borrowed from the pace of life around us. Humans have created such a loud, fast tempo of perfection and production that we often forget--if we ever knew it at all--the rhythms designed for our well-being. In The Sacred Pulse, pastor and author April Fiet invites us to examine the frantic patterns of our lives to reclaim the deeper, sacred pulses that pattern our days. Through stories, scripture, and practical guidance for daily living, she lays out twelve rhythms--including gardening, handcrafts, friendship, and holidays--that are both sustainable and sustaining. Everyday acts like mealtime and shopping, and sporadic rhythms like the occasional snow day: reclaiming these patterns can remind us of the holy movement of God in the world. In a world of hustle and bravado, silencing the noise takes practice. The Sacred Pulse shows us how to strip away all of the competing beats we have settled for so we can tap into the joyful, holy rhythms of life.

Organic Outreach for Churches
Organic Outreach for Churches

Author: Kevin G. Harney

Publisher: Zondervan

Published: 2018-05-22

Total Pages: 201

ISBN-13: 0310566088

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Nearly all churches and ministries consider themselves dedicated to evangelism, and many explicitly include outreach in their mission statements. But few are actually bearing fruit. Kevin Harney diagnoses this problem and offers guidance for multiplying the outreach impact of churches. Organic Outreach for Churches provides direction for local congregations to weave evangelism into the fabric of the church. Commitment to the Great Commission is not simply about sending money and prayers to missions or holding occasional events to reach out (although these things are good). Organic outreach happens when evangelistic vision and action become the domain of every ministry and the commitment of every person in the congregation. This will not happen accidentally. There is huge spiritual and practical resistance to such changes. But the only way evangelism will become an organic part of a church is when every leader and each member is gripped by a commitment to proclaiming the gospel. This book is a roadmap for pastors and leaders who wish to infuse evangelistic passion into every aspect of their church's life.

Confirming the Pastoral Call
Confirming the Pastoral Call

Author: Joseph L. Umidi

Publisher: Kregel Academic

Published:

Total Pages: 158

ISBN-13: 9780825494352

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A guide to both sides of the candidate process. Valuable appendices help with selection of the search committee and offer self-evaluations for congregations and candidates.

Dear Church
Dear Church

Author: Lenny Duncan

Publisher: Fortress Press

Published: 2019-07-02

Total Pages: 166

ISBN-13: 1506452574

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Lenny Duncan is the unlikeliest of pastors. Formerly incarcerated, he is now a black preacher in the whitest denomination in the United States: the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). Shifting demographics and shrinking congregations make all the headlines, but Duncan sees something else at work--drawing a direct line between the church's lack of diversity and the church's lack of vitality. The problems the ELCA faces are theological, not sociological. But so are the answers. Part manifesto, part confession, and all love letter, Dear Church offers a bold new vision for the future of Duncan's denomination and the broader mainline Christian community of faith. Dear Church rejects the narrative of church decline and calls everyone--leaders and laity alike--to the front lines of the church's renewal through racial equality and justice. It is time for the church to rise up, dust itself off, and take on forces of this world that act against God: whiteness, misogyny, nationalism, homophobia, and economic injustice. Duncan gives a blueprint for the way forward and urges us to follow in the revolutionary path of Jesus. Dear Church also features a discussion guide at the back--perfect for church groups, book clubs, and other group discussion.

Re:Vision
Re:Vision

Author: Aubrey Malphurs

Publisher: Baker Books

Published: 2014-10-14

Total Pages: 258

ISBN-13: 1441220100

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Pastors around the country continue to look for the program, the book, or the sermon series that will turn their plateaued or declining churches around. But what if the answer to revitalizing the church was closer to home? According to trusted church leadership expert Aubrey Malphurs and veteran pastor Gordon E. Penfold, it is. They believe that pastors themselves are the key. In a time when many pastors are jumping from church to church every two or three years as they search for the "right fit" where they can "make a difference," churches are suffering from a lack of sustained leadership from pastors with a viable vision for ministry. In Re:Vision, Malphurs and Penfold take pastors through a process of discovery and self-evaluation designed to help them re-envision their role, create a culture for positive change, and recruit people to come alongside them as helpers and encouragers. Multiple appendices offer self-diagnostic tools and surveys to help pastors assess their strengths and weaknesses for more effective ministry.

Planting Healthy Churches
Planting Healthy Churches

Author: Gary Teja

Publisher:

Published: 2015-02-01

Total Pages: 460

ISBN-13: 9780986229619

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Planting Healthy Churches is the centerpiece of an internationalcourse. It is provided by Multiplication Network Ministries (MNM) asa free downloadable resource for Bible colleges and seminaries. Theauthors, from different denominations, write with church plantingexperience in different countries and with a background in training andteaching thousands of students and church planters. MNM is alsoproviding PowerPoints to accompany the book and a whole suite ofpractical training manuals for those desiring to move from theacademic to the practical.A foundational premise of this work is that the world needs morechurches and stronger churches that bear witness to the comingKingdom of God. Planting churches is not only a biblical task, but alsoa very strategic one as the Church participates with the Holy Spirit inGod's work of renewing all things in Jesus Christ for the Glory of God.God's end vision is nothing less than a new heaven and a new earth(Isaiah 65; Rev. 21). Through church planting, the new communities offaith become an instrument, sign, and foretaste of the Kingdom of Godas a demonstration plot of faith, hope, and love of Christ's sovereignand redemptive reign over all creation. Its mission is to faithfullyparticipate with God as ambassadors of the Kingdom to promote thekind of transformation that only He can bring and the world sodesperately needs.