The Church Building as a Sacred Place


Book Description

This collection of twenty-three essays by Duncan Stroik shows the development and consistency of his architectural vision. Packed with informative essays and over 170 photographs, this collection clearly articulates the Church’s architectural tradition.




Building a Healthy Multi-Ethnic Church


Book Description

Through personal stories, proven experience, and a thorough analysis of the biblical text, Building a Healthy Multi-Ethnic Church illustrates both the biblical mandate for the multi-ethnic church and the seven core commitments required to bring it about. Mark DeYmaz, pastor of one of the most proven multi-ethnic churches in the country, writes from both his experience and his extensive study of how to plant, grow, and encourage more ethnically diverse churches. He argues that the "homogenous unit principle" will soon become irrelevant and that the most effective way to spread the gospel in an increasingly diverse world is through strong and vital multi-ethnic churches. Apart from ethnically and economically diverse relationships, we cannot understand others different from ourselves, develop trust for others who are different than us, and/or love others different than ourselves. Apart from understanding, trust, and love, we are less likely to get involved in the plight of others different than ourselves. Without involvement, nothing changes, and the disparaging consequences of systemic racism remain entrenched in our culture. Surely, it breaks the heart of God to see so many churches segregated ethnically or economically from one another, and that little has changed in the many years since it was first observed that eleven o'clock on Sunday morning is the most segregated hour in the land.




The Mother Church


Book Description




Building a Multiethnic Church


Book Description

America has become a beautiful mosaic filled with many colors and ethnicities—but does your church reflect this change? Are you longing to be a cross-cultural leader who can guide the church into a multicolored world for the sake of the gospel? If so, Building a Multiethnic Church will give you the tools to embrace an invigorated community of grace, love, and reconciliation. In Building a Multiethnic Church, bestselling author and pastor Dr. Derwin Gray calls all churches and their leaders to grow out of ignorance, classism, racism, and greed into a flourishing, vibrant, and grace-filled community of believers. Drawing on wisdom from the early church and the New Testament, Gray will help you understand that planting and transforming churches into multiethnic communities is a biblical calling; identify and implement the best practices to help build multiethnic churches; and recognize that reconciliation between ethnic groups in the church is not just a social issue, but a theological issue that cannot be ignored. -- Previously published as The High-Definition Leader, now revised and updated--




How to Build a Healthy Church (Second Edition)


Book Description

A Newly Updated and Rebranded Edition of The Deliberate Church If churches are the dwelling place of God's Spirit, why are so many built around the strategies of man? Eager for church growth, leaders can be lured by entertaining new schemes, forgetting to keep doctrinal truth as their driving force. Churches must find a way out of the maze of programs and methods and humbly lean on the sufficiency of God's Word. How to Build a Healthy Church, a revised and expanded edition of The Deliberate Church, challenges leaders to evaluate their motivations for ministry and provides practical examples of healthy, deliberate leadership. Written as a companion handbook for Nine Marks of a Healthy Church, it covers important topics including membership, worship, responsible evangelism, and church roles. This is more than a step-by-step plan to mimic; it's a biblical blueprint for pastors, elders, and anyone committed to the church's vitality.




Dinner Church


Book Description

"Christianity is the greatest rescue project the world has ever seen, yet many churches across America are shrinking instead of growing. After spending 18 years as a pastor in highly secularized Seattle, Verlon Fosner began to realize that the church had a sociological problem. While outreach efforts to find new wine were genuine, the church's old wineskin was brittle and leaking. In other words, the traditional ways of doing church were not capable of housing a new wine that would be necessary to compel a secular culture to Jesus. Somewhere in this struggle, Fosner and his leadership team began to consider the way church as done during the first three centuries, and the sociological implications of doing church around dinner tables. Inviting someone to a dinner with Jesus is a very different thing that inviting them to a worship/teaching event on a Sunday morning at a religious campus. In Dinner Church: Building Bridges by Breaking Bread, Verlon Fosner unveils how the ancient dinner church was rebirth in his Seattle community and how that vision changed his congregation forever. These pages also offer a compelling case for why many churches would do well to pause and see the pockets of lost people within the shadow of their steeples, and consider how a Jesus dinner table might open up a door to heaven for those neighbors. Revelation 3:20 makes it clear that Jesus still wants to have dinner with sinners. That likely means he wants his church to set the table."--Publisher.




The Sending Church


Book Description

A pastor uses examples from his own congregation to show how a church isn't really a church until it leaves the building and expands God's Kingdom in the local neighborhood and around the world.




Building a Life-Changing Small Group Ministry


Book Description

Like nothing else, small groups have the power to change lives. They are the ideal route to discipleship—a place where the rubber of biblical truth meets the road of human relationships. However, church leaders often feel at a loss when it comes to assessing the strengths and weaknesses of group life in a church, and they struggle with understanding and solving the root causes of problems. Group Life resources provide, in ebook format, the practical tools and training resources needed to develop life-changing small group leaders, coaches to shepherd group leaders, and ultimately, a thriving church-wide small group ministry. These resources include the updated and revised versions of the best-selling Leading Life-Changing Small Groups and Coaching Life-Changing Small Group Leaders, the new Building a Life-Changing Small Group Ministry and the supplemental Group Life Training DVD. Appropriate for individual or group study, the books function as manuals and workbooks that teach and allow readers to process and record information as they learn. Downloadable web-based vision clips and supplemental videos in the DVD help readers explore and discuss topics further. Group Life Resources conveniently integrate with the ReGroupTM curriculum, giving trainers the option to use them together. Bill Donahue and Russ Robinson’s Building a Life-Changing Small Group Ministry presents a broad introduction for pastors and point leaders to use as they navigate through the process of establish-ing and developing independent groups or a church-wide ministry of small groups.




Building Leaders


Book Description

Training the next generation of leaders is crucial to spreading the gospel, yet most churches have no formal way of doing this. Why? Tight budgets, small staffs, and a lack of know-how are just a few reasons suggested by church consultants Aubrey Malphurs and William Mancini in this groundbreaking book. Building Leaders provides real-life examples of ways churches can unleash their true ministry potential by training staff members and laypeople to lead. With step-by-step instructions that can be applied to any church or parachurch ministry, Building Leaders shows readers how to: - empower, not just train, leaders - overcome obstacles to developing leaders - identify emerging leaders - use biblical models for training leaders - form a leadership training program to fit any size or budget Packed with surveys, discussion questions, and a leadership development guide, Building Leaders will encourage leaders to "duplicate themselves" in order to see their ministry grow. It is a perfect resource for ministry students, church leaders, and pastors.




Power House


Book Description

Through 35 separate evaluation resources, Martin show church leaders how to assess the prayer skills of their congregations, giving action steps to pastors and individual worshippers alike.




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