Cracking Your Church's Culture Code


Book Description

Strategies for transforming a toxic church culture Why is it that the best strategic plans and good leadership often are not able to move churches in the desired direction? Sam Chand contends that toxic culture is to blame. Quite often, leaders don't sense the toxicity, but it poisons their relationships and derails their vision. This work describes five easily identifiable categories of church culture (inspiring-accepting-stagnant-discouraging-toxic), with diagnostic descriptions in the book and a separate online assessment tool. The reader will be able to identify strengths and needs of their church's culture, and then apply practical strategies (communication, control and authority, selection and placement of personnel, etc.) to make their church's culture more positive. Discusses how to diagnose the state of a church's culture Reveals what it takes to put in place effective strategies for creating a more positive church culture Author served on the board of EQUIP (Dr. John Maxwell's Ministry), equipping five million leaders world-wide. This important book offers a clear guide for understanding and recreating a healthy church culture.




Creating a Missional Culture


Book Description

Missiologist and church planter JR Woodward offers a blueprint for the missional church--not small adjustments around the periphery of the infrastructure but a radical revisioning of how a church ought to look that entails changing how we think about leadership and what we expect out of discipleship.




Look Before You Lead


Book Description

Pastoral ministry is challenging work, especially when a pastor ignores the church's "congregational culture" when seeking to minister to church members or implement changes. Just as a pastor studies to interpret the Scriptures in order to understand and preach the Bible, he or she must interpret the local church culture to better understand and move it toward accomplishing its mission and vision. In Look Before You Lead, trusted church leadership expert Aubrey Malphurs shows pastors how to read their church's unique local culture, how to change or revitalize it, and even how to combine two cultures when one church adopts another. This unique resource approaches leadership and discernment from a solid, biblical perspective and includes a number of helpful appendixes, such as a behavior, belief, and a values audit, that are key to reading and understanding the culture.




A Church Called Tov


Book Description

“Scot and Laura do an amazing job of teaching us what a good church looks like.” —Beth Moore What is the way forward for the church? Tragically, in recent years, Christians have gotten used to revelations of abuses of many kinds in our most respected churches—from Willow Creek to Harvest, from Southern Baptist pastors to Sovereign Grace churches. Respected author and theologian Scot McKnight and former Willow Creek member Laura Barringer wrote this book to paint a pathway forward for the church. We need a better way. The sad truth is that churches of all shapes and sizes are susceptible to abuses of power, sexual abuse, and spiritual abuse. Abuses occur most frequently when Christians neglect to create a culture that resists abuse and promotes healing, safety, and spiritual growth. How do we keep these devastating events from repeating themselves? We need a map to get us from where we are today to where we ought to be as the body of Christ. That map is in a mysterious and beautiful little Hebrew word in Scripture that we translate “good,” the word tov. In this book, McKnight and Barringer explore the concept of tov—unpacking its richness and how it can help Christians and churches rise up to fulfill their true calling as imitators of Jesus.




Serious Times


Book Description

Does your life matter? How can you make a difference? James Emery White shows how you can live a life of significance at the front lines of what God is doing in the world today.




Church Unique


Book Description

Written by church consultant Will Mancini expert on a new kind of visioning process to help churches develop a stunningly unique model of ministry that leads to redemptive movement. He guides churches away from an internal focus to emphasize participation in their community and surrounding culture. In this important book, Mancini offers an approach for rethinking what it means to lead with clarity as a visionary. Mancini explains that each church has a culture that reflects its particular values, thoughts, attitudes, and actions and shows how church leaders can unlock their church's individual DNA and unleash their congregation's one-of-a-kind potential.




Two Kingdoms


Book Description

Three of today's foremost church historians have succeeded in producing an invaluable introdution to church history that focuses on the influence of the church on culture and the impact of society on the church. A unique study that affirms that church history is not exclusively European or American--but is truly a global story--with global significance.




Disappearing Church


Book Description

When church and culture look the same... For the many Christians eager to prove we can be both holy and cool, cultural pressures are too much. We either compartmentalize our faith or drift from it altogether—into a world that’s so alluring. Have you wondered lately: Why does the Western church look so much like the world? Why are so many of my friends leaving the faith? How can we get back to our roots? Disappearing Church will help you sort through concerns like these, guiding you in a thoughtful, faithful, and hopeful response. Weaving together art, history, and theology, pastor and cultural observer Mark Sayers reminds us that real growth happens when the church embraces its countercultural witness, not when it blends in. It’s like Jesus said long ago, “If the salt loses its saltiness, it is no longer good for anything…”




A Peculiar People


Book Description

Rodney Clapp asks and answers the question, How can the church provide a significant alternative to the culture in which it is embedded?




Creating Your Church's Culture


Book Description

How do you create a thriving organizational culture in your church? Churches are committed to a spiritual mission, but it is often the organizational aspects of the church that hinder the mission from moving forward. Cultivating health in the organizational side of church culture requires a thorough understanding of the church's vision, systems, staffing, relationships, and leadership. When the culture is healthy, it delivers consistently healthy outcomes that advance the mission of the church. But when cultures are unhealthy, or worse, toxic, they perpetuate constant dysfunction and derail the church's purpose. In Creating Your Church's Culture, Stephen Blandino gives you the tools and strategies to address the organizational side of your church's culture. You'll learn how to define your culture, activate the Culture Equation, hire staff who fit your culture, and infuse your values into your culture. You'll learn how to create a learning culture, develop effective systems, increase employee and volunteer engagement, measure healthy, and uproot bureaucracy. This practical book is loaded with wisdom and inspiration to improve the organizational aspects of your church's culture.