Church Life
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Creative Church Handbook
$25.99Add to cartThe time has come for the church to reclaim its role as a center of creativity. Among your membership are artists, musicians and other creatives whose gifts can enhance your worship, inform your theology and impact your community. A comprehensive vision and manual for unleashing creativity in your congregation.
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Christian Writers Guide To The Book Proposal
$10.95Add to cartA complete proposal sells your book, pure and simple. But some authors don’t think a proposal is necessary. Perhaps you already have a contract, or you plan to self-publish. If you don’t have to sell the book to a publisher, why write a proposal? That reasoning sounds logical, but there are purposes for a book proposal beyond selling it to a publisher. In A Christian Writer’s Guide to the Book Proposal, I share six reasons why it benefits you to write a book proposal and seven items that should be part of every book proposal. A Christian Writer’s Guide to the Book Proposal is based on my previously published writing and on my teaching at Christian writers’ conferences around the country. The material included applies to writers and book projects of all sorts: fiction and nonfiction; completed manuscripts and unwritten book ideas, first-time and previously published authors, traditionally published, indie, and self-published. So, give your book idea a chance for success. Learn how with A Christian Writer’s Guide to the Book Proposal.
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Brain Savvy Leaders
$27.99Add to cartLeadership is tough. Church leadership can be even tougher. Leadership demands constant reframing and reappraisal of the situation, focus, objectivity, honest appraisal of yourself and others, and astute evaluation of available resources. Church leadership is all that and more. To be an effective church leader, you also have to love and have others’ best interest at heart. You have to align yourself and your church with God’s desire to transform lives for the better, both within and beyond your reach.
Using up-to-date research from brain science in easy-to-understand language, author Charles Stone will help you increase your personal productivity, handle stress and your emotions in constructive ways, create and sustain collaborative teams, and manage change in your church. Using illustrations and acronyms, Dr. Stone will show you how brain science can complement and reinforce what the Bible says about life and leadership. He will show you how basic brain processes affect leadership and your team’s ability to follow while becoming more cohesive and collaborative.
Each chapter gives practical tips and actionable steps to help leaders improve personal and organizational skills.
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Big Lessons From Little Places
$19.95Add to cartHighlights the ministry of the small congregation, a category into which 68% of
Episcopal congregations fall* Follows up on the author’s Becoming the Transformative Church and continues the
conversation about church re-structuring* Reflection/Study Guide questions included
Churchwide discussions on structure and growth tend to focus on the importance of
increasing “butts in the pews and bucks in the plates.” Suggestions have been made on
merging smaller dioceses to create larger ones and closing the doors of congregations
which do not have Sunday attendance of at least 200. This is a model of scarcity without
consideration of the value and abundance to be found in small churches.Discover the roles, possibilities, promise, and potential of being a small church! Travel
with Kay Collier McLauglin as she takes the back roads and byways of the United States,
visiting small churches that are making a difference in their community. Each chapter tells
a story about an example of faithfulness in the life of a small congregation and relates
that story to the essentials of faithful living and being church. The book challenges the
decision-makers in the Episcopal Church to think beyond traditional measures and shortterm
economic fixes to discover the life-giving opportunities and models presented by the
smallest congregations.For diocesan leaders, lay professionals, clergy, seminarians, and small groups.
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10 Prescriptions For A Healthy Church
$18.99Add to cartIn 10 Prescriptions for a Healthy Church, authors Bob Farr and Kay Kotan offer the Top Ten prescriptions for issues seen during church consultations. Farr and Kotan share their expertise from working with churches to detail the most common concerns and obstacles found when consulting with congregations.
In their conversational style, Farr and Kotan offer a practical approach to fixing common problems, offering strategies sure to help congregations achieve success in specific areas of ministry. Proven success stories offer application, hope, and practicalities from benefiting congregations.
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Minister As Entrepreneur
$20.99Add to cartBuilding on his own experiences as a priest and an entrepreneur, Volland argues that the concept of entrepreneurship offers churches a helpful lens through which to view Christian ministry and mission, and an understanding and approach to ministry that is well fitted for the mission task in a rapidly changing world. He shows how an entrepreneurial approach is consistent with understandings of leadership in the major denominations and in the new churches. He also argues that such an approach is consistent both with the nature of God and with human collaboration with God’s activity in the world. “To be a minister is to face the everyday challenge of finding new ways to express the faith, and to refresh the life of the Church. This is the call to be an entrepreneur. Michael Volland sets out the case for the minister as an agent of change and as the one who looks for new ways to do things . . . This is an important and a timely book which will help us to see entrepreneurship as gift of God and a delight for the Church.’Pete Ward, Professorial Fellow in Ecclesiology and Ethnography, Durham University
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Women In The Church Revised Updated 2nd Edition
$7.99Add to cartDr. Everett Ferguson has made substantial revisions in this second edition of Women in the Church: Biblical and Historical Perspectives. In chapter one, he writes in detail regarding the New Testament texts concerning women’s roles in the assembly of the church. In chapter two, Dr. Ferguson explores the evidence from early church history concerning these same roles in the assembly. In chapter three, he addresses doctrinal considerations in light of the New Testament texts and the witness of early church history.
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Propel : Good Stewardship Greater Generosity
$17.99Add to cartChurches are hurting in multiple areas including dwindling finances and shrinking congregations. Seminaries are educating and training the future of ministry yet doing so with limited resources and declining enrollment. There’s an urgent need for resources aimed at addressing those hurts in specific ways. Tangible stewardship models resulting in greater generosity can offer financial peace and a thriving membership base, propelling ministry to new heights.
Propel offers solutions beyond the church’s walls to reach all areas of training and resources to support and sustain vital ministry, scholarship, education, and mission. Through creating a culture of generosity, Clayton Smith outlines detailed models to increase giving through various outlets including planned giving, vision casting, and capital campaigns.
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Me To We
$20.99Add to cartChurches with front doors that open up mission fields rather than buildings.When Christians answer the clarion call to be missional, too often it is primarily to feel good or to grow in their own faith. But ultimately we remain unsatisfied because, in the end, it’s still about “me”-my church, my faith, my salvation. Then sometimes inspiration dries up.
We forget that Jesus is the head of the Church, which exists at God’s pleasure and disposal. God is birthing a new Social Gospel, meant to reclaim mission and justice ministries as prime directives for the Church, and not with the naive thinking of the 19th or 20th centuries.
What are the characteristics of this new Social Gospel? There is an expectation that mission is “with” and not “for” others. There is an acknowledgement that tolerance is not a dirty word and we have to find a peaceable way to live in our intercultural world. It carries the Wesleyan impulse to change the world by working to build God’s kingdom in this world. It offers the grace and salvation of Christ to those in need, believing that none are free unless all are free. It means that we feed the hungry, educate to poor, and equip the powerless in tangible ways.
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Church In Exile
$32.99Add to cartThe people of God throughout history have been a people of exile and diaspora. Whether under the Assyrians, Babylonians, Greeks or Romans, the people chosen by God have had to learn how to be a holy people in alien lands and under foreign rule. For much of its history, however, the Christian church lived with the sense of being at home in the world, with considerable influence and power. That age of Christendom is now over, and as Lee Beach demonstrates, this is something for which the church should be grateful. The “peace” of Christendom was a false one, and there is no comfortable normalcy to which we can or should return. Drawing on a close engagement with Old Testament and New Testament texts, The Church in Exile offers a biblical and practical theology for the church in a post-Christian age. Beach helps the people of God today to develop a hopeful and prophetic imagination, a theology responsive to its context, and an exilic identity marked by faithfulness to God’s mission in the world.
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Heart Of Holiness
$13.99Add to cartWhat is the place of compassion in the life of holiness? It concerns not only the life of the individual disciple but poses important missional questions for the Church.
Is compassionate ministry a distraction from the core message of heart of holiness?
Are ministries of compassion best understood as effective tools to open doors for evangelistic outreach?
Is compassionate ministry one of those specialized ministries that we may choose to do where we have interest and opportunity?
As they draw from scripture, theology, the deep history of the Church, and the more recent history of the Wesleyan-Holiness movement, discover what scholars and ministry leaders believe is the place of compassion in the life of holiness.
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Our Global Families
$31.00Add to cartAs Christians, we belong to not only a diverse global Christian family but also a diverse human family. Todd Johnson, a noted expert on global Christianity and world missions trends, and Cindy Wu show how divisions within these families work against our desire to bring about positive change in the world. They provide an overview of global Christian identity, exploring how we can be faithful to our own tradition while engaging Christians across denominations and be better informed as we work with people of other religions. The book utilizes the latest research data on global Christianity and world religions and includes tables, graphs, charts, and end-of-chapter discussion questions.
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With All Our Prayers
$19.99Add to cartA resource for both corporate worship and personal devotion, With All Our Prayers invites readers to pray, think, and live into God’s purpose for the world and for their own lives. Written by a longtime Presbyterian pastor, the beautiful prayers in this book are theologically grounded in God’s steadfast love and invincible grace and contain traditional elements of adoration, confession, thanksgiving, petition, and intercession.
In this helpful volume church leaders will find prayers ordered around the liturgical calendar with themes appropriate to the seasons of the church year. Individuals and prayer groups will find guidance in praying for church and world, in interceding on behalf of strangers and enemies as well as loved ones and friends.
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God Gave The Growth
$34.95Add to cartThe Episcopal Church has recognized that planting new churches is a high priority through the Mission Enterprise Zones initiative, which provides grant funding for new worshiping communities, in partnership with dioceses. While there is significant literature and training available for church planters in evangelical contexts, very little is available for planters in the Episcopal/mainline context. This book addresses how to rise up and train leaders for the difficult task of planting new churches in the twenty-first century. It answers the essential questions, such as why should we plant churches, what models of church planting are most successful, what kinds of leaders are necessary, and what problems can be expected. Through the author’s personal experience and interviews with diocesan experts and leaders in mainline denominations, it provides strategies, approaches, and problem-solving techniques.
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Father Tims Church Survival Guide
$20.95Add to cartIf you have little tolerance for ecclesiastical blowhards; if you’ve ever fantasized about implementing a clergy rating system (CRS); if you’ve ever sought tips on surviving diocesan convention; if you’ve ever tried to weasel your way out of pledging; then this book is for you,” says author Tim Schenck. “My take on church life isn’t for everyone-clergy who take themselves too seriously will hate it. But know that it all comes out of a place of deep love for God and the Church. There are inevitably things that drive us nuts about such an imperfect (i.e., human) institution. Yet if we can’t observe and comment on our own foibles we’re left without much hope. And anyway if God doesn’t have a sense of humor, I’m hosed.””
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Why Believe In Jesus
$14.99Add to cartA Life Worth Investigating
Jesus Christ is the most famous person who ever lived. Most people know His name, but they don’t really know who He was or what was He like. If He truly was a Savior, as some say, in what way does that reality affect us today? And why should we believe in Him?
As Jesus lived and ministered on earth, He taught on topics such as:
*What is truth?
*What is the meaning of life?
*What is love?
*What is my purpose?
*What is my future?In this book, as you explore the unique life and teachings of Jesus Christ, you will also be introduced to contemporary people from various backgrounds who tell how and why they came to believe in Jesus-and the difference He is making in their lives today.
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House To House
$15.99Add to cartA MANUAL TO HELP YOU EXPERIENCE HEALTHY SMALL GROUPS AND HOUSE CHURCHES
Updated! House to House documents how God transformed a small fellowship of young believers into a worldwide movement. DOVE International(R) grew from 25 people to a cell church of over 2300 and then transitioned into a family of small group churches and house churches networking together throughout six continents.Larry Kreider draws from thirty years of victories and defeats to provide an overall paradigm with which to “do” church, where every believer becomes a minister. To embrace this paradigm, the very core of what drives and moves the church is changed. It is not about being clergy run, but rather, church leadership exists to equip and release the believers to become the ministers through small groups and house churches and fulfill their God-given call.
The book’s view of small groups and house churches, based firmly on the scriptures, from their purpose of reaching people for Christ to making disciples to their impact on today’s world, will inspire believers, Christian leaders, and churches, traditional or contemporary, in years to come…transforming them from individual congregations, large and small, into church planting movements.
Includes study and discussion questions after each chapter. Use it as a handbook for small group and house church dynamics as well as an invaluable tool to train leaders.
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Missional Worship Worshipful Mission
$29.99Add to cartA rich, fresh take on the meaning and practice of Christian worship
A common perception among Christians is that worship is only a Sunday morning activity done within the walls of the church, while, by contrast, mission involves how the church engages the outside world. But Ruth Meyers argues that there is a dynamic correlation between worship and mission, and she explores that relationship in this book.
Meyers takes the reader chapter by chapter through the various parts of the Sunday worship service, incorporating stories of worship practices in different churches, and shows how the actions of worship relate to mission in the world. The book’s last chapter offers a conceptual tool for preparing worship that is a rich celebration of the mystery of God’s love.
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Exploring Christian Theology Revelation Scripture And The Triune God (Reprinted)
$20.00Add to cartAn Easy-to-Understand Study of Christian Doctrine from Trusted Dallas Seminary Professors
This engaging and accessible systematic theology clearly explains essential spiritual truths for those new to doctrinal study or in need of a refresher. The authors use quick-paced introductions, overviews, reviews of the key tenets of orthodox evangelical doctrines, and more for an easy grasp of the subjects. The book includes two parts:
* How Firm a Foundation: Revelation, Scripture, and Doctrinal Truth
* God in Three Persons: Father, Son, and Holy SpiritThe writers, Douglas Blount and J. Scott Horrell, and the contributors, J. Lanier Burns and Glenn R. Kreider, are all Dallas Seminary professors and theologians led by general editors Nathan D. Holsteen and Michael J. Svigel.
Exploring Christian Theology is useful for discipleship, preview or review of doctrine, or personal reference. It can be used by ministry training programs, Bible colleges, or seminaries as an introduction to prepare students for more in-depth theological study.
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Transitioning Into A Prototype Church
$27.99Add to cartRevival Waves Of Glory Ministries
Bill Vincent is an anointed Prophetic writer that releases powerful fresh revelation in all he does. Bill released first his powerful book BUILDING A PROTOTYPE CHURCH and now Volume 2 TRANSITIONING INTO A PROTOTYPE CHURCH. You will be able to see into God’s heart of a new type of Church coming forth. This book will help anyone whom wants to be more than just an every day Church. God will truly transition your Church as you obtain all the in-depth revelations in this breakthrough book. May the Spirit of God help you as you begin TRANSITIONING INTO A PROTOTYPE CHURCH. -
Welcome To Our Church
$6.99Add to cartA Guide to Great First Impressions
Before your visitors have made their way to their seats, your church has already made an impression-good, bad, or otherwise.
Welcome to Our Church is a comprehensive guide to the important tasks of church greeters and ushers. It even includes tips on attitude, appearance, and what not to do.
Designed for self-study by greeters and ushers, both new and experienced, this booklet can also be used in a group format.
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L E A D Personality Survey 10 Pack
$79.99Add to cartThe L-E-A-D Personality Inventory will provide you with an in-depth study of the unique characteristics of each type of personality. Your entire family, church members-even employees-will benefit from gaining a complete knowledge and understanding of their own personalities. Improve communication and relationships as you identify and better understand your own personality type, find out what motivates/demotivates people, and learn how others are most/least effective based on personality type. Includes questionnaire; answer sheet; instructions; profiles of the different personality types such as the Leader, Expresser, Analyst, and Dependable; and descriptions of different personality patterns. 13 pages.
Includes: 10 pack of L-E-A-D Personality Inventory
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Breaking Bread Breaking Beats
$29.00Add to cartContents:
Getting Started
1. Moments In The History Of Black Churches And Hip-Hop
2. Black Churches, Hip-Hop, And The Body
3. Black Churches, Hip-Hop, Race, And Ethnicity
4. Black Churches, Hip-Hop, And Poverty
5. Black Churches, Hip-Hop, And Gender
6. Black Churches, Hip-Hop, And Sexuality
7. Black Churches, Hip-Hop, And Ethics
8. Black Churches, Hip-Hop, And Globalization
9. A Relationship Between Black Churches And Hip-Hop?
10. The Cipher
The CERCL Writing Collective Members
Glossary
Selected Bibliography
NotesAdditional Info
What is hip-hop, and how does it impact the Black Church? How does the Black Church integrate hip-hop? How do black churches think about hip-hop? How do these different, yet deeply interrelated communities think about the key topics of modern life-be it gender, sex, race, or globalization?These questions and more are the concern of the CERCL Writing Collective, under the mentorship of Anthony Pinn. In this innovative project, ten individuals write as one voice to illuminate the ways that hip-hop and the Black Church agree, disagree, and inform each other on key topics.
This book grows out of the popular religion and Hip-Hop course, soon to be offered as an open enrollment online course, at Rice University by Anthony B. Pinn and Bernard ‘Bun B’ Freeman. Like the course, the book offers engaging insights into one of today’s most important musical genres and reflects on its broad cultural impact.
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When Bad Churches Happen To Good Pastors
$14.99Add to cartWhy do so many pastors leave ministry?
The average pastor stays at a church for only three and a half years.
Studies show a pastor s most effective ministry begins after five to seven years at a church.We have a disconnect. How can our churches grow when our leaders are leaving before their ministries can bear fruit?
In When Bad Churches Happen to Good Pastors, David and Lisa Frisbie address these and other thought-provoking issues relating to clergy attrition, including:
When one family controls the church
Handling conflict in a difficult pastoral
assignment
Dealing with a church boss
Ministering to wounded pastorsWhether you’re a church leader whose pastors are departing or a pastor who has moved from church to church, you ll discover insights to help you handle the situations when pastors leave ministry.
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Re Vision : The Key To Transforming Your Church (Reprinted)
$23.00Add to cartPastors 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.
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Team Ministry Spiritual Gifts Inventory 100 Pack
$399.99Add to cartWith over 5 million used, The Team Ministry Spiritual Gifts Inventory has helped Christians around the world identify their God-given spiritual gifts. Administered in 20 minutes, it is fun and a valuable tool for the Christian walk. Learn how God has equipped you to minister in the local church…and in daily life!
Covers nine task-oriented “team” gifts used in daily life and ministry: Administration, Evangelism, Exhortation, Giving, Mercy-Showing, Pastoring/Shepherding, Prophecy, Serving Teaching. (For further explanation and study of spiritual gifts; different types of gifts; how gifts relate to other gifts, your daily life, etc. see the book How to Find Meaning and Fulfillment through Understanding the Spiritual Gift within You.)
The Team Ministry Spiritual Gifts Inventory includes questionnaire; 2-part, self-scoring answer sheet; brief gift descriptions; and instructions. (100 included in Pack)
Also available in Spanish and Korean, and the Youth Edition in English
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Team Ministry Spiritual Gifts Inventory 50 Pack
$249.99Add to cartWith over 5 million used, The Team Ministry Spiritual Gifts Inventory has helped Christians around the world identify their God-given spiritual gifts. Administered in 20 minutes, it is fun and a valuable tool for the Christian walk. Learn how God has equipped you to minister in the local church…and in daily life!
Covers nine task-oriented “team” gifts used in daily life and ministry: Administration, Evangelism, Exhortation, Giving, Mercy-Showing, Pastoring/Shepherding, Prophecy, Serving Teaching. (For further explanation and study of spiritual gifts; different types of gifts; how gifts relate to other gifts, your daily life, etc. see the book How to Find Meaning and Fulfillment through Understanding the Spiritual Gift within You.)
The Team Ministry Spiritual Gifts Inventory includes questionnaire; 2-part, self-scoring answer sheet; brief gift descriptions; and instructions. (50 included in pack)
Also available in Spanish and Korean, and the Youth Edition in English
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Team Ministry Spiritual Gifts Inventory 10 Pack
$59.99Add to cartWith over 5 million used, The Team Ministry Spiritual Gifts Inventory has helped Christians around the world identify their God-given spiritual gifts. Administered in 20 minutes, it is fun and a valuable tool for the Christian walk. Learn how God has equipped you to minister in the local church…and in daily life!
Covers nine task-oriented “team” gifts used in daily life and ministry: Administration, Evangelism, Exhortation, Giving, Mercy-Showing, Pastoring/Shepherding, Prophecy, Serving Teaching. (For further explanation and study of spiritual gifts; different types of gifts; how gifts relate to other gifts, your daily life, etc. see the book How to Find Meaning and Fulfillment through Understanding the Spiritual Gift within You.)
The Team Ministry Spiritual Gifts Inventory includes questionnaire; 2-part, self-scoring answer sheet; brief gift descriptions; and instructions. (10 provided in pack)
Also available in Spanish and Korean, and the Youth Edition in English
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Fruit Of The Spirit Assessment 10 Pack
$49.99Add to cart“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law” (Galatians 5:22-23, NIV).
Scripture reveals nine fruits of the Spirit that are the inevitable result of God’s presence and control in our lives. This resource reveals characteristics of the fruits of the Spirit to help you determine if your fruit is abundant and sweet or sparse and dry. Use this evaluation to discover the qualities the Holy Spirit is producing in you and identify areas of spiritual growth to which you might give greater study, prayer, and discipline. Are you yielding to or quenching the Holy Spirit?Includes: 10 questionnaire and self-scoring answer sheet with a description of characteristics of the fruit.
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Rapture Revelations
$13.95Add to cartRevival Waves Of Glory Ministries
Unfortunately, most of our modern day teachings on this most important doctrine are misleading, to say the very least. Bill Vincent has studied for years and now is releasing his findings in this book, Rapture Revelations. A careful scrutiny of the Scriptures will reveal the truth about the second coming of Christ, which we generally refer to as “the rapture”. In Rapture Revelations, he has set out to correct the most obvious errors of the pre-tribulation doctrine and to establish the basic foundation for understanding the truth of the matter. Great care is taken to follow the guidelines of Scripture and the Biblical basis of doctrinal interpretation, precept upon precept and line upon line. This is the only method of interpretation used in the pages of Rapture Revelations. Since God Himself revealed His method of understanding doctrine, it is believed by the author to be the best method to use. Therefore, with Bible in hand, follow along with the Scriptures quoted and see if you don’t find truth within its pages. In Rapture Revelations, Bill answers questions that many do not know the answers to. Be open and allow this page-turner to open up the biggest controversial subject of the rapture of Jesus Christ. If you are a lover of truth, you will enjoy this very basic presentation of Biblical facts concerning the doctrine of the “gathering together” of Christ’s saints unto Himself. -
Church According To Paul
$34.00Add to cartAmid conflicting ideas about what the church should be and do in a post-Christian climate, the missing voice is that of Paul. The New Testament’s most prolific church planter, Paul faced diverse challenges as he worked to form congregations. Leading biblical scholar James Thompson examines Paul’s ministry of planting and nurturing churches in the pre-Christian world to offer guidance for the contemporary church. The church today, as then, must define itself and its mission among people who have been shaped by other experiences of community. Thompson shows that Paul offers an unprecedented vision of the community that is being conformed to the image of Christ. He also addresses contemporary (mis)understandings of words like missional, megachurch, and formation.
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Forgive Us : Confessions Of A Compromised Faith
$22.99Add to cartMany people have become angry and frustrated with organized religion and evangelical Christianity, in particular. Too often the church has proven to be a source of pain rather than a place of hope. Forgive Us acknowledges the legitimacy of much of the anger toward the church. In truth, Christianity in America has significant brokenness in its history that demands recognition and repentance. Only by this path can the church move forward with its message of forgiveness, reconciliation, and peace. Forgive Us is thus a call to confession. From Psalm 51 to the teachings of Jesus to the prayers of Nehemiah, confession is the proper biblical response when God’s people have injured others and turned their backs on God’s ways. In the book of Nehemiah, the author confesses not only his own sins, but also the sins of his ancestors. The history of the American church demands a Nehemiah-style confession both for our deeds and the deeds of those who came before us. In each chapter of Forgive Us two pastors who are also academically trained historians provide accurate and compelling histories of some of the American church’s greatest shortcomings. Theologian Soong-Chan Rah and justice leader Lisa Sharon Harper then share theological reflections along with appropriate words of confession and repentance. Passionate and purposeful, Forgive Us will challenge evangelical readers and issue a heart-felt request to the surrounding culture for forgiveness and a new beginning.
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Shrink : Faithful Ministry In A Church Growth Culture
$24.99Add to cartAmong followers of Jesus, great is often the enemy of good. The drive to be great—to be a success by the standards of the world—often crowds out the qualities of goodness, virtue, and faithfulness that should define the central focus of Christian leadership. In the culture of today’s church, successful leadership is often judged by what works, while persistent faithfulness takes a back seat. If a ministry doesn’t produce results, it is dropped. If people don’t respond, we move on. This pursuit of ‘greatness’ exerts a crushing pressure on the local church and creates a consuming anxiety in its leaders. In their pursuit of this warped vision of greatness, church leaders end up embracing a leadership narrative that runs counter to the sacrificial call of the gospel story. When church leaders focus on faithfulness to God and the gospel, however, it’s always a kingdom-win—regardless of the visible results of their ministry. John the Baptist modeled this kind of leadership. As John’s disciples crossed the Jordan River to follow after Jesus, John freely released them to a greater calling than following him. Speaking of Jesus, John said: ‘He must increase, but I must decrease.’ Joyfully satisfied to have been faithful to his calling, John knew that the size and scope of his ministry would be determined by the will of the Father, not his own will. Following the example of John the Baptist and with a careful look at the teaching of Scripture, Tim Suttle dares church leaders to risk failure by chasing the vision God has given them—no matter how small it might seem—instead of pursuing the broad path of pragmatism that leads to fame and numerical success.
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Barefoot Tribe : A Manifesto For A New Kind Of Church
$15.99Add to cartWritten for the millennial generation, gathering the church around twelve key commitments to justice, sustainability, art, compassion, austerity, and a desire to make the world better by living out the love of Christ.
We are on the crest of an epic shift in humanity. As Jeremy Rifkin writes, “The Age of Reason is being eclipsed by the Age of Empathy.” The current millennial generation views the world as an extended family-increasingly interconnected through technology-and they live with a deep moral obligation to care for one another.
In The Barefoot Tribe, Palmer Chinchen issues a wake-up call to the church of today, highlighting this new wave of social justice leaders, who are not afraid to take action, take risks, and remake the world into one more like what Jesus had in mind.
Chinchen challenges the dispassion of the church of decades past, calling for one that does not withdraw into the safe confines of its sanctuary walls. Drawing on compelling stories from his life growing up in Liberia and various experiences from his own church, he maps out a new course that addresses the world’s needs in a way that is outside the norm for many evangelicals.
Conversational, fresh, and accessible, The Barefoot Tribe invites readers to join others also seeking to live a life of meaning and purpose in this world made smaller by technology.
Because with the power of the tribe…we can make the world a better place.
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Your Identity In Christ
$17.99Add to cart19 Chapters
Additional Info
There are so many of us believers that live a life that is dominated by defeat, guilt, condemnation, and shame. So many of us live powerless lives and we are far from the passionate Paul that was zealous, bold and courageous. There is a real need for the body of Christ not to view themselves through the lens of their own sins and other people’s opinions, but to view themselves as sons of God and how the Bible describes them in their TRUE Identity in Christ. This book provides a watershed of truth, insights and revelations that will help each reader come to see themselves as the Bible declares them to be. Come and read nineteen good things that God says you are, and let the truth change you, as it did for the author. Many people run from prophet to prophet to hear that God loves them, has a purpose and destiny for them, and believes in them, when if they had the right book in their hands and took the time to let the truths soak in, they would finally be set free, and propelled toward their destiny. This is such a book! -
Starting Missional Churches
$22.99Add to cartAll mission is local–the people of God joining the work of God in a particular place. In Starting Missional Churches Mark Lau Branson and Nicholas Warnes introduce us to seven missional churches and explore what it looks like to be salt and light where you are.
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Community In The Inventive Age
$18.99Add to cartThe Inventive Age (the cultural turning following the Agrarian, Industrial, and Information ages) provides opportunities for reshaping all institutions and communities. Doug Pagitt brings to life ten Inventive Age characteristics as they are experienced through the community of Solomon’s Porch – a holistic missional Christian community in Minneapolis. These ten characteristics of Inventive Age culture will serve as a guide for those creating new faith communities and making changes in existing ones.
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Church In The Inventive Age
$18.99Add to cartMany books seek to predict the future of Christianity, but few help us grasp the opportunities of the current situation and equip us to navigate the present. Doug Pagitt, author, radio host, and pioneering leader, does just that, offering fresh, optimistic insights and practical suggestions. According to Pagitt, the last two centuries can be divided into four epochs: Idyllic, Industrial, Informational and now-Inventive. The Inventive Age – our currently reality – presents distinct opportunities for how faith communities think, what they value, and the tools they use. Pagitt offers leaders in Christian communities (and beyond) essential frameworks for participation in the Inventive Age.
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Being Church Doing Life
$18.99Add to cartEvidence now suggests that contextual church plants have an important role to play in church growth. There is an increasing international interest in these new and different forms of church, often known as ‘Fresh Expressions’ or ’emerging church’. Author Michael Moynagh is a member of the UK national Fresh Expressions movement, a remarkable initiative that has attracted widespread attention around the world. In this inspiring volume he shares practical and comprehensive advice on how to start and grow new churches – however small – in every context of life. This popular introduction emphasizes practical aspects, telling many of the great stories that have emerged through practitioners. It will enthuse and help church leaders and individuals to start and develop these communities; and advise them on how to help them grow to maturity and become sustainable.
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Conflict Management For Faith Leaders
$14.99Add to cartIs conflict a dirty word? Does it bring to mind images of disagreement, fights, and shattered relationships? For ministry leaders, the likelihood of conflict comes with the job, but the result does not have to be destructive.Conflict Management for Faith Leaders is about handling conflict in a way that is positive and constructive. With this book readers will discover multiple techniques for assessing and managing conflict and learn guidelines for choosing which technique to use in a given situation.A practical resource for pastors and ministry leaders, Conflict Management for Faith Leaders acknowledges that leadership brings with it the risk of opposition. Packed with useful insights and stories based on the experiences of other faith leaders, this book is the ideal tool when the risk of opposition becomes reality.
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All Dressed Up And No Place To Go
$10.99Add to cartThe church is busy, constantly touching the community and consistently committed to marketing what we have to offer. We believe the love of Jesus and the fellowship of His followers that is experienced by all who frequent our fellowship should characterize every church. Jesus himself said, “A new command I give you; Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (John 13:34,35). That love for Him should be the experience of anyone and everyone who embraces the ministry on any level. That love for Him should transcend all of our presuppositions about what the church should be. It should demolish any argument about who should or should not be a part of our church. That s the thing that puzzles me about the church at large today. Why are we so separated? Why are we divided? Why have we allowed denomination to be placed at the forefront of significance? Why has race or ethnicity served as a characteristic of why we are a part of a certain gathering of believers? Why has socio-economic status become a determinant in the question of who our church should reach? Why is the church unprepared to meet the needs of some who would love to be a part of the fellowship? The church of the Lord Jesus Christ in our nation should be recognized by the same characteristics as that of the early church in the Book of Acts. This living organism called the church should be known for its perpetual growth. In “All Dressed Up and No Place to Go”, Wallace Phillips, Pastor of Carpenter’s Shop Church and author of the popular book “Just Plain Vanilla”, addresses many issues that have caused division in the church and provides practical advice to bringing unity to the local church fellowship. This is a MUST READ for any pastor.
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Revelation : The Best Is Yet To Come
$14.99Add to cartLaunch! Publication
The book of Revelation is a love letter to the church. Yet most view it as troubling, and many misunderstand what the Lord is trying to tell us. Didn’t the Jews in Jesus’ day have some of the same problems?
Early biblical prophecy, already fulfilled, helps define what is about to happen. Are some bad, scary events looming on the horizon? Yes, and you’ll learn about that. But even more important, you’ll see what Scripture has to say about you as the overcomer. The puzzles of Revelation are coming together, and we who love and serve the Lord are seeing that the best is yet to come.
Revelation: The Best is Yet to Come provides a simple running commentary and interpretive guide for the beginner. Our hope is that laypersons and preachers not familiar with the book of Revelation will be encouraged to do a more in-depth study. The material takes an unashamed pretribulation, premillennial position within a traditional dispensational framework.
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Slow Church : Cultivating Community In The Patient Way Of Jesus
$22.99Add to cartFast food. Fast cars. Fast and furious. Fast forward. Fast . . . church? The church is often idealized (or demonized) as the last bastion of a bygone era, dragging our feet as we’re pulled into new moralities and new spiritualities. We guard our doctrine and our piety with great vigilance. But we often fail to notice how quickly we’re capitulating, in the structures and practices of our churches, to a culture of unreflective speed, dehumanizing efficiency and dis-integrating isolationism. In the beginning, the church ate together, traveled together and shared in all facets of life. Centered as they were on Jesus, these seemingly mundane activities took on their own significance in the mission of God. In Slow Church, Chris Smith and John Pattison invite us out of franchise faith and back into the ecology, economy and ethics of the kingdom of God, where people know each other well and love one another as Christ loved the church.
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Bourgeois Babes Bossy Wives And Bobby Haircuts
$16.99Add to cartAuthor and New Testament scholar Michael Bird was formerly in favor of distinct gender roles in ministry, a viewpoint commonly called ‘complementarianism.’ But inconsistencies in practice and careful biblical study convinced him to rethink his position. Now in favor of full equality for men and women in ministry roles, Bird nevertheless strikes a respectful tone toward those in his previous camp, while seeking to craft a perspective that both values women and upholds biblical differences between the sexes. Humorous and hard-hitting, Bird’s writing on this topic will challenge readers on both sides of the gender-issue divide.
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My Name Is Woman
$12.49Add to cart“…the woman was chosen by Satan as his perfect target
not for being the weak sex between the two, but because
she carried within her the maximum expression of the
creative power of God in His creatures.”
In her book “My name is Woman”, Laura Fernandez approaches a theme as old as the history of the world and updates it with a solid argument; God created the woman with a purpose, where in equality with man and in unity with him, could offer a dignified service to the family, society and the Creator.In her book, the author maintains the difficult balance – so scarce in this subject – between firmness to defend the woman’s value and the respect to man as husband and partner in the same venture.
At this phase in history, when the female’s proportion in the church has grown and it becomes necessary a broader service in God’s cause, the role of today’s Christian woman confronts the challenge, and at the same time the opportunity, to develop her gifts simultaneously with men, overlooking the useless and miserable prejudice that have delayed the advances of the divine plan.
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New Parish : How Neighborhood Churches Are Transforming Mission Discipleshi
$22.99Add to cartWhen . . . faith communities begin connecting together, in and for the neighborhood, they learn to depend on God for strength to love, forgive and show grace like never before. . . . The gospel becomes so much more tangible and compelling when the local church is actually a part of the community, connected to the struggles of the people, and even the land itself. Paul Sparks, Tim Soerens and Dwight J. Friesen have seen–in cities, suburbs and small towns all over North America–how powerful the gospel can be when it takes root in the context of a place, at the intersection of geography, demography, economy and culture. This is not a new idea–the concept of a parish is as old as Paul’s letters to the various communities of the ancient church. But in an age of dislocation and disengagement, the notion of a church that knows its place and gives itself to where it finds itself is like a breath of fresh air, like a sign of new life.
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Attract Families To Your Church
$20.99Add to cartThis book will help church pastors and leaders navigate the changing tides in ministry to become the kind of church that families want to attend, where the church’s dynamic faith invites families who may then bring their friends. This means reaching out to all kinds of families, some with needs that only a church family can fulfill.
To grow and remain vital, churches need to attract families. But the cultural landscape has changed and any church may have two-parent families with children, blended families, boomerang families, adult children of divorce and their families or lack of families, single adults whose family is the church, grandparents parenting again, childless families, co-habitation families, and children with three legal parents. With practical helps and suggestions for ministries, worship, small groups, and even facilities, author and family expert Linda Ranson Jacobs will help you create a welcoming place for everyone.
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Jesus Justice And Gender Roles
$7.99Add to cartAt one point in her life, author and co-founder of Redeemer Presbyterian Church Kathy Keller sought pastoral ordination. Yet she came to adopt the view that men and women have different roles in marriage and ministry, and that fulfilling such roles pleases God and leads to greater personal fulfillment. In this unapologetic but nuanced piece, Keller presents a caring and careful case for biblical gender differences and the complementarian view of women in ministry. At the same time, she encourages women to teach and lead in the church in ways that may startle some complementarians. Readers on both sides of this hot-button topic will be challenged by her ministry-tested and thoroughly Scriptural perspective.
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Millennials And Mission
$14.99Add to cartThis book focuses on the passing of the torch in cross-cultural missions and church ministry to the Millennial generation. Jim and Judy Raymo grapple with big questions and concerns in Millennials and Mission, while giving an in-depth look at this up-and-coming generation of young people and the future of missions in its hands. They highlight the strengths and weaknesses of this populous group born between 1982 and 2000, comparing and contrasting its characteristics with those of the Baby Boomers and Gen Xers. In spite of the challenges ahead, Millennials and Missions gives a clearly optimistic picture of the Millennial generation’s potential contribution to accomplishing the Great Commission.
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Resident Aliens : A Provocative Christian Assessment Of Culture And Ministr (Ann
$22.99Add to cartA vision of the Church as a colony, a holy people, a family standing for sharply focused values in a devalued world.Only when the Church enacts its scandalous Jesus-centered tradition, will it truly be the Body of Christ and transform the world. Twenty-five years after its first publishing, Resident Aliens remains a prophetic vision of how the Church can regain its vitality, battle its malaise, reclaim its capacity to nourish souls, and stand firmly against the illusions, pretensions, and eroding values of today’s world.
Resident Aliens discusses the nature of the church and its relationship to surrounding culture. It argues that churches should focus on developing Christian life and community rather than attempting to reform secular culture. Hauerwas and Willimon reject the idea that America is a Christian nation, instead Christians should see themselves as “residents aliens” in a foreign land. Stanley Hauerwas and William H. Willimon maintain that, instead of attempting to transform government, the role of Christians is to live lives which model the love of Christ. Rather than trying to convince others to change their ethics, Christians should model a new set of ethics which are grounded in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ.