Church Leadership

Planting Missional Churches: Your Guide to Starting Churches that Multiply, Part 1 – Audiobook

Planting a church is one of the most exciting adventures you’ll ever embark on. It’s also one of the hardest. It requires initiative, leadership, strategy, systems, and a lot of prayer. In this second edition of Planting Missional Churches, not only will you find a completely redesigned book with new content in every single chapter, but you will also find several new chapters on topics such as church multiplication, residencies, multi-ethnic ministry, multisite, denominations and networks, and spiritual leadership. So if you’re planting a church, be prepared. Use this book as a guide to build the needed ministry areas so that you can multiply over and over again.

Planting Missional Churches: Your Guide to Starting Churches that Multiply, Part 2 – Audiobook

Planting a church is one of the most exciting adventures you’ll ever embark on. It’s also one of the hardest. It requires initiative, leadership, strategy, systems, and a lot of prayer. In this second edition of Planting Missional Churches, not only will you find a completely redesigned book with new content in every single chapter, but you will also find several new chapters on topics such as church multiplication, residencies, multi-ethnic ministry, multisite, denominations and networks, and spiritual leadership. So if you’re planting a church, be prepared. Use this book as a guide to build the needed ministry areas so that you can multiply over and over again.

Planting New Churches in a Postmodern Age

Len Sweet talks about Planting New Churches in a Postmodern Age as that one-stop, one-shop wonder that makes obsolete all the alternatives. In this book, Ed Stetzer lays out a case for missional church planting and then describes the process to plant healthy new churches. He combines the theological and the practical in one book. The book looks at cultures and how to reach persons in those cultures through the tools within the cultures themselves. It also provides a new look at emerging trends in churches reaching postmoderns. Then, it provides step by step instructions about how to plant churches in today’s world. Solid experience (from Stetzer and dozens of examples), Biblical roots, and fresh insights into the postmodern world make this a must read for the church planting hoping to make an impact.

Shaped by God: Twelve Essentials for Nurturing Faith in Children, Youth, and Adults

Faith formation doesn’t just happen it’s a Spirit-led lifelong process of shaping and reshaping. In this accessible anthology, twelve experts share their perspectives on faith formation at home, in worship, in education, in intergenerational contexts, in people with developmental disabilities, and more. Indispensable reading for pastors, church leaders, education committees, parents, and educators.

Staff Your Church for Growth: Building Team Ministry in the 21st Century

Why, when, and how should a church add to its professional staff? Staff Your Church for Growth: Building Team Ministry in the 21st Century is a practical manual dealing with the issues of hiring and utilizing multiple staff positions to encourage church growth. Current data show that half of all churches have some form of multiple staff, and many others are considering the addition of professional staff in the future. Gary L. McIntosh has written a comprehensive manual for the twenty-first-century church, focusing on how, why, who, and when to add staff in a way that encourages growth.

Supervising and Supporting Ministry Staff: A Guide to Thriving Together

Supervising and Supporting Ministry Staff is a research-based guide to the senior/associate staff relationship that is filled with real-life stories and practical advice to help readers negotiate their staff relationships successfully. The book focuses not only on the business mechanics of the supervisor/supervisee relationship, but also the full experiences of the associate staff, including emotional and spiritual needs. This helpful resource addresses congregations of all sizes across denominations and discusses a range or supervisor/supervisee relationship types.

Taking Your Church to the Next Level: What Got You Here Won’t Get You There

All local churches experience a predictable life cycle of growth and decline. But if a church is on a downward trend, how can it turn around? Taking Your Church to the Next Level explains the impact of age and size on churches and outlines the improvements that must be made at each point for a church to remain fruitful and faithful to its mission. McIntosh deftly describes the cycles of fruitfulness and the importance of continual improvement to diminish destructive forces that keep a congregation from its mission. Church leaders, pastors, and all who care about the church and desire to see it experience biblical growth will benefit from the sage wisdom offered in these pages.

The 10 Key Roles of a Pastor: Proven Practices for Balancing the Demands of Leading Your Church

If most pastors were pressed to describe an average day of ministry, they’d have trouble doing it. In a single day, a pastor may fill many different roles in quick succession, from counselor to theologian to student to CEO to custodian (well, let’s hope there’s usually someone else available to perform that last role). Some roles come more naturally than others, but every pastor wants to perform each role to the best of their ability. In The 10 Key Roles of a Pastor, church consultant Gary L. McIntosh shows pastors how to understand and juggle their many essential roles, prioritize their time and energy, manage their people’s expectations of them, and empower others to take up the vital work of the church body

The 10 Key Roles of a Pastor: Proven Practices for Balancing the Demands of Leading Your Church – Audiobook

If most pastors were pressed to describe an average day of ministry, they’d have trouble doing it. In a single day, a pastor may fill many different roles in quick succession, from counselor to theologian to student to CEO to custodian (well, let’s hope there’s usually someone else available to perform that last role). Some roles come more naturally than others, but every pastor wants to perform each role to the best of their ability. In The 10 Key Roles of a Pastor, church consultant Gary L. McIntosh shows pastors how to understand and juggle their many essential roles, prioritize their time and energy, manage their people’s expectations of them, and empower others to take up the vital work of the church body

The Exodus Principle: A 5-Part Strategy to Free Your People for Ministry

Developing a “culture of service” empowers the people in any church to minister to the church’s two key “customer groups”–the people already there, and guests. The message of Exodus Principle is that serving both groups well is critical to health. Church growth expert Gary McIntosh explores the critical need of churches to serve both members and visitors as valued, respected guests in God’s house. It is only by extending the hand of sincere Christian hospitality, both inside and outside the church, that congregations can continue to grow.

The Solo Pastor: Understanding and Overcoming the Challenges of Leading a Church Alone

Being a pastor is a complex and demanding role, especially for someone leading alone. The majority of pastors find themselves in this position, leading their smaller church with no additional professional assistance. The challenges are many, including loneliness, isolation, self-doubt, overwhelm, feelings of inadequacy, and a constant search for additional resources and volunteers. Where does a solo pastor turn for help and encouragement? With compassion and plenty of proven, practical strategies, church consultant and former solo pastor Gary L. McIntosh steps in to fill the void. God has placed you in your position for a reason. This book will equip you with the tools you need to lead your church successfully.

The Solo Pastor: Understanding and Overcoming the Challenges of Leading a Church Alone – Audiobook

Being a pastor is a complex and demanding role, especially for someone leading alone. The majority of pastors find themselves in this position, leading their smaller church with no additional professional assistance. The challenges are many, including loneliness, isolation, self-doubt, overwhelm, feelings of inadequacy, and a constant search for additional resources and volunteers. Where does a solo pastor turn for help and encouragement? With compassion and plenty of proven, practical strategies, church consultant and former solo pastor Gary L. McIntosh steps in to fill the void. God has placed you in your position for a reason. This book will equip you with the tools you need to lead your church successfully.

There’s Hope for Your Church: First Steps to Restoring Health and Growth

A startling 85% of churches in the US are plateaued or declining, a trend that has been building for the past fifty years. In the face of shrinking attendance and lagging spiritual growth, pastors and church leaders are understandably discouraged and demoralized. But the first step to turning things around is hope. Church health expert Gary McIntosh offers this hope by showing church leaders the first things they need to do to make a new start for their church. God can and does restore churches to new life, even as he restores individuals. The street-smart ideas and step-by-step instructions found in this book are ones that pastors and church leaders can put to use immediately in their churches to bring about solid growth and renewed hope for the future.

Thriving as a Single Person in Ministry

Churches large and small across the world and in every denomination have rising numbers of single people on their leadership staff. This book presents a research-based perspective on the joys, opportunities, and challenges of being single in vocational ministry. Through extensive interviews and focus groups, the authors present both a practical application and a positive message for those serving God as single clergy or pastoral leaders.

Transformational Church: Creating a New Scorecard for Congregations

According to Ed Stetzer and Thom S. Rainer, the authors of Transformational Church, “Too often we’ve highlighted the negative realities of the declining American church but missed the opportunity to magnify the God of hope and transformation.” Based on the most comprehensive study of its kind, including a survey of more than 7,000 churches and hundreds of on-site interviews with pastors, Transformational Church takes us to the thriving congregations where truly changing lives is the norm. Stetzer and Rainer clearly confirm the importance of disciple making for all through active biblical engagement and prayerful dependence on God alongside of ever-increasing, intentional participation in mission and ministry activities.

Transformational Church: Creating a New Scorecard for Congregations – Audiobook

According to Ed Stetzer and Thom S. Rainer, the authors of Transformational Church, “Too often we’ve highlighted the negative realities of the declining American church but missed the opportunity to magnify the God of hope and transformation.” Based on the most comprehensive study of its kind, including a survey of more than 7,000 churches and hundreds of on-site interviews with pastors, Transformational Church takes us to the thriving congregations where truly changing lives is the norm. Stetzer and Rainer clearly confirm the importance of disciple making for all through active biblical engagement and prayerful dependence on God alongside of ever-increasing, intentional participation in mission and ministry activities.

Understanding Children’s Spirituality

How important is childhood in the spiritual formation of a person? How do children experience God in the context of their lives as they grow? What does God do in the lives of children to draw them to himself and help them grow into a vital relationship with him? How can adults who care about children better support their spiritual growth and direct it toward relationship with God through Jesus Christ? These are critical questions that church leaders face as they consider how best to nurture the faith of the children God brings into our lives. In this book, over two dozen Christian scholars and ministry leaders explore important issues about the spiritual life of children and ways parents, church leaders, and others who care about children can promote their spiritual formation.