Many church leaders feel – at least on some level – that virtually all the old answers about what it means to be and do church don’t work anymore. Author Jeffrey D. Jones believes that if the old answers don’t work any more it is because the world in which they had worked is no […]
After congregations have considered their history, added up all the statistics, and tried to be honest about their core values, the question still remains: “Who are we, really?” Author Janet Cawley offers a creative, engaging, and faithful way to answer just that question. Cawley demonstrates how to use a congregation’s knowledge of itself to construct […]
The worship terrain has changed, but a consensus has yet to emerge even about what worship is, let alone how we should worship. Increasingly, however, people are hungry not just to know about God, but to experience God with all they they are – mind, heart, body, and soul. Worship must engage all of the […]
Much more than a “how-to” for worship planners. Drawing on more than two decades of collaborative worship planning, as well as numerous conversations with other worship planners. Pastor Howard Vanderwell and musician Norma de Waal Malefyt lay out a thoughtful, field-tested process for planning, implementing, and evaluating life-enriching weekly worship. Well over a dozen field-tested […]
At times, a congregational transition looms so large in a sermon that it becomes the lens through which scripture is interpreted, the congregation is addressed, the preacher is heard, and God is experienced. Homiletics professor and parish pastor Craig Satterlee reflects in this accessible, provocative volume about on how to integrate such significant events in […]
“Today we are awash in computerized Bible games, pastoral care software, and church management systems with members’ personal information and giving records,” observe authors Spiegel, Armstrong, and Bill, but “too often we blindly accept and use technology without asking the big questions. Questions like, is it appropriate to our mission and ministry?” 40 Days and […]
The conventional wisdom about mainline Protestantism maintains that it is a dying tradition, irrelevant to a postmodern society, unresponsive to change, and increasingly disconnected from its core faith tenets. In her provocative new book, historian and researcher Diana Butler Bass argues that there are signs that mainline Protestant churches are indeed changing, finding a new […]
Faced with crisis, lack of direction, or just plain “stuckness,” many congregations and their leaders are content to deal only with surface issues and symptoms – only to discover that the same problems keep recurring, often in different, and more serious, ways. In The Hidden Lives of Congregations, Christian educator and consultant Israel Galindo takes leaders […]
Many sociologists and a growing number of church scholars have noted that we live in a time of transition – from the modern era to the postmodern. Whenever a shift of this magnitude occurs, it leaves all of life, including the church, in flux. We instinctively strive to stabilize the situation by re-establishing what has […]
Untangling the day-to-day issues in our multifaceted lives can seem daunting. Time to sit quietly and reflect is rare. If we are fortunate, we have good friends or close family members with whom to talk things through and find clarity, but many times we feel isolated and lonely. As people of faith, we add another […]