Religious institutions and organizations

Are congregations inevitably stuck during a change of pastoral leadership?

Much has been written about the changing landscape the church finds itself in, and even more about the church's waning influence in our culture.

In Pursuing Pastoral Excellence, pastoral counselor and educator Paul Hopkins aims to help pastoral leaders make a lasting and positive difference in the lives of the people and communities they serve.

A compelling and extensive resource with ways for all congregations to reach beyond themselves to better serve.

Amid the widespread discussion about 'the future of the church,' an important point is sometimes overlooked: tomorrow's church will depend to a great extent on the new pastors of today who will serve and guide our churches in the years ahead.

Both new and veteran preachers alike find the annual stewardship sermon a challenge and are eager for encouraging, practical advice.

Work-life imbalance is a problem that has personal, national, and religious implications.

Every Jewish institution, writes Kerry Olitzky, is undergoing significant change and is in danger of becoming irrelevant to the majority of North American Jews.

Based on extensive research, this volume offers insight and help on the key fiscal topics confronting church leaders today, including: Why is the church so uneasy with the topic of money?

In a culture marked by what many call "e;attention-deficit disorder,"e; congregations and their leaders are subject to distractions that detract from their mission and lead them in directions that have little to do with their reason for existence.

The Christian church in America is doing its best to be relevant.

In New Life through Shared Ministry, Judith Urban creates a pathway for building a shared ministry system.

Drawing on the work of Bowen, Friedman, and his own many years' counseling experience, Peter Steinke shows how to recognize and deal with the emotional roots of such issues as church conflict, leadership roles, congregational change, irresponsible behavior, and the effect of family of origin on current relationships.

Building communicate.

In Holy Clarity, Sarah Drummond explores the most basic reason leaders of religious organizations conduct evaluations: To find and create God-pleasing clarity regarding the organization's purpose and the impact of its activities.

Knowledge is power, and the way knowledge is shared in a congregation can build up or break down community.

Greening Spaces for Worship and Ministry is a comprehensive guide.

In The Practicing Congregation (Alban, 2004), Diana Butler Bass explored the phenomenon of "e;intentional congregations,"e; an emerging style of congregational vitality in which churches creatively and intentionally re-appropriate traditional Christian practices such as hospitality, discernment, contemplative prayer, and testimony.

Ministers often find themselves caught in the day-to-day pressures of leading a congregation and yearn to experience the unfolding of their professional lives from a larger perspective.

Facing Feelings in Faith Communities is based on a simple premise: We have emotions because we need them.

Asking parishioners for money is very different from creating congregations of generous people.

Humans have been choice-makers since the days when hunter-gatherers had to decide when to hunt and what to gather.

What does the church look like if we take the ministry of the baptized the priesthood of all believers seriously?

A Ready Hope: Effective Disaster Ministry for Congregations is an introduction for people of faith who are new to the ministry of disaster preparedness and response.

Paramhansa Yogananda's classic Autobiography of a Yogi was more about the saints Yogananda met than about himselfin spite of the fact that Yogananda was much greater than many he described.

This illustrated dictionary for the Episcopal Church is an essential reference to its terminology, worship, structure, and polity.

"e;Reading of God's silence in the Bible gives me courage to explore the practice of restraint in preaching-not as a deliberate withholding of God's word nor, I hope, as a rationale for my own reticence, but as a sober reaching for more reverence in the act of public speaking about God.

Now a major motion picture!

Have you ever imagined a trip back in time?

Children's spiritual development is currently a hot topic in Christian circles, as well as in other fields and disciplines such as educational psychology, medicine, developmental psychology, education, and sociology.

A powerful indictment of Pope Benedict and the Vatican, and a searing assessment of the future of the Catholic Church.

In "Gedankenlesen als Brücke zwischen den Seelen" entführt Xavier X.

The existence of orphans is as inevitable to most African cities and the world as it is death.

Future pastors and servant-leaders are taught the much-needed "e;tools of the trade"e;--the principles of hermeneutics, how to exegete a passage, put a sermon together, conduct a wedding, manage a funeral, oversee administrative meetings, and much more.

The missionary endeavor is as ancient as the Word of God.

Return for a fifth time with Pastor Blackstone to the fabled land of India and discover more biblical precepts and life-changing concepts as he travels again with his good friend Shibu Simon to "e;earth's farthest bounds.

Modern Christians have been bombarded by objections launched against the Christian faith from popular secular authors, bloggers, and stars from the entertainment industry.

Being a clergyperson can be stressful--mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually, and relationally.

Sustaining Grace explores the dynamic between new faith communities and denominational systems through the lens of stewardship and sustainability.

Have you ever wondered how it would look to live out a Christian sexual ethic amid the varied and confusing sexual messages that are part of modern culture?

Often, a disconnect exists between the way pastors, children's ministry volunteers, and churches describe the health and impact of children's ministry volunteers (and the overall functioning of an ongoing children's ministry).

This compelling collection tells five stories of young Australian women who served in times of armed conflict in early twentieth-century China.

Wilhelm Loehe is one of the most significant nineteenth-century figures for North American church life and mission, whose influence continues into the present.