Congregations cannot exist without finances, priorities, leadership, worship, and decision making, yet these five aspects breed the most conflict between church members and clergy.
Field education is an opportunity for students to develop ministry skills, practice ministerial reflection, discern their call, experience professional collegiality, and undergo personal transformation.
As spiritual guides, clergy and lay leaders alike often find themselves in need of direction about how to make changes in their personal life and ministry.
This one-volume guide to a healthy congregation combines the wisdom of a rabbi with the expertise of an organizational development consultant to demonstrate the power of positive relationships and show how to avoid some of the common traps that can lead to serious conflict.
Parsons and Leas have created an important tool for congregational leaders in this application of systems theory to evaluating a congregation's life and readiness for change.
Discover inspiring, practical ways your board can make its meetings become opportunities for deepening faith, developing leadership, and church renewal.
Hobgood examines new pressures on clergy that are emerging in the "e;post-Christendom era:"e; financial stresses; the effects of a conflicted and confrontational culture; the needs of an increasing number of people living broken or dependent lives; dysfunctional behavior on the part of pastors and parishioners; questions regarding clergy respect and job satisfaction.
Many congregations today experience collisions between parents who ant to spend time with their children and age-segregated church programming, as well as between the children worshiping in their pews and the increasing number of seniors in the same pew.
Tending to the Holy: The Practice of the Presence of God in Ministry invites pastors to embody their deepest beliefs in the routine and surprising tasks of ministry.
The church year is often seen as a framework for church programs, but well-known Alban author Charles Olsen shows readers how it can be a prism through which congregations more deeply understand their own stories.
Many congregations are experiencing significant change both within and beyond their walls, and both members and leaders feel a sense of loss in the midst of these changes.
Lillian Daniel shares how her congregation re-appropriated the practice of testimony one Lenten season, a practice that would eventually revitalize their worship and transform their congregational culture.
A large and growing number of congregations are setting up church-based nonprofit organizations in order to operate community development or educational programs.
Listeners do love their pastors and they agree with the sermon content they hear,' Lori Carrell once explained to a group of pastors, 'but most sermons don't ask for change, and most listeners don't experience spiritual growth as a result of the sermon.
Our culture has undergone a major shift: younger generations have less and less interest in the printed word as they become predominantly image oriented.
Mead explores what church growth and evangelism really mean in a time when it is mathematically impossible for every congregation to achieve significant numerical growth.
Not only do new church starts in significant numbers bring systemic change and renewal to mainline denominations, but new church development brings similar change to individual aging congregations in their vicinity.
A congregation communicates its heart and soul through words, photos, actions, programs, architecture, decor, the arts, and countless other aspects of congregational life.
Congregations cannot exist without finances, priorities, leadership, worship, and decision making, yet these five aspects breed the most conflict between church members and clergy.
Projects That Matter introduces project leaders and teams to the five basic elements of project design and describes in detail a six-step process for designing and implementing a project evaluation and disseminating evaluation findings.
"e;Today we are awash in computerized Bible games, pastoral care software, and church management systems with members' personal information and giving records,"e; observe authors Spiegel, Armstrong, and Bill, but "e;too often we blindly accept and use technology without asking the big questions.
In this profound yet practical book, Mary Sellon and Daniel Smith make the case that the health of churches and synagogues depends on congregations learning how to live out love in "e;right relationships.
