Download or read book Missional Moves written by Rob Wegner and published by Zondervan. This book was released on 2012-09-25 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The church was never designed to be a fortress for the righteous, but a flood of revolutionaries, bringing the Good News of the Kingdom to broken lives and broken communities. Today, millions of Christians are awakening to the holism of the gospel call, expanding their understanding of mission beyond just touching individual lives to impacting and transforming entire communities with the message of God’s grace. If this calling toward movement and transformation is to be realized, it will require some earth-shaking shifts—“Missional Moves”—that fundamentally alter our understanding of the church and how its mission is lived out. This book provides a plan of action for your church that will empower you to unleash each member on a mission, both locally and globally.

Download or read book Creating a Missional Culture written by JR Woodward and published by InterVarsity Press. This book was released on 2013-09-20 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Once upon a time, Moses had had enough. Exhausted by the challenge of leading the Israelites from slavery to the Promised Land, Moses cried out to God, "What have I done to displease you that you put the burden of all these people on me? . . . If this is how you are going to treat me, please go ahead and kill me" (Exodus 11:11, 15). If that sounds hauntingly familiar to you, you may be the senior pastor of a contemporary church. The burden of Christian leadership is becoming increasingly unbearable--demanding skills not native to the art of pastoring; demanding time that makes sabbath rest and even normal sleep patterns seem extravagant; demanding inhuman levels of efficiency, proficiency and even saintliness. No wonder pastors seem and even feel less human these days. No wonder they burn out or break down at an alarming rate; no wonder the church is missing the mark on its mission. In Creating a Missional Culture, JR Woodward offers a bold and surprisingly refreshing model for churches--not small adjustments around the periphery of a church's infrastructure but a radical revisioning of how a church ought to look, from its leadership structure to its mobilization of the laity. The end result looks surprisingly like the church that Jesus created and the apostles cultivated: a church not chasing the wind but rather going into the world and making disciples of Jesus.

Download or read book Mission moves written by Malan Nel and published by AOSIS. This book was released on with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This scholarly book is the final result of a team-research project, done by ten Practical Theologians from three denominations in the Reformed tradition in South Africa. The authors posed the following research problem and-question: What would be the relationship (if any) between preaching (and the liturgy of which it is a part) and the development of missional congregations? And secondly, what kind of preaching and preacher would best serve (even facilitate) such a process of missional congregational development in preaching and worship?

Download or read book Missional Youth Ministry written by Brian Kirk and published by Zondervan/Youth Specialties. This book was released on 2011-06-07 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The mainline church in the past few decades has witnessed a ghettoization of youth within the church, segregating them off to a particular room, perhaps in the basement, where they engage in ministry in isolation from the rest of the congregation. They are assigned a “youth minister” or “youth director,” often the staff person with the least experience, freeing up the “real” ministers to serve the adults in the church. They seldom serve on church boards or governing bodies in anything other than a cursory manner. Their leadership in worship is limited to one special Sunday a year; their activities seen more as programming than ministry, and their place often described as “the church of the future” rather than the body of Christ in the here-and-now. For decades, youth ministry in mainline churches has been program-driven, assuming that the primary function of youth ministry was to use activities and events to attract young people to church and keep them occupied until they were ready to be adult members in the faith. In recent years, it has become increasingly obvious that this paradigm has failed to develop youth as life-long participants in the Christian church and in the Christian faith. The result of such a model of ministry is that youth come to see church only as those segregated activities reserved for teenagers, most of which bear little resemblance to the practices of the rest of church life. Consequently, when youth graduate from high school and youth group, they perceive that their most meaningful church experiences are ended. Mainline congregations are now seeing the evidence of the real lack of impact of their youth ministries as the population of young adults in churches continues to shrink – even those young adults who were once regular participants in church youth group programs. In short, the program-driven model of youth ministry has failed to help youth find their place within the mission of the Church. Rethinking Youth Ministry critiques this older paradigm and invites the reader into a dialogue to help rethink many of the deepest assumptions of youth ministry in the mainline church. We challenge the consumerist goal of judging a youth ministry’s success by the number of its participants. We push back against the notion that a youth ministry is the sum total of the events on the calendar. We rethink the place of volunteers and parents, calling for a greater role of adults as spiritual mentors in the lives of church youth. We send out a call for greater understanding of modern methods of teaching and the impact of brain research on the intellectual and spiritual development of youth and we re-imagine a new role for mission within youth ministry which calls youth to see mission not as isolated activities but as the very heart of their faith journey. Rethinking Youth Ministry serves as a theological companion and practical guide for all those “working in the trenches” of youth ministry who are seeking to offer students a deeper, more consequential, and active life-long relationship with God through the ministry of Jesus Christ.

Download or read book Church Unique written by Will Mancini and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2010-06-15 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written by church consultant Will Mancini expert on a new kind of visioning process to help churches develop a stunningly unique model of ministry that leads to redemptive movement. He guides churches away from an internal focus to emphasize participation in their community and surrounding culture. In this important book, Mancini offers an approach for rethinking what it means to lead with clarity as a visionary. Mancini explains that each church has a culture that reflects its particular values, thoughts, attitudes, and actions and shows how church leaders can unlock their church's individual DNA and unleash their congregation's one-of-a-kind potential.

Download or read book Unfreezing Moves written by Bill Easum and published by Abingdon Press. This book was released on 2010-10-01 with total page 119 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Prepares Christian congregations to fulfill their basic function - to make disciples who make disciples for Jesus Christ. This book is about helping "stuck" and "unstuck" churches either become unstuck or constantly improve their ministry of making disciples. This book is designed to help church leaders make profound changes in the way they do ministry or constantly practice methodological innovation/improvement to be effective in creating disciples churches.

Download or read book The Missional Quest written by Lance Ford and published by InterVarsity Press. This book was released on 2013-08-26 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lance Ford and Brad Brisco walk leaders through the major shifts involved in converting consumer-model churches into congregations on a quest for the kingdom of God. Addressing everything from sowing the seeds of incarnational thinking to stepping out in the local community, The Missional Questwill prepare your church for the long run.

Download or read book Sentness written by Kim Hammond and published by InterVarsity Press. This book was released on 2014-02-10 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is at the heart of the church's work in the world? It's not church-as-usual, that's for sure. In defiance of the temptations to make the church all about its members, Kim Hammond and Darren Cronshaw call us to embrace our "sentness," to follow Jesus into our world and call it to faith.

Download or read book The Church as Movement written by JR Woodward and published by InterVarsity Press. This book was released on 2016-07-14 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: IVP Readers' Choice Award Missio Alliance Essential Reading List Public gatherings are vital for movement, but too often in our approach to planting churches, we haven't paid enough attention to the difficult grassroots work of movement: discipleship, community formation, and mission. This book will help you start missional-incarnational communities in a way that reflects the viral movement of the early New Testament church. JR Woodward (author of Creating a Missional Culture) and Dan White Jr. (author of Subterranean) have trained church planters all over North America to create movemental churches that are rooted in the neighborhood, based on eight necessary competencies: Movement Intelligence Polycentric Leadership Being Disciples Making Disciples Missional Theology Ecclesial Architecture Community Formation Incarnational Practices The book features an interactive format with tools, exercises, and reflection questions and activities. It's ideal for church planting teams or discipleship groups to use together. It's not enough to understand why the church needs more missional and incarnational congregations.The Church as Movement will also show you how to make disciples that make disciples. This is the engine that drives the church as movement, so that everyday Christians can be present in the world to join God's mission in the way of Jesus.

Download or read book The Missions and Missional Purpose of Ephesians written by Timothy A. van Aarde and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2023-01-12 with total page 411 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The purpose of the letter to the Ephesians is unknown. The book suggests that the purpose of Ephesians is about missions and being missional. The author of Ephesians committed the task of missions to the church. The author located the mission of the church in the redemptive plan of God. The redemptive “plan” (oikonomia) of God consists of historical epochs of missions: the mission of Israel, the mission of Christ, the mission of the disciples, the mission of the apostles, and the mission of the church. The term “missional” has been used ambiguously. The existence of a distinction between the mission of the church and missional church is demonstrated, and both expressions of mission are grounded in the biblical text of Ephesians. The mission of the church is grounded in an exposition of Eph 1–3, and the missional church is grounded in an exposition of Eph 4–6. The author of the letter intended for the mission to the nations to be continued by the church (this is the mission of the church). He intended for the members of the church to continue to reach out to their local community (this is expressed by the missional church). The mission of the church has been grounded in the Great Commission. The missional church is grounded in the values, morals, and lifestyle principles set out in Eph 4–6.

Download or read book Missional Worship Worshipful Mission written by Ruth A. Meyers and published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. This book was released on 2014-12-12 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Too many Christians still think that worship is only a Sunday-morning activity done inside the church, while mission involves how the church engages the outside world. But Ruth Meyers argues that a dynamic relationship exists between worship and mission -- that gathering as God s people includes at its heart our being sent out into the world in God s name. Meyers explores this relationship by taking readers through the various parts of the worship service: gathering, proclaiming the Word, praying for the world, celebrating the Eucharist, and going forth to continue participating in God s mission in the world. In each chapter Meyers includes stories of worship practices in different churches and considers how the actions of worship relate integrally to mission. Missional Worship, Worshipful Mission emphasizes that missional worship is not a set of techniques but rather an approach to worship and congregational life in which God s mission permeates every aspect of what the church does.

Download or read book Missional Communities written by Reggie McNeal and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2011-08-15 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The third book in the trilogy that explores the popular missional movement From Reggie McNeal, the bestselling author of The Present Future and Missional Renaissance, comes the third book in the series that helps to define and illuminate the popular missional movement. This newest book in the trilogy examines a natural outgrowth of the move toward a missional orientation: the deconstruction of congregations into very small Christian communities. For all those thousands of churches and leaders who have followed Reggie McNeal's bold lead, this book details the rise of a new life form in churches. Discusses how to move a church from an internal to an external ministry focus Reggie McNeal is a recognized leader in the missional movement Outlines an alternative to the program church model that is focused on the projects and passions of the congregants This book draws on McNeal's twenty years of leadership roles in local congregations and his work over the last decade with thousands of clergy and church leaders.

Download or read book Missional Map Making written by Alan Roxburgh and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2009-12-30 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Guidance for church leaders to develop their own maps and chart new paths toward stronger, more vibrant, and more missional congregations In the burgeoning missional church movement, churches are seeking to become less focused on programs for members and more oriented toward outreach to people who are not already in church. This fundamental shift in what a congregation is and does and thinks is challenging for leaders and congregants. Using the metaphor of map-making, the book explains the perspective and skills needed to lead congregations and denominations in a time of radical change over unfamiliar terrain as churches change their focus from internal to external. Offers a clear guide for leaders wanting to transition to a missional church model Written by Alan Roxburgh, a prominent expert and practitioner in the missional movement Guides leaders seeking to create new maps for leadership and church organization and focus A Volume in the popular Leadership Network Series This book is written to be accessible to all Christian congregational styles and denominations.

Download or read book Missional Church written by Darrell L. Guder and published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. This book was released on 1998-02-09 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What would a theology of the Church look like that took seriously the fact that North America is now itself a mission field? This question lies at the foundation of this volume written by an ecumenical team of six noted missiologists—Lois Barrett, Inagrace T. Dietterich, Darrell L. Guder, George R. Hunsberger, Alan J. Roxburgh, and Craig Van Gelder. The result of a three-year research project undertaken by The Gospel and Our Culture Network, this book issues a firm challenge for the church to recover its missional call right here in North America, while also offering the tools to help it do so. The authors examine North America s secular culture and the church s loss of dominance in today s society. They then present a biblically based theology that takes seriously the church s missional vocation and draw out the consequences of this theology for the structure and institutions of the church.

Download or read book Missional Renaissance written by Reggie McNeal and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2009-02-03 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reggie McNeal's bestseller The Present Future is the definitive work on the "missional movement," i.e., the widespread movement among Protestant churches to be less inwardly focused and more oriented toward the culture and community around them. In that book he asked the tough questions that churches needed to entertain to begin to think about who they are and what they are doing; in Missional Renaissance, he shows them the three significant shifts in their thinking and behavior that they need to make that will allow leaders to chart a course toward being missional: (1) from an internal to an external focus, ending the church as exclusive social club model; (2) from running programs and ministries to developing people as its core activity; and (3) from professional leadership to leadership that is shared by everyone in the community. With in-depth discussions of the "what" and the "how" of transitioning to being a missional church, readers will be equipped to move into what McNeal sees as the most viable future for Christianity. For all those thousands of churches who are asking about what to do next after reading The Present Future, Missional Renaissance will provide the answer.

Download or read book The Forgotten Ways written by Alan Hirsch and published by Brazos Press. This book was released on 2016-09-20 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Alan Hirsch's paradigm-shifting classic remains the definitive statement of the church as dynamic missional movement. The bestselling first edition ignited a conversation about how to harness the power of movements for the future growth of the church. In this major update, Hirsch shares significant insights gained along the way, provides fresh new examples of growing churches, and reflects on the last ten years of the missional movement. The new edition has been thoroughly updated and revised throughout and includes charts, diagrams, an expanded glossary of terms, new appendices, an index, a new foreword by Ed Stetzer, and a new afterword by Jeff Vanderstelt. Known for his innovative approach to mission, Hirsch is widely acknowledged as a thought leader and mission strategist for churches across the Western world. He considers The Forgotten Ways the guiding work to all of his other writings. The book explores the factors that come together to generate high-impact, exponentially explosive, spiritually vibrant Jesus movements in any time and context. This extensive update to Hirsch's influential work offers a system of six vital keys to movements that will continue shape the future of the missional movement for years to come.

Download or read book The Road to Missional Shapevine written by Michael Frost and published by Baker Books. This book was released on 2011-10-01 with total page 158 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It has recently become acceptable, and even fashionable, to refer to one's church as "missional." But many churches misunderstand the concept, thinking of "going missional" as simply being a necessary add-on to church-as-usual. This domestication of what is actually a very bold paradigm shift makes missional nothing more than one more trick to see church growth. With a light hand and a pastoral spirit, Michael Frost points out how church practitioners are not quite there yet. He reestablishes the ground rules, redefines the terms accurately, and insists that the true prophetic essence of "being missional" comes through undiluted. This clear corrective will take ministry leaders from "not missional yet" to well on their way.