Download or read book Sustainable Church written by Walt Russell and published by . This book was released on 2016-06-01 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sustainable Church is a thorough, Bible-based exposition of how the ministry of every church should be organically built around all of the Spirit-gifted followers of Jesus within that local body. It critiques the shallow pragmatism and unsustainability of non-organic churches and biblically showcases the sustainability of the organic church. "Body Discipleship" is a key part of the church's sustainability and the author explains biblically how it corrects the model of discipleship that has been popular for the last 2-3 generations. Additionally, Sustainable Church showcases the servant-model of biblical leaders who are supposed to equip the saints to do the work of ministry on behalf of Jesus, the true Pastor/Shepherd of every local church!

Download or read book Sustainable Youth Ministry written by Mark DeVries and published by ReadHowYouWant.com. This book was released on 2010-11-29 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: You're looking for a youth pastor. Again. What goes wrong? Why do youth ministries crumble? And what is the cost to students, parents, volunteers and church staff? Is a sustainable youth ministry possible, even after a youth pastor leaves? Youth ministry expert Mark DeVries knows the answer is yes, because he helps build sustainable youth minist...

Download or read book Evangelism through the Local Church written by Michael Green and published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. This book was released on 2023-09-28 with total page 712 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive guide to practical evangelism: its biblical basis, theological backbone, and current practice Michael Green draws from a lifetime’s experience in this seminal work on the theory and practice of evangelism. Green shows how the good news of Christ is communicated most effectively through the local church. This comprehensive resource includes a primer on Christian apologetics and concrete suggestions for congregations and individuals sharing the gospel. Green challenges the hang-ups which so often accompany the very mention of evangelism. His classic work will continue to inspire new generations of evangelists.

Download or read book Sustainable Development Goals and the Catholic Church written by Katarzyna Cichos and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-11-29 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book identifies both the consistencies and disparities between Catholic Social Teaching and the United Nation’s (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). With Pope Francis’ Laudato si’ encyclical, Catholicism seems to be engaging more than ever with environmental and developmental concerns. However, there remains the question of how these theological statements will be put into practice. The ongoing involvement of the Catholic Church in social matters makes it a significant potential partner in issues around development. Therefore, with the use of the comparative method, this book brings together authors from multiple disciplines to assess how the political and legal aspects of each of the UN’s 17 SDGs are addressed by Catholic Social Teaching. Chapters answer the question of how the Catholic Church evaluates the concept of sustainable development as defined by the Agenda 2030 Goals, as well as assessing how and if it can contribute to shaping the contemporary concept of global development. Examining the potential level of cooperation between the international community and the Catholic Church in the implementation of the Agenda 2030 Goals, this volume will be of keen interest to scholars of Catholic Studies, Religious Studies and the Sociology of Religion, as well as Environmental Studies and Development Studies.

Download or read book For God So Loved the World written by Jorge H Barro and published by Fortress Press. This book was released on 2021-08-10 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: _ _What does poverty reduction, education, health, gender equality and environmental sustainability have to do with the Church and God's mission? These are some of the UN's 17 Sustainable Development Goals, set out in 2015 for sustainable future. In this book, 28 Brazilian specialists reflect on each goal in relation to the mission of God. _

Download or read book The Coming Revolution in Church Economics written by Mark DeYmaz and published by Baker Books. This book was released on 2019-10-15 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Our entire understanding of funding and sustainability must change. Tithes and offerings alone are no longer enough to provide for the needs of the local church, enable pastors to pursue opportunities, or sustain long-term ministry impact. Growing financial burdens on the middle class, marginal increases in contributions to religious organizations, shifting generational attitudes toward giving, and changing demographics are having a negative impact on church budgets. Given that someday local churches may be required to pay taxes on the property they own and/or lose the benefit of soliciting tax-deductible gifts, the time to pivot is now. What's needed is disruptive innovation in church economics. For churches to not only survive but thrive in the future, leaders must learn to leverage assets, bless the community, empower entrepreneurs, and create multiple streams of income to effectively fund mission. You'll learn why you should and how to do so in The Coming Revolution in Church Economics.

Download or read book Ordinary written by Michael Horton and published by Zondervan. This book was released on 2014-10-07 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Radical. Crazy. Transformative and restless. Every word we read these days seems to suggest there’s a “next-best-thing,” if only we would change our comfortable, compromising lives. In fact, the greatest fear most Christians have is boredom—the sense that they are missing out on the radical life Jesus promised. One thing is certain. No one wants to be “ordinary.” Yet pastor and author Michael Horton believes that our attempts to measure our spiritual growth by our experiences, constantly seeking after the next big breakthrough, have left many Christians disillusioned and disappointed. There’s nothing wrong with an energetic faith; the danger is that we can burn ourselves out on restless anxieties and unrealistic expectations. What’s needed is not another program or a fresh approach to spiritual growth; it’s a renewed appreciation for the commonplace. Far from a call to low expectations and passivity, Horton invites readers to recover their sense of joy in the ordinary. He provides a guide to a sustainable discipleship that happens over the long haul—not a quick fix that leaves readers empty with unfulfilled promises. Convicting and ultimately empowering, Ordinary is not a call to do less; it’s an invitation to experience the elusive joy of the ordinary Christian life.

Download or read book Sustainable Young Adult Ministry written by Mark DeVries and published by InterVarsity Press. This book was released on 2019-08-20 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Young adult ministry can scare us, but what if it's not as enigmatic as we've been led to believe? Full of practical advice from their own experience (and a wealth of additional resources), this book from Scott Pontier and Mark DeVries explores six common mistakes churches make in their efforts to reach young adults, offering six paradoxes that return us to a simpler, more biblical ministry model.

Download or read book Holy Currencies written by Eric H F Law and published by Chalice Press. This book was released on 2013-03-31 with total page 185 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Called a "must read for Christians paralyzed in survival mode," Holy Currencies teaches you how your ministry can become sustainable, grow, and thrive. Money is not the only currency your ministry needs. Author Eric H. F. Law shows us how the six blessings of time and place, gracious leadership, relationship, truth, wellness, and money flow through successful missional ministries. And they can flow through your ministry too! Learn how to use these gifts to rejuvenate, recirculate, regenerate, and expand your ministry through Law's insightful stories, instruction, processes, exercises, and activities. Tools in the book help evaluate how your church uses each gift and enables church members to measure and value the six blessings. Holy Currencies will push you to think beyond your church's current boundaries and create rich, sustainable missional ministries.

Download or read book The Green Good News written by T. Wilson Dickinson and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2019-12-11 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When was the last time that we heard some good news? For those tuned in to the ecological crisis and the daily chronicle of injustice, the declaration of good news might seem synonymous with denial and avoidance. The gospel of Jesus Christ helps us to face the suffering of the world and live in love and hope. The only catch is, it requires that we change. It is only by losing our consumeristic, profit-seeking, and isolated lives that we may save them. The Green Good News finds a fresh take on the Gospels, painting a picture of Jesus as a humorous and subversive teacher, an organizer of alternative communities and food economies, as a healer of bodies and relationships, and as a prophet who sought to overturn an empire and restore a more just and joyful way of life. Christ teaches and incarnates a vision for sustainable life and provides practices that mark the path toward it. By exploring this always-inspiring sustainable gospel, we can find ways to transform our lives, communities, and even creation.

Download or read book Sustaining Grace written by Scott J. Hagley and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2020-06-30 with total page 154 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sustaining Grace explores the dynamic between new faith communities and denominational systems through the lens of stewardship and sustainability. As a collection, these essays suggest that to facilitate ecologies for innovation in our current era, established congregations and new faith communities must model the sustaining grace of God to one another in creative ways. Thus, problems of sustainability are not for church planters to solve alone, but rather are related to the theologies of stewardship and the ecclesial system to which they belong. Issues of vision are not for denominational systems to theorize alone, but are given shape on their historic foundations in the creative and prophetic structures practiced in new faith communities. This book speaks to a central tension in the growing movement of church planting—the mutual need of and the mutual frustration between establishment leaders and innovators, conservators and risk takers. Standing at the contact point of that tension in one of the wealthiest mainline denominations, 1001 New Worshipping Communities and Pittsburgh Theological Seminary engage the question of faithful stewardship with voices reflecting and strategizing on each side of the tension, broadening the conversation to include those beyond the Presbyterian Church, and bringing both the academy and practitioners from church judicatories, church plants, and traditional church communities to offer a theologically grounded, practical, and generative conversation.

Download or read book The Unstuck Church written by Tony Morgan and published by Thomas Nelson. This book was released on 2017-05-16 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Acclaimed church leader, blogger, founder and chief strategic officer of The Unstuck Group, Tony Morgan unpacks the lifecycle of a typical church, identifies characteristics of each phase, and provides practical next steps a church can take to move towards sustained health. Think about your church for a moment. Is it growing? Is it diminishing? Is it somewhere in between? Acclaimed church leader, blogger, and founder and chief strategic officer of The Unstuck Group, Tony Morgan has identified the seven stages of a church's lifecycle that range from the hopeful and optimistic days of launch, to the stagnating last stages of life support. Regardless of the stage in which you find your church, it carries with it the world's greatest mission—to "go and make disciples of all the nations . . ." With eternity at stake the Church should be doing most everything within its power to see lives changed forever. The Church should strive for the pinnacle of the lifecycle, where they are continually making new disciples and experiencing what Morgan refers to as "sustained health." In The Unstuck Church, Morgan unpacks each phase of the church lifecycle, and offers specific and strategic next steps the church leader can take to find it's way to sustained health . . . and finally become unstuck. The Unstuck Church is a call for honest an assessment of where your church sits on the lifecycle, and a challenge to move beyond it.

Download or read book Green Church written by Rebekah Simon-Peter and published by Abingdon Press. This book was released on 2010 with total page 146 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good." -Genesis 1:31 What the Bible says about taking care of the earth. From extreme weather events to oil spills to climate change, Planet Earth is in the news. What does this mean for Christians and how does it impact the life of faith? Green Church answers these questions in ways both hopeful and engaging. Citing both Scripture and science, Rebekah Simon-Peter weaves together personal stories of Sabbath, gardening, recycling, mentoring, and the power of faith. She challenges us to consider our role in the care of creation and to help steward the earth for future generations. Includes Green Facts, Spotlight on Science and Greening the Church follow up steps. Use as a stand-alone book, small group selection or as part of a church wide campaign. You can study the book by yourself or get a small group together at your church and work through the book together using the Green Church Leader Guide. Use the resources for Children and Youth at the same time for a churchwide study. Whether reading the book on your own or participating in a study, don't forget to get a copy of 7 Simple Steps to Green Your Church, which will show you how to implement a green plan at your church. Be sure to Like Green Church at www.Facebook.com/GreenChurch "What a remarkable Book! Green Church is the most direct, attractive, and no-nonsense argument I have yet seen for the holy obligations to Christian greennes. This and its companion volume, 7 Simple Steps to Green Your Church, should be 'must reads' for every church in North America." ~ Phillis Tickle, author of The Great Emergence: How Christianity Is Changing and Why

Download or read book Seven Simple Steps to Green Your Church written by Rebekah Simon-Peter and published by Abingdon Press. This book was released on 2010-03-01 with total page 138 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: You’re concerned about care of Creation, and you want to help. Start by greening your church! This little handbook takes you, step by step, through the process of making your church more environmentally friendly. Areas of focus include: The Resurrected Life: Recycling Let There Be Light: Lighting Praise the Lord: Worship Jesus Saves: Electricity and Energy Efficiency To Everything There is a Season: Heating and Cooling The Wells of Salvation: Water Train Up a Child: Christian Education What Would Jesus Drive: Vehicles and Travel Bread of Life: The Kitchen Gifts of Administration: The Office Go and Do Likewise: Missions The Gardener of Eden: Grounds Rebekah Simon-Peter, an ordained United Methodist pastor with a degree in Environmental Studies, worked as an acid rain researcher and volunteer naturalist before receiving her call to ministry. After more than a decade of pastoring churches, she is now a sought-after presenter, sharing the “green” gospel with churches, interfaith groups, and community groups. She lives in Rawlins, Wyoming, where she is the director of BridgeWorks, a ministry that specializes in building bridges of understanding.

Download or read book Sustainable Power written by Simon Holley and published by Authentic Media Inc. This book was released on 2013-06-01 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Simon Holley is the pastor of the King's Arms, a church in Bedford, UK, which has seen God move in remarkable ways in healing. Here he tells the fascinating story of their church community's journey into faith. As he and others in the church learn to hear God and trust that he will keep his promises, they find themselves in exciting encounters with his healing power both inside the church and while going about their day-to-day lives. From many years of reaching out for more of God's blessings while keeping his feet firmly on the ground, Simon shares simply and honestly what he and his church have learned.

Download or read book Faith Hope and Sustainability written by Cybelle T. Shattuck and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2021-06-01 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Faith, Hope, and Sustainability explores the experiences of fifteen faith communities striving to care for the earth and live more sustainably. A church in Maine partners with fishermen to create the first community-supported fishery so they can make a living without overfishing. A Jewish congregation in Illinois raises extra funds to construct a green synagogue that expresses their religious mission to heal the world. Benedictine sisters in Wisconsin adopt caring for the earth as part of their mission and begin restoring one hundred acres of prairie, reviving their community in the process. Presbyterians in Virginia, dismayed by air pollution in Shenandoah National Park, take courage from their conviction that "God does not call us to do little things" and advocate for improved national air pollution policies. Stories such as these highlight the variety of environmental actions that people of faith are enacting through congregational venues. Beyond simply narrating inspiring stories, however, this book compares these case studies to explore in detail the processes through which the communities took action. In addition to examining why faith communities engage in earth care, Cybelle T. Shattuck explores how they put intention into action and how the congregational context affects what they do. She introduces an analytical framework focusing on four domains of activity—champions, faith leaders, congregations, and organizations—to explicate the full range of factors that influence how initiatives develop and whether sustainability becomes embedded in these religious organizations. Both the framework and the information on process presented in this book will be highly useful to scholars and to people of faith interested in implementing an earth-care ethic through sustainability programs.

Download or read book Creating Financially Sustainable Congregations written by James L. Elrod and published by Church Publishing, Inc.. This book was released on 2021-06-17 with total page 129 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How can growing churches develop a financial framework that will enhance their mission? The declining trends in religious belief and practice in twenty-first-century America are well documented, but they mask the vitality and growth experienced by many individual congregations. Unfortunately, leaders of these growing churches sometimes lack a firm grasp on what’s required for their church to maintain financial equilibrium. This is true for newly formed congregations as well as established churches. This book, which does not assume readers’ familiarity with principles of accounting or finance, will help facilitate constructive conversations between clergy and lay leaders on money matters. By describing in everyday language some of the practical issues that promote (or erode) financial sustainability, this book will remove the mystery and frustration faith communities often experience when discussing their financial challenges. What activities within the organization’s control promote long-term financial sustainability? The answers create a framework that is a prerequisite for meeting any church’s missional objectives over the long run.