|
Organic Church: Growing Faith Where Life
Happens
by Neil Cole
Churches have tried all kinds of ways to attract new and younger
members - revised vision statements, hipper worship, contemporary music,
livelier sermons, bigger and better auditoriums. But there are still so
many people who aren't being reached, who don't want to come to church.
And the truth is that attendance at church on Sundays does not
necessarily transform lives; God's presence in our hearts is what
changes us. Leaders and laypeople everywhere are realizing that they
need new and more powerful ways to help them spread God's Word.
According to international church starter and pastor Neil Cole, if we
want to connect with young people and those who are not coming to
church, we must go where people congregate. Cole shows readers how to
plant the seeds of the Kingdom of God in the places where life happens
and where culture is formed - restaurants, bars, coffeehouses, parks,
locker rooms,and neighborhoods. Organic Church offers a hands-on
guide for demystifying this new model of church and shows the practical
aspects of implementing it.
The Present
Future: Six Tough Questions for the Church
by Reggie McNeal
McNeal identifies the six most important realities that church leaders
must address including: recapturing the spirit of Christianity and
replacing "church growth" with a wider vision of kingdom growth;
developing disciples instead of church members; fostering the rise of a
new apostolic leadership; focusing on spiritual formation rather than
church programs; and shifting from prediction and planning to
preparation for the challenges of an uncertain world. McNeal contends
that by changing the questions church leaders ask themselves about their
congregations and their plans, they can frame the core issues and
approach the future with new eyes, new purpose, and new ideas.
They Like
Jesus But Not the Church
by Dan Kimball
Many
people today, especially among emerging generations, don't resonate with
the church and organized Christianity. Some are leaving the church and
others were never part of the church in the first place. Sometimes it's
because of misperceptions about the church. Yet often they are still
spiritually open and fascinated with Jesus. This is a ministry resource
book exploring six of the most common objects and misunderstandings
emerging generations have about the church and Christianity. The
objections come from conversations and interviews the church has had
with unchurched twenty and thirty-somethings at coffee houses. Each
chapter raises the objection using a conversational approach, provides
the biblical answers to that objection, gives examples of how churches
are addressing this objection, and concludes with follow through
projection suggestions, discussion questions, and resource listings
The Emerging
Church: Vintage Christianity for New Generations
by Dan Kimball
Churches are noticing less and less emerging generations in their
midst. The Emerging Church, winner of the 2004 Christianity Today Book
Award, explores the cultural changes impacting churches and offers
practical advice of how they can creatively reach emerging generations.
Some of the "spiritual" things that were removed from churches are the
very things that post-Christian generations are connecting with and find
attractive in a church.
Houses
That Change the World
by Wolfgang Simson
Before they were
called Christians, followers of Jesus were called “The Way”. One of the
reasons was because they had literally found the way to live. The
nature of church is not reflected by a series of religious meetings led
by professional clergy in holy places specially reserved to experience
Jesus. Rather, it is the prophetic way followers of Christ live their
everyday lives in spiritual extended families and in a place where it
counts most—in their homes.
The Master’s Plan for
Making Disciples: Every Christian an Effective Witness through an
Enabling Church
by Win Arn and Charles Arn
Details nine principles for reaching others for Christ through
networks of family and friends.
Prayer: Does
it Make a Difference
by Philip Yancey
Philip Yancey probes the very heartbeat of our relationship with
God: prayer. What is prayer? Does it change God’s mind or ours—or both?
This book is an invitation to communicate with God the Father who
invites us into an eternal partnership through prayer. Philip Yancey
has written many other excellent books, too.
The Church of
Irresistible Influence: Bridge-Building Stories to Help You Reach Your
Community
by Robert Lewis
Story of how a church can become an irresistible influence on its
neighborhood, community, and world by building bridges over to a dying
culture through showing the love of God in action.
The Shape of Things to
Come: Innovation and Mission for the 21st Century
by Michael
Frost and Alan Hirsch
Presenting the
Gospel through the culture that God has called us into. Think outside
the box and imagine what church could be. This book has a textbook
style which is not a quick read, but the information is worth reading.
The Forgotten Ways:Reactivating the Missional Church
by Alan Hirsch
Alan Hirsch cites the power of the early church, which grew from as
few as 25,000 adherents in AD 100 to up to 20 million in AD 310. Such
incredible growth is also being experienced today in the church in China
and other parts of the world. How do they do it? The Forgotten Ways
explores the concept of Apostolic Genius as a way to understand what
caused the church to expand at various times in history, interpreting it
for use in our own time and place.
Cultivating a Life for
God: Multiplying Disciples Through Life
Transformation Groups
by Neil Cole
We
need to get back the power that spread the gospel across the globe in
the first century. By the same author as Organic Church, Cultivating
a Life for God takes an in-depth look at a tool called Life
Transformation Groups
and
explains how this tool can release the awesome power of multiplication
in your church.
Simple
Church: Returning to God’s
Process for Making Disciples
By Thom S. Rainer and Eric Geiger
The simple revolution has begun. From the design of
the iPod to the uncluttered Google home page, simple ideas are changing
the world. Simple Church clearly calls for Christians to return
to the simple gospel-sharing methods of Jesus. No bells or whistles
required, so to speak.
Jaded: Hope for
Believers Who Have Given Up on Church But Not on God
by A.J. Kiesling
This books tells the stories of several
Christians who have left the walls of the institutional church and now
live spiritually passionate lives through unconventional means of
worship.
God’s Simple
Plan for His Church
by Nate Krupp
A manual for the house church/simple church.
Mega Shift:
Igniting Spiritual Power
by James Rutz
Traditional, clergy-centered Christianity, with its
expensive buildings and its performances for spectators, cannot contain
this grass-roots move of God. So the church is beginning to find ways to
pour itself into small, fast-growing, open fellowships that bring a
stronger experience of the presence of God.
Freedom From
the Religious Spirit: Understanding Deceptive Religious Forces by
C. Peter Wagner, Senior
Editor
An eye-opening account of Satan’s schemes to make
us dependent upon religion rather than God.
The Language of God: A
Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief
by Francis Collins
(From a review by Publishers Weekly)
Francis Collins was the head of the Human Genome Project.
Following the lead of C.S. Lewis, whose Mere Christianity was
influential in Collins's conversion from atheism, the book argues that
belief in a transcendent, personal God—and even the possibility of an
occasional miracle—can and should coexist with a scientific picture of
the world. Addressing in turn fellow scientists and fellow believers,
Collins insists that "science is not threatened by God; it is
enhanced”. Collins's credibility as a scientist and his sincerity as a
believer make for an engaging combination, especially for those who,
like him, resist being forced to choose between science and God.
Quiet Strength: The Principles, Practices, & Priorities of a Winning Life
by Tony Dungy
“I really wanted to show people you can win all kinds of ways…For your faith to be more important than your job, for your family to be more important than that job…we all know that’s the way it should be…I’m not afraid to say it.” – Tony Dungy
|
