A missional imagination is needed to create environments for Christians in which to flourish as active agents of Christ promoting an engaging and harmonious life with God and with neighbors.This book will name several key theological principles and strategic principles to be implemented for creating environments for missional engagement. The local church will be utilized to provide examples of how these principles can be deployed. The book will also propose future endeavours that w...

Practical and Gospel-centered thoughts on how to have a fruitful ministry by one of America's leading and most beloved pastor.Many church leaders are struggling to adapt to a culture that values individuality above loyalty to a group or institution. There have been so many "church growth" and "effective ministry" books in the past few decades that it's hard to know where to start or which ones will provide useful and honest insight.Based on over twenty year...

Close to 60 percent of young people who went to church as teens drop out after high school. Now the bestselling author of unChristian trains his researcher's eye on these young believers. Where Kinnaman's first book unChristian showed the world what outsiders aged 16-29 think of Christianity, You Lost Me shows why younger Christians aged 16-29 are leaving the church and rethinking their faith.Based on new research, You Lost Me shows pastors, chur...

Readers' Choice Award WinnerBest Books About the Church from Byron Borger, Hearts and Minds BookstoreFast food. Fast cars. Fast and furious. Fast forward. Fast . . . church?The church is oftenidealized (or demonized) as the last bastion of a bygone era, dragging our feet as we're pulled into new moralities and new spiritualities. We guard our doctrine and our piety with great vigilance. But we often fail to notice how quickly we're ...

A new brand of apostolic ministry for today's worldThe Permanent Revolution is a work of theological re-imagination and re-construction that draws from biblical studies, theology, organizational theory, leadership studies, and key social sciences. The book elaborates on the apostolic role rooted in the five-fold ministry from Ephesians 4 (apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, and teacher), and its significance for the missional movement. It explores ...

In his bestselling missional book The Forgotten Ways, internationally known missional church expert Alan Hirsch offered a vision for the future growth of the church coming about by harnessing the power of the early church. Now The Forgotten Ways Handbook moves beyond theory to practice, offering ways for any missionally minded person to apply the ideas contained in The Forgotten Ways to their life and ministry.This intensely practical handbook includes ma...

As Helen Keller observed, "Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing."To Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch, so much of how we have learned to experience and understand the faith has been divorced from the overarching adventure inherent in our God and in our calling. This book is a corrective...

The burgeoning missional church movement is a sign that believers are increasingly feeling the call to impact their communities, which is a good thing. But, says Alan J. Roxburgh, these conversations still prioritize church success over mission--how can being missional grow my church? But to focus on such questions misses the point.In Missional, Roxburgh calls Christians to reenter their neighborhoods and communities to discover what the Spirit is doing there--to start wit...

In this provocative book, author, consultant, and church leadership developer Reggie McNeal debunks these and other old assumptions and provides an overall strategy to help church leaders move forward in an entirely different and much more effective way. In The Present Future, 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; deve...

Many pastors and church leaders have heard the term "missional" but have only a vague idea of what it means, let alone why it might be important to them. But what does it actually mean? What does a missional church look like and how does it function? Two leading voices in the missional movement here provide an accessible introduction, showing readers how the movement developed, why it's important, and how churches can become more missional.Introducing the Missional Church ...

Much ministry to children looks more like mere entertainment than authentic spiritual formation. But what if children's ministries were rooted in a mind set whereby we taught children, with our words and actions, how the story of God, the story of church history, the story of the local community, and the story of the child intersect and speak to one another? What if children's ministry was less about downloading information into kids' heads and more about leading them into these powerful, ...

"A pre-modern baseball umpire would have said something like this: 'There's balls, and there's strikes, and I call 'em as they are.' The modernist would have said, 'There's balls, and there's strikes, and I call 'em as I see 'em.' And the postmodernist umpire would say, 'They ain't nothing until I call 'em.'" With that humorous quote, Ravi Zacharias illustrates the challenge postmodernism poses to Christians passionate about evangelism. How do you communicate truth to a world that isn't su...