Evangelism doesn't have to be frustrating or intimidating. Bill Hybels and Mark Mittelberg believe that effectively communicating our faith in Christ should be the most natural thing in the world. We just need encouragement and direction. In Becoming a Contagious Christian, Hybels and Mittelberg articulate the central principles that have helped the believers at Willow Creek Community Church become a church known around the world for its outstanding outreach to unchurched people. Based on the words of Jesus and flowing from the firsthand experiences of the authors, Becoming a Contagious Christian is a groundbreaking, personalized approach to relational evangelism. You will discover your own natural evangelism style, how to develop a contagious Christian character, to build spiritually strategic relationships, to direct conversations toward matters of faith, and to share biblical truths in everyday language. This landmark book presents a blueprint for starting a spiritual epidemic of hope and enthusiasm for spreading the Gospel.
Breakout Churches
Can Your Church Become One?
This is the story of thirteen churches and the leaders who moved them from stagnancy to growth and from mediocrity to greatness. Drawing on one of the most comprehensive studies ever on the church, this book reveals the process of becoming a 'breakout' church and the factors that lead to this spiritual metamorphosis.
Eighty percent of the approximately 400,000 churches in the United States are either declining or at a plateau. Is there hope for the American church? Breakout Churches offers a resounding 'yes!' and offers specific examples and principles to help you and your church become more effective.
Mysterious, intricate, pulsing with energy...
The human body is an endlessly fascinating repository of secrets. The miracle of the skin, the strength and structure of the bones, the dynamic balance of the muscles . . .your physical being is knit according to a pattern of incredible purpose. In Fearfully and Wonderfully Made, renowned surgeon Dr. Paul Brand and best-selling writer Philip Yancey explore the human body. Join them in a remarkable journey through inner space -- a spellbinding world of cells, systems, and chemistry that bears the impress of a still deeper, unseen reality. This Gold medallion Award-winning book uncovers eternal statements that God has made in the very structure of our bodies, presenting captivating insights into the Body of Christ.
With so many Bible translations available today, how can you find those that will be most useful to you? What is the difference between a translation that calls itself 'literal' and one that is more 'meaning-based'? And what difference does it make for you as a reader of God's Word?
How to Choose a Translation for All Its Worth brings clarity and insight to the current debate over translations and translation theories. Written by two seasoned Bible translators, here is an authoritative guide through the maze of translations issues, written in language that everyday Bible readers can understand.
Learn the truth about both the word-for-word and meaning-for-meaning translations approaches. Find out what goes into the whole process of translation, and what makes a translation accurate and reliable. Discover the strengths and potential weaknesses of different contemporary English Bible versions. In the midst of the present confusion over translations, this authoritative book speaks with an objective, fair-minded, and reassuring voice to help pastors, everyday Bible readers, and students make wise, well-informed choices about which Bible translations they can depend on and which will best meet their needs.
What if you knew that by simply crossing the room and saying hello to someone, you could change that person's forever? Just a few steps to make an eternal difference. It has nothing to do with methods and everything to do with taking a genuine interest in another human being. All you need is a heart that's in tune with the Holy Spirit and a willingness to venture out of your 'Circle of Comfort' and into another person's life.
Just Walk Across the Room brings personal evangelism into the twenty-first century. Building on the solid foundation laid in Becoming a Contagious Christian, Bill Hybels shows how you can participate in the model first set by Jesus, who stepped down from heaven 2,000 years ago to bring hope and redemption to broken people living in a fallen world. Now it's your turn. Your journey may not be as dramatic, but it can have a life-changing impact for someone standing a few steps away from you---and for you as well, as you learn the power of extending care, compassion, and inclusiveness under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
The highest value in personal evangelism is cooperating with the Spirit, says Hybels. This means playing only the role you're meant to play---walking when the Spirit says to walk, talking when he says to talk, and falling silent when he suggests that you've said enough. Hybels encourages you to 'live in 3D' ...
---Developing friendships
---Discovering stories
---Discerning appropriate next steps
... as a means of learning to understand the Holy Spirit's promptings. With fresh perspectives from his own reflections and experiences collected during his most recent decade of ministry, Bill Hybels shows with convincing and inspiring clarity the power of this personal, richly relational approach to evangelism.
The stakes are high. The implications are eternal. And you may be only a conversation away from having an eternal impact on someone's life---if you will just walk across the room.
Insights from Effective Churches on New Member Classes and Assimilation
Findings from a national study to improve membership classes and to motivate current members into active ministry.
How do churches move members---both old and new---into ministry? Many church staff and lay leaders know they need to start new member classes as a point of entry into their churches but don't know how. This book is based on a national study of effective churches and shows how growing churches implement new member classes and motivate their members into ministry.
Membership Matters is designed to be a guide for church leaders wanting to start or improve a membership class. It includes models for classes and examples of resources such as church covenants, class schedules, and lesson outlines. It also gives direction on motivating uninvolved members to participate in ministry. One chapter chronicles an ongoing discussion among pastors of growing churches that are effectively motivating members to do ministry.
"Night Watch" was radio's first "reality show", a program that brought live and authentic police drama to the airwaves. Each week, Don Reed accompanied Officer Ron Perkins on the night watch in Culver City, California. Traveling in an unmarked car, Reed used a heavy battery-powered tape recorder, complete with a microphone cleverly concealed inside the casing of a flashlight, to participate in and record real police calls. These were authentic, unscripted, and unrehearsed adventures, with no actors, no expectations, and nothing planned in advance.
We've read all the hot books on evangelism, we've attended scores of seminars---and still we're not reaching the unchurched. Eighty to ninety percent of churchless Americans will never darken our culturally relevant, seeker-sensitive doors. What are we missing?
Maybe we've been asking the wrong people. Instead of consulting the unchurched masses, it's time we heard what the small but important minority who have recently begun attending a church have to say. What made the difference for them? What critical factors helped spark their faith in Jesus and drew them into the community of believers?
Thom S. Rainer, dean of the Billy Graham School of Missions, Evangelism and Church Growth, shares the results and conclusions of his school's groundbreaking survey of the formerly unchurched. At last, here are proven insights into what evangelistically effective churches are doing right. Flying in the face of much contemporary wisdom, the answers will surprise you.
This is truly one of the most valuable resources you can own as a church leader. Filled with charts, graphs, and other visual aids, plus an abundance of true-life accounts, this book explodes common myths about the unchurched. You'll discover
Why pastors and doctrinal preaching are critical
The enormous influence of family and relationships
Which things matter more than we'd thought, and which matter less
What causes visitors to return
The traits of unchurched-reaching leaders
How to preach effectively to the unchurched
How to become a church for the unchurched
And much, much more
This eye-opening compendium of information includes reproducible appendices that can help you fine-tune or even restructure your church. From one of the nations foremost authorities on evangelism and church growth, here are insights and tools that will change the way you think of and deal with--and win--unchurched men and women who long to connect with God.
Photocopyable material includes
Unchurched-Reaching Readiness Inventory
Church Health Survey
Healthcare CEO Don Jernigan shares leadership lessons on changing culture, using mission to achieve results, building effective teams, and creating a world class organization.
Everybody wants to be successful. Every leader wants her organization to achieve long-term viability. But nonprofits face special challenges.
Don Jernigan, CEO of the largest Protestant healthcare system in the country, shows how you can build on the right foundation, creating an atmosphere of trust. That essential component of leadership can make any organization―faith-based or secular―outstanding in its field. He breaks down the strategies that have served him in his career, from staying true to your mission in times of trial, to rethinking your vision as circumstances change, to demonstrating your values in day-to-day work.
Stories from his experiences in the healthcare sector vividly illustrate the lessons of this valuable guide to reinvigorating your organization. Throughout, the book lays out specific ways in which you can test your progress, measure your advances, and see more precisely how to achieve your goals.
The Multiplying Church is a primer for pastors and lay leaders involved in, or wanting to learn about, the church multiplication groundswell in North America. It shows how multiplying churches should be a natural, regular function of every church to reach the 70 percent of Americans who have no meaningful church relationship.
Detailing the stories and guiding principles of this dramatic growth, this guide offers insight on:
* Why churches are multiplying in the East but not in the West
* Keys to church multiplication
* The missing link---pregnant mother churches
* Antioch vs. Jerusalem: Which got it right?
* What kind of churches should we start?
* What is the end game of church planting?
* How big does a church have to be to start multiplying churches?
* Church planting movements or Jesus movements?
Bob Roberts helps us return to an early-church model of multiplication where a single church sent laypeople out to plant other communities of believers.
I found myself lying on the floor of my apartment, sobbing for hours on end: 'God, I'm doing everything I'm supposed to do, and I still don't feel closer to you. In fact, I feel worse than ever! How could this have gone wrong? I can't see any way out. Help me.'
As a university student, Andrew Farley found himself physically and emotionally addicted to street evangelism and Bible study. Yet despite his fervid behavior, he knew something was missing. That something was an understanding of the gospel that is stripped of the compromises and cliches of the modern church.
The Naked Gospel finds friends among those who are burned out on experience-chasing, ceremonialism, or legalism. It attacks churchy jargon and powerless ideas and puts forth a message that is simple but life-changing. With a fresh take on Scripture and unapologetic style, The Naked Gospel will challenge you and stir you to re-examine everything you thought you already knew.
If You Invite Them, They Will Come.
It's true. In a national survey done by author Thom Rainer and his staff, eight out of ten unchurched men and women said they would come to church---if only someone would invite them. When and how is the next big question. Rainer helps you figure out where your neighbors, friends, and coworkers are in their spiritual quest, and how you can know who among the unchurched people in your life are receptive to Christ.
In this fascinating book, Rainer identifies five 'faith stages'---levels of responsiveness, prefixed with a 'U' for 'Unchurched'---that represent your running buddy, your sister-in-law, or your hairdresser:
U1 Highly receptive to hearing and believing the Good News
U2 Receptive to the gospel and church
U3 Neutral, with no clear signs of being interested yet perhaps being open to discussion
U4 Resistant to the gospel, but with no antagonistic attitude
U5 Highly antagonistic and even hostile to the gospel
'A discovery we made is that reaching lost and unchurched people is not always best accomplished with some cookie-cutter strategy,' Rainer writes. 'The unchurched are different in how they respond to the gospel.' How different? You'll be amazed at the variables that exist when it comes to how open people are to the Christian message. Once you've recognized which stage your unchurched friends and family are, you can much more effectively connect them with Christ. Open this book, and open your mind and heart to the powerful new possibilities of reaching The Unchurched Next Door.
