Moody Church Leadership Collection (24 vols.)

Early training of children in the basic truths of Christianity has become an increasingly high priority in Christian circles. Written by a wide variety of experts in Christian education, this volume is designed for use in teacher training classes and for professional training in Bible colleges and seminaries. Each of the thirty-five articles explores a specific area of importance to childhood education. Together, they present a complete picture of Christian education of children.

A valuable reference source and textbook, Childhood Education in the Church is an indispensible tool for educators.

Many sincere and dedicated Christians point to the path of relevance as a means for enjoying a post-Christian witness. They want to explore new ways of doing church—ways that focus on seekers’ needs, which appeal to today’s entertainment-saturated audiences, and don’t make church difficult. Philip Ryken, however, sees danger ahead. Rather than confronting the relativistic and narcissistic mindset of our world, this way may very well accommodate it.

In City on a Hill, Ryken asserts that the church needs to walk a different path—a biblical path which leads to exalting God and him alone by:

• Proclaiming the saving work of our crucified and risen Lord, Jesus Christ.
• Focusing on our holy God in our personal and corporate worship.
• Reaching out in Christ’s love to care for one another and share the Good News with the world

When the church does what it was called to do, it will give the world what it needs most—the life-giving message that Jesus Christ is Savior and Lord.

Many of us teach the Bible in small groups, Sunday school, or home school classes. We study, prepare, and present material. But is our best good enough? Are we just sharing knowledge, or are we leading students into a growing relationship with God and his Word?

In Creative Bible Teaching, authors Lawrence Richards and Gary Bredfeldt focus on how to better understand the Bible we teach and how to unleash the transforming power of Scripture.

Five practical sections include specific ideas on how to:

• Study the Bible
• Focus the message
• Structure the lesson
• Teach the class
• Evaluate the results

Creative Bible Teaching will become a foundational book in your library. A practical model for teaching and a classic educational reference book, it will renew your enthusiasm for teaching God’s Word.

"Christian Education Director," "Youth Minister," and "Minister of Christian Education" are common job titles for educators in the church. Michael Lawson and Robert Choun, Jr. combine these important positions into the term "Christian Education Specialist" and apply it in a comprehensive fashion, whether for youth or adults.

This book will help the Christian education specialist divide the various responsibilities of Christian education into workable tasks. The authors include eight sample job descriptions from churches of different sizes.

If you are overwhelmed with responsibilities covering everything from nursery to budgets to retreats, looking for encouragement in handling relationships with church staff, or seeking ways to help volunteer leaders, this book will prove to be a valuable resource. Besides giving you a biblical foundation for your job in Christian education, these pages will give you specific help to get your church education in top shape.

Gene Getz was used to having all the answers. So when his seminary students started asking questions he wasn’t prepared to answer, he abandoned the syllabus and led his students on a soul-searching journey through the Scriptures. Now after thirty years of hands-on experience and continued biblical research, the former professor turned church planter delivers what he’s convinced is God’s plan for church leadership in Elders and Leaders: God’s Plan for Leading the Church. No church leader or leader-in-training should be without this valuable resource!

Do you long to see the children in your class follow Christ? Do you wish you had better training as a teacher?

Follow Me As I Follow Christ is your all-inclusive handbook to teaching children about the love their Savior offers—whether it be in Sunday school, midweek programs, Vacation Bible School, day camp, or any other church or para-church setting.

Cheryl Dunlop has taught hundreds of children in settings ranging from camp counseling to teaching Sunday school, club programs, and vacation Bible school; from babysitting to interacting with neighborhood children.

Each page brims with Cheryl’s enthusiasm for teaching children about God. As you study the lessons—one for each week of the year—you will catch a new vision and excitement for the wondrous opportunity you’ve been given to impart God’s truth to his little ones. Cheryl focuses on developing your relationship with your students, and she highlights how important it is to ground each and every lesson in Scripture.

Written for all teachers, from first time children’s club workers to season Sunday school veterans, here is a wealth of tested information you can turn to again and again. As you apply the savvy insights in this book to your teaching, you will gain new confidence in your ministry to children. Armed with these precepts for effective teaching, you can effectively lead children to follow you as your follow Christ.

Sheep swapping. Shuffling of the Saints. Whatever you call it, many churches are growing only because Christians transfer from one church to another. What’s more, many churches aren’t growing at all.

The problem, according to authors Dann Spader and Gary Mayes, is that too many church calendars are filled with outdated, mediocre programs that have become more of a burden than a blessing. That, coupled with the fact that these programs minister almost exclusively to Christians, leaves little for non-Christians seekers to get excited about.

Growing a Healthy Church is not a list of trendy new programs for your church agenda. It is a journey of rediscovery. Dann Spader and Gary Mayes look closely at the four stages of spiritual growth in relation to outreach. Using the innovative “M-level” system, these gifted men show how a church can minister to all individuals regardless of their levels of maturity in potential service. This helps eliminate the mistakes of forcing new Christians into service that may overwhelm them or may leave the mature Christian unchallenged.

Proven successful through SonLife and churches who have used this system, this resource will help you focus on the simplicity of Christ’s ministry, enabling you to build an effective discipling strategy for your church.

This practical book supplies ministers and theological students, as well as laymen who are called upon to preach, with a helpful tool for their ministry. It is not an attempt at a complete and exhaustive treatment of homiletics but rather a clearly outlined guide for study, selection of sermon texts and themes, and sermon building.

How to Prepare Sermons has been written in a conversational tone which will give it wide usefulness. In its preparation, Dr. Evans has drawn upon his extensive education and priceless years of experience as a pastor, preacher, and Bible instructor. The material is personal, practical, and easily understood.

After establishing definition of the terms under consideration, Dr. Evans examines the value of the personality of the preacher, the voice and interpretation of the text and theme, and the gathering and arranging of the sermonic materials employed. He then gives close attention to the introduction, body, and conclusion of the sermon, the various types of sermons, and the use and abuse of illustrations. The concluding section of the book contains sermon outlines which illustrate the material discussed in the preceding pages.

Church conflict is neither isolated nor uncommon. Pastors, governing boards, and denominational leaders spend a major portion of their time each year assessing, mediating, and reconciling church conflicts. You may be facing some level of conflict in your church right now.

Making Peace collects the lessons and experience of more than ten years of work in church conflict resolution. Jim Van Yperen shares why churches become unhealthy and how God wants to heal them so they may become thriving communities of faith.

Making Peace is a “why” book, not a “how-to” book. The lordship of Jesus Christ, not method, should be the object and subject of your search for answers. The promise of Scripture is that God will allow nothing into your life that you are not able to bear through faith in him. Whatever conflict or crisis your church may now be facing, God will provide a way out or a way through for your good and his glory.

Youth leaders today are frustrated. Most of them originally got into youth ministry not because of the pay but because of the payoff—they have a passion to see kids reached for Christ, and have a burning desire to see souls saved and lives changed. The problem is that as the months give way to years, the machinery of ministry and the pressure of politics douses the hottest of flames and crushes the strongest resolve.

The purpose of this book is not to complain about the current state of youth ministry but to do something about it. Outbreak! is about the hope that God will raise up a new kind of youth leader who will do what it takes to enlist fully committed disciples, and about the hope that the Church will produce a new kind of student prophet who speaks forth God’s Word. It’s about the hope that from the ashes of failed experiments God will create a new paradigm for effective youth ministry. Outbreak! is ideal for pastors, youth pastors, and churches looking to breathe new life into their youth ministry programs.

Are you the best preacher you can be? In Power in the Pulpit, Jerry Vines and Jim Shaddix provide practical help specifically to those charged with the responsibility of delivering weekly sermons. You’ll learn:

• The preparation for exposition. You’ll see how engaging in expository preaching demands that the preacher have certain conviction about his call to ministry, the Bible, his worship, and the ongoing work of God in his life.
• The process of exposition. The authors trace the stages through which the preacher must travel in order to illuminate a text of Scripture and prepare a compelling expository sermon.
• The presentation of the exposition. Here you’ll find the nuts and bolts of effective sermon delivery—after all, successful preaching lies largely in its presentation and communication.

Sermon preparation and delivery are two of the most fulfilling and frustrating experiences anyone can undertake. This book will reduce the frustration and increase the fulfillment. Whether you are a student learning the craft of preaching, or a veteran, Power in the Pulpit will provide you with a rich reservoir of fresh ideas and inspiration.

God can do amazing things in our churches when godly women are released to reach their spiritual potential, according to author and women’s leader Elizabeth Inrig. In Release Your Potential, Inrig describes the path to achieving a strong, dynamic ministry among women in the local church.

She gives practical answers to questions like, “How can we build a thriving, productive women’s ministry?” and “What kind of woman does the church need?”

Release Your Potential celebrates the blessing for the local church when godly women become the kind of women the church needs—when they make it a priority to serve other women.

We live in a most challenging time in history, when leading has never been tougher. Joe Stowell charts the course biblically to enable shepherds to do the best of things in the worst of times.

How do we lead effectively in this changing generation? By focusing on timeless targets, such as character, effective proclamation, spiritual giftedness, and spiritual growth.

As a third-generation minister who has pastored churches in Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan, Dr. Stowell speaks from experience in his trademark heart-to-heart style. In Shepherding the Church he ministers to ministers who are longing for a word of encouragement.

In a world committed to self-seeking and the thirst for individual rights, it is hard to create a genuine community based on self-sacrifice and mutual commitment—but that is just what the church must do. In Spiritual Disciplines within the Church seminary professor, author, and former pastor Don Whitney shows how the local church can build a sense of community and turn church people from passive attendees into active participants. Whitney looks at such frequently asked questions as:

• Why can’t I get by on my own?
• Why should I go to church?
• Why should I give of myself to the church?
• Why do I need to worship in church? Couldn’t I just worship in nature?
• Why does it matter whether I become a member of the church?

Committed love must mark the local expression of the body of Christ. By putting spiritual disciplines into practice in the church, congregations can return to the depth of community present in the New Testament church, where they “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.”

How is your church or organization governed? Does it have an authoritarian, top-down administration? Is the ministry vision developed by a few top officials, with little input from staff or volunteers?

Today the definition of an effective leader has changed. No longer does the model leader manage like the Lone Ranger—either do it his way or no way. Today the model leader shares responsibility with fellow team leaders and seeks to serve them. In Team Leadership in Christian Ministry, Dr. Gangel carefully lays a biblical foundation for the team leadership model. This leadership is not dogmatic control or personality worship. It has no room for political power plays. Instead, it is Paul gently nurturing young Christians in his epistles. It is Barnabas willingly thrusting others into situations where they develop their own gifts. It is Christ, choosing not one, but twelve men to carry on his ministry. It is servant leadership.

With examples, illustrations, and suggestions for further reading at the end of each chapter, Dr. Gangel prods and encourages the reader to move beyond the safety net of autocratic leadership into the rewarding, effective practice of leading with and through others.

The Church in God’s Program is a biblical study covering the entire scope of the church—its beginning, government, ministries, and the new covenant. Robert L. Saucy begins with a look at the historical meaning of the word “church,” along with a biblical look at God’s intentions for the church. He also shows the relationship between the church and Israel and the church and God’s kingdom, and closes with discussions on church government, discipline, and the organizational structure of the church.

Like consumers, churches and Christian ministries often get themselves into financial trouble: They go into debt—for new buildings, unbudgeted programs, or even to meet operating expense—and then weeks, months, or years later wake up to the reality of long-term payments. They realize only too late that their effectiveness and ability to meet needs are jeopardized by the debt burden they must shoulder.

In The Debt-Free Church, authors Jeff Berg and Jim Burgess show how ministries often miss opportunities to grow and expand because they’re held back by debt. Using biblical principles, case studies, and practical advice, the authors answer the questions:

• How do most churches and ministries get into financial trouble in the first place?
• What does the Bible say about churches borrowing and lending?
• How can a ministry accelerate the process of getting out of debt?
• Once a church is out of debt, how can it stay financially free?
• How can churches grow and develop without taking on debt?

Geared for both established churches and ministries, and those just starting out—whether currently in debt or financially free—this valuable resource will help pastors, leaders, and lay people ensure their ministry’s long-term financial health.

What can I say to parents who have lost an infant? Where do I find the time to be a good pastor and a loving husband and father too?

These are just some of the tough questions most pastors ask at one time or another. And the answers don't come easy. Robert Anderson's practical guide to the pastoral ministry highlights the many aspects of a pastor's job:

• qualifications, prerequisites, and requirements
• relationships with his family, congregation, those outside the congregation
• relationship with those in counseling and visitation
• tasks, including worship services, the Lord's Supper and baptism, evangelism, weddings, funerals, and special events
• administrative duties such as public relations, correspondence, Christian education, youth and music ministries, and encouraging fellowship

Here is a volume of excellent ideas, advice, and general rules for the contemporary pastor in his ever-changing ministry.

Randy Pope has created a blueprint for pastors and church planters with The Intentional Church. Such an organization must model a dynamic spirit of worship and servanthood that will cause it to become a magnet for people needing help. Part of the blueprint involves having a God-honoring purpose, a faith-oriented commitment, a well-defined mission, a biblically-based job description, and more.

Do our relationships in the church reflect Christ? Does church sometimes look more like a dysfunctional family than a healthy one? Do we really understand what discipleship ought to look like? By limiting the definition of a healthy church to human standards we are effectively missing God’s point for it.

In a world of competing voices about what church is all about, Gene Getz, with the wisdom God has granted him over decades of ministry, provides a solidly grounded and thoroughly biblical approach to how God assesses the strength, health, and maturity of a local church. He addresses:

• The definition of the church
• The standard of measure by which the church should be defined. Is it centered on Christ? Does it display the fruit of the Spirit? Is it growing in its ability to display faith, hope, and love?
• How does one measure leadership?
• How does one measure worship?
• What is the one, ultimate standard the church is measured by?

In The Measure of a Healthy Church, Gene Getz helps you find the biblical approach to how God assesses the strength, health, and maturity of the local church. Turn your questions into answers as you learn scriptural truths necessary for measuring real success.

Timeless Youth Ministry examines afresh what it means to be an adolescent in today's culture and how those who minister to young people can best reach them. Youth ministers Steve Vandegriff and Lee Vukich speak from experience that, while the world of teenagers is in constant change, the eternal message of Christ's love never changes. Topics include a description of adolescence, age characteristics of teens, how self-identity develops, different types of youth work, the purpose and goal of youth ministry, teaching methods, programming, music and worship, principles of counseling youth, and how to set up a counseling session.

If we truly believe Jesus Christ is not only the Son of God, but also our Savior and Lord, it is reasonable for others to expect to see proof of our commitment in the way we live. That evidence is what biblically-minded Christians call discipleship.

Discipleship implies a living relationship with the Christ we love, serve, and seek to imitate. For most of us there is room in this relationship for considerable improvement, so if improvement is your goal, John Koessler will take you on an incredible journey. This contemplative and practical book will help you find the tools you need to deepen your commitment to Christ.

Hermeneutics has been called “the art of interpretation,” but it has come to be perceived as a complicated thing. Combating that notion, Robertson McQuilkin has written a solid introduction to the ins and outs of biblical hermeneutics and how it can be used to interpret the Bible in practical ways.

Women and men were created to complement each other, and the church functions best when they minister in a complementary fashion. Using a variety of approaches, from a study of relevant Scriptures to a look at cultural patterns, Women and Men in Ministry focuses on our unity as equals and on the importance of a church’s using separate gender strengths in a complementary way.

From the creation of two genders to women’s respected involvement in the early church, and from Christ’s open interactions with women to Paul’s thanksgiving for individual women who were his fellow laborers, much of what the Bible says about women’s contributions is often left unexplored. Other times what the Bible does say is drowned out by what culture tells us. Women and Men in Ministry brings a balanced perspective and explores numerous issues, including:

• How can churches use the gifts of women to a greater degree—as the apostle Paul did?
• What does it really mean to be masculine or feminine?
• What can we learn from the early church about the relationship between women and men?
• What do Adam and Eve tell us about man and woman?

Your church can have a more effective ministry, better testimony, and more unity between men and women.