This remarkable book represents the very best of William Phillippe's lifelong stewardship files: materials he has used in four decades of training, talks, and sermons about giving to the church. It includes biblical texts, sermons, sermon ideas, insp...

Recovering the Teaching Office in the Church

Richard Robert Osmer provides a strong understanding of the teaching office, which is a part of Reformation heritage. He discusses why the teaching office is important in mainline churches. This book in unique because it includes seminaries, represen...

Reflections on Pastoral Ministry

J. Philip Wogaman offers candid reflections on his service as Senior Minister at Foundry United Methodist Church in Washington, D.C., an unexpected journey that he began at the age of sixty following a full career as an ethics professor. Wogaman chro...

Reflective Leadership in Ministry

This essential work focuses on reclaiming a healthy understanding of authority in the church by reviewing the meaning of clergy authority and examining how this authority has been used and abused. Jackson Carroll asks how a sense of clergy authority ...

Recovering the Message and Mission of Jesus

Pastor and author Mike Slaughter challenges church leaders to look at the future of their congregations and make tough but necessary choices in order to reconnect with the true message and mission of Jesus: to bring good news to the poor, relase to t...

Churches and Conflicting Worldviews

Mainline Protestant churches have been seriously impacted by the conflict in belief systems embodied in the opposing worldviews of conservatives and liberals. In this book, Jack Rogers contends that for mainline churches to remain relevant in today's...

Their Power to Form and Transform

C. Ellis Nelson has collaborated with and collected the works of ten leaders experienced in congregational affairs to design and produce a resource that helps ministers and lay leaders understand the dynamics of congregations. The result is an engagi...

Practices for Healing, Teaching, and Preaching

Churches and other religious organizations depend on the ability of their leaders and members to communicate within their congregations and beyond. This important, practical guide explores the dynamic connection that occurs when spiritual practices a...

A Call to Begin Again

Make a new church. That's the challenge Chuck Meyer lays down for readers. He writes that the institutional church we know so well is dying. In fact, it may already be dead. Its structure and theology make no sense today, and haven't for decades. It ...

Images That Shape Your Church's Ministry

According to Carl Dudley and Sally Johnson, the discovery of strong and compelling congregational self-images binds church members together and energizes ministry. They describe five images of churches' relationships to their communities over time--t...

Wrestling with Scripture in the Midst of Church Conflict

Conflict is all too common in the church today. But as Frances Taylor Gench reminds us in this book, conflict over scriptural interpretation has been with the church since its earliest days. Gench reflects on those early experiences of conflict, pres...

Proclaiming the Gospel in the Church

Drawing from his experience as longtime pastor of Preachtree Presbyterian Church in Atlanta, W. Frank Harrington says that if the church is to flourish in this time, it must return to its primary purpose--the proclamation of the gospel for the salvat...

The Renewal of the Church according to Its Own Theology and Practice

Based on years of experience as a pastor and professor of theology, John Leith reflects on the dilemma of the church today as primarily "a crisis of faith." He states that renewal is found within Scripture and the tradition of a believing, worshiping...

Reclaiming the Biblical Metaphor for Pastoral Practice

The birth of a child is important in the lives of women, families, and communities. It can also be a vital force to churches in providing them with a model for strength, endurance, and compassion, says Margaret Hammer. Despite a wealth of fascinating...

Education and Christian Practices

In this new edition of his popular book, Craig Dykstra explores the contributions of the traditions, education, worship practices, and disciplines of the Reformed Christian community in helping people grow in faith. In doing so, he makes the case tha...