Resources That Inspire Us
Missional
Creating a Missional Culture
In Creating a Missional Culture, JR Woodward offers a bold and surprisingly refreshing model for churches--not small adjustments around the periphery of a church's infrastructure but a radical revisioning of how a church ought to look, from its leadership structure to its mobilization of the laity. The end result looks surprisingly like the church that Jesus created and the apostles cultivated: a church not chasing...
I Once Was Lost
What Postmodern Skeptics Taught Us About Their Path to Jesus
What Postmodern Skeptics Taught Us About Their Path to Jesus Don Everts and Doug Schaupp How do people come to Jesus in a postmodern culture? Don Everts and Doug Schaupp—two self-described "missionaries to the college campus"—interviewed 2,000 postmodern converts to find out. Everts and Schaupp are quick to anticipate the groans of people who don't care for the nebulous "postmodern" jargon, defining upfront what...
Keeping Your Eyes on Jesus
The term "missional" is really nothing more than an adjective that describes the life of a Jesus-follower. In helping lead people to rediscover their missional DNA as followers of Jesus we have found this simple, repeatable exercise helpful and freeing.
Missional Moves
The church was never designed to be a fortress for the righteous, but a flood of revolutionaries, bringing the Good News of the Kingdom to broken lives and broken communities. Today, millions of Christians are awakening to the holism of the gospel call, expanding their understanding of mission beyond just touching individual lives to impacting and transforming entire communities with the message of God's grace.
Missional Spirituality
Embodying God's Love from the Inside Out
Veteran church leaders Roger Helland and Leonard Hjalmarson observe that Jesus begins his mission in the temple, where he wows the religious elite and chides his parents by saying, "Didn't you know I had to be in my Father's house?" But Jesus doesn't stay in the temple; indeed, in Christ the temple of the Lord is on the move--even to the ends of the earth.
Movements that Change the World
Five Keys to Spreading the Gospel
Movements that change the world are characterized by white-hot faith, commitment to a cause, contagious relationships, rapid mobilization, and adaptive methods, Jesus founded a missionary movement. His followers are called to continue his mission in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Multiplying Missional Leaders
Multiplying Missional Leaders from Half-hearted Volunteers to a Mobilized Kingdom Force. While most churches believe they have leadership development programs, in actuality, they have programs that recruit and train volunteers, not leaders. A volunteer is someone who executes someone else's vision. A leader is someone with a vision of their own. In truth, there are often only a few leaders in the average church and...
The Present Future
Six Tough Questions for the Church
Join Reggie McNeal in person in this lively video presentation, based on his best-selling book, The Present Future: Six Tough Questions for the Church. In this ten-session four-DVD curriculum you will accompany best-selling author Reggie McNeal and his studio audience as they explore the six most important new realities that church leaders must face as they are to move beyond "churchianity" to a more authentic and...
The Road to Missional
Journey to the Center of the Church
It has recently become acceptable, and even fashionable, to refer to one's church as "missional." But many churches misunderstand the concept, thinking of "going missional" as simply being a necessary add-on to church-as-usual. This domestication of what is actually a very bold paradigm shift makes missional nothing more than one more trick to see church growth. With a light hand and a pastoral spirit, Michael...
The Tangible Kingdom
This book could change your mind about how you view church, mission, and the culture we've been called to influence. Its strength is that it pops open new thought while telling about how the ideas flesh out in real life. The Tangible Kingdom will help you re-language your conversations as a Christian leader so that you can imagine different solutions for greater missional effectiveness. Their cultural analysis is...
The Tangible Kingdom Primer
Eight Week Guide to Incarnational Community
Everyone is talking about community, Everyone seems to want it, most complain if they don't find it, but it's harder to pull off than you'd think. As we said in The Tangible Kingdom, God's ways are natural, but they aren't easy - especially at first. New ways of life must be formed in us through hours, days, and years of intentional practice. The Primer is about building life-long habits, with two primary purposes:...
What Jesus Started
Joining the Movement, Changing the World
Jesus founded a missionary movement that now spans the globe. His followers are called to continue his mission in the power of the Holy Spirit. A movement is a group of people pursuing a common cause. Movements are characterized by discontent, vision, and action. For good or for evil, movements change the world. From biblical, historical, and contemporary case studies, we can identify five recurring characteristics...
Discipleship
Building a Discipling Culture
How to Release a Missional Movement by Discipling People Like Jesus Did
Much ink and many pages have been devoted to all of the missional issues facing the Western church today. As our culture becomes more post-Christian with each passing day, we are all realizing that what has worked in the past is no longer working, that we are far less effective for the Kingdom than we were even 10 years ago. But we would suggest it isn't because we don't know what the Great Commission states or the...
Cultivating a Life for God
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.
Missional Essentials
A Guide for Experiencing God's Mission in Your Life
Missional Essentials is a response to Jesus' commandment for us to love God with our all in all: "And he answered, 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.' (Luke 10:27) Each lesson includes components that engage our heart and soul, mind, and strength, as we move forward on the missional quest of...
Training the Twelve
Timless Principles for Leadership Development
The monumental classic on discipleship and leadership training. A complete exposition of how Christ prepared His twelve disciples.
Evangelism / Witnessing
Cultivating Spiritual Friendships
Step by Step Guide
Cultivating spiritual friendships is about conversation and relationships. It's about influence, invitation and companionship. Cultivating spiritual friendships is our challenge, our opportunity; it is something we are privileged to do. The purpose of this guide is to assist and encourage you to be intentional about cultivating spiritual friendships. As we build friendships first, God provides opportunities to...
Getting Your Feet Dirty
On one momentous day two thousand years ago, all at once, three thousand people decided to follow Jesus. What was all that about? What were they getting themselves into? What is it like to follow Jesus--then and now? Don Everts paints a picture of following Jesus by looking at the experiences of the earliest Christians. He recounts what happened, what they believed, what they did next and what it all might mean for...
More Ready than You Realize
This is not just another book on evangelism. It's a simple idea of evangelism through friendship first, and the opportunities to share your faith that follow. It will bring friendships you already have to a new levels, and create opportunities for new, authentic friendships with those you will eventually meet.
Speaking of Jesus
The Art of Not-Evangelism
Tired of defending Christianity? There's good news...you don't have to. Author Carl Medearis is not interested in keeping Christianity alive. Not one bit. Carl believes it has grown into something that is rarely attractive, frequently divisive, and all too often embarrassing. He believes you may feel this way too. In his new book, Speaking of Jesus, Carl gives us a wink and a grin and the permission to stop feeding...
Why Pray
Many people have at one time or another found their prayer life unsatisfying. But prayer should be -and can be- so much more! Prayer is one of the most exciting and powerful privileges of faith! In Why Pray, you learn through forty insightful readings how prayer transcends words to become a satisfying relationship with God.
Spiritual Formation
First Communion Instruction
We believe parents have been called to lead their children and teach them to be followers of Jesus. For this reason, we equip parents to instruct their children and prepare them for First Communion. Parents are given the materials to use for this process. Children celebrate their First Communions individually when they and their families are ready.
Read Reflect Respond Remember – Questions Guide
As you read God's Word these questions act as a guide to help you READ with decernment, REFLECT on what God wants you to know, RESPOND to His will and REMEMBER what you have learned. These questions can be asked when reading God's Word by yourself, with a friend, or in lifeGroup.
Sacred Rhythms
Your desire for more of God than you have right now, your longing for love, your need for deeper levels of spiritual transformation than you have experienced so far is the truest thing about you. You might think that your woundedness or your sinfulness is the truest thing about you or that your giftedness or your personality type or your job title or your identity as a husband or wife, mother or father, somehow...
Spiritual Disciplines
This devotion was put together by the Church for a Lenten season and is an invitation for you to make an intentional effort to cultivate the kind of life in which God can bring change. It is an invitation for you to train yourself in the practices for growing in the likeness of Christ
Cell-Driven Church
Second Reformation
William Beckman maintains in his book that the church is out of balance. The analogy of a bird is used to denote true purpose and flight through the use of two God ordained wings: large group and small group. The book contends the need for development of cell groups within the context of our day and age. It does not promote the abandonment of a large corporate meeting, but a greater utilization of the cell group...
The Church in Many Houses
Reaching Your Community Through Cell-Based Ministry
The Church In Many Houses: Reaching Your Community Through Cell-Based Ministry makes the case that the cell model will work- if key assumptions about spiritual growth and the nature of the church are reexamined and renewed. By drawing on scripture, research, and insights gained through personal experience as the pastor of a growing cell church, Steve Cordle identifies the four pivotal philosophical shifts necessary...
The Church that Multiplies
This explanation of cell church theory as it relates to the special conditions in North American culture makes an excellent case for why cell churches will work anywhere. Disciple making plays a key part in multiplying cell groups in this model, and this book includes helpful chapters on making disciples, training, and coaching. Comisky includes numerous examples of churches in America where the cell-based strategy...
Multi-Site
Multi-site Launch Strategy for the Church
Initiated in June of 2010, this document outlines the Church's multi-site launch strategy. More like a "ground war" than an "air war", more like a "movement" than "multi-site" this document will give you insight into how the Church in Madison is pursuing its vision of One Church, Regional Impact. If you are considering launching sites to reach your community, perhaps this resource could provide some help.
The Multi-site Church Revolution
Being One Church in Many Locations
Fueled by a desire to reach people for Christ, a revolution is underway. Churches are growing beyond the limitations of a single service in one building. Expanding the traditional model, they are embracing the concept of one church with more than one site: multiple congregations sharing a common vision, budget, leadership, and board. Drawing from the examples of churches nationwide, The Multi-Site Church Revolution...
The Multi-site Church Road Trip
Exploring the New Normal
Travel with tour guides Geoff Surratt, Greg Ligon, and Warren Bird, authors of The Multi-Site Church Revolution, on their engaging and humorous journey that shows creative ways churches of all kinds are expanding their impact through multiple locations. Hear the inside stories and learn about the latest developments. Find out firsthand how the churches in this book are broadening their options for evangelism,...
Vision Clarity
Church Unique
Based on Mancini's work with Auxano, Church Unique provides a carefully executed, step-by-step walk through the concepts and practices that build a "vision frame." Discovering and articulating a compelling vision is at the heart, but developing the missional mandate (mission), motives (values), map (strategy) and marks (measures) are what provide the frame. Each step in the process is presented in a way that begs...
Church Unique Visual Summary
A visual journey through Will Mancini's book, "Church Unique" and Auxano's Vision Pathway.
The Vision Room
The Vision Room, powered by Auxano, is designed to be the best online gathering of leaders and resources on vision clarity.
Personal Growth
Chasing Daylight
Adventure awaits. Opportunity is all around us. In Chasing Daylight, pastor Erwin McManus calls us to risk everything for a life of genuine purpose. McManus uses the biblical account of Israel's war with the Philistines (1 Samuel 13-14) and the characters of Jonathan and Saul to demonstrate the difference between living a life of purpose and adventure, and living one of apathy and missed opportunity. Through this...
Good Sense
We believe deeply that stewardship of financial resources lies at the heart of Christian discipleship. The failure of the church to articulate a biblical perspective on money and possessions yields the day to the seductive messages of materialism that are rampant in our culture. The failure to speak into the topic is an act of self-marginalization by the church. The Good $ense resources can be utilized to teach,...
Making Room for Life
Randy Frazee's practical, motivating insights call you back to the kind of relationships and life rhythms you were created to enjoy. In Making Room for Life, Frazee shows you how—and why it's so important—to balance work and play, establish healthy boundaries, deal with children's activities and homework, bring Jesus to your neighbors, and build authentic bonds with a circle of close friends. This thought-provoking...
Psalm 136 for My Life – Family
A thankful spirit is what flows from a heart and mind that is keenly aware of God's provisions and work in our lives. Giving thanks becomes worship when we give God the credit and glory for the all we have and all we are. You are invited to use this template as a way to engage your family in specifically reflecting on who God is and how He has provided for your family. Go through and, together, write words in the...
Psalm 136 for My Life – Individual
A thankful spirit is what flows from a heart and mind that is keenly aware of God's provisions and work in our lives. Giving thanks becomes worship when we give God the credit and glory for the all we have and all we are. You are invited to use this template as a way to specifically reflect on who God is and how He has provided for you. Go through and write words in the blanks, following the prompts below the...
The Great Pursuit
2-year Bible Reading Plan
Our Lord wants to reveal Himself to you. To you! The creator of the universe, the Holy, All powerful, infinitely gracious Lord and Savior, the one that knows everything about you, would like you to get to know Him. This reading plan is designed to lead you from Genesis to Revelation over two years, expect to discover.
The Invisible War
Satanic attacks are very real, and this book will examine what every believer needs to know about Satan, demons, and spiritual warfare. This provocative book will help Christians understand what the Bible says about these threats and will show them how they can safeguard themselves and their families through prayer. The Invisible War, by popular author Chip Ingram, offers a balanced look at what is going on in the...