Classic Books for XPs

Liquid Church: 6 Powerful Currents to Saturate Your City for Christ

Tim Lucas and Warren Bird

In today’s fluid culture, many churches are adrift—longing to reach spiritually thirsty people, but failing to make an impact. Have you noticed? Congregations are stuck or declining. Millennials and Gen Z are walking away. Volunteers and their generosity are drying up. Is your city, town, or neighborhood spiritually dry? Do you long to see more of the living water of Jesus flowing freely through your community, generating a fresh wave of ministry momentum? Buckle up: you’re in for a whitewater ride!

Liquid Church tells the fascinating story of a New Jersey church that began “on accident” and grew into one of America’s 100 Fastest-Growing Churches, with over 5,000 in weekly attendance and more than 2,400 baptisms to date. Their secret? They harnessed the power of six powerful ministry currents sweeping across North America including: special needs, creative communication, ministry mergers, compassionate cause, radical generosity, and leadership development.

With powerful stories and scriptural insights, backed by national research, Tim Lucas and Warren Bird describe dozens of fresh ideas, new ministry wineskins, and hard-won leadership learnings that resonate with rising generations in today’s “show-then-tell” culture. Each chapter includes practical tools, real-life examples, and links to “Other Churches Making Waves” with cutting-edge ministry ideas designed to help saturate your city for Christ.

Ready to dive deeper? Whether you serve a brand-new church plant, fast-growing congregation, or an aging ministry ready for reinvention, Liquid Church is an inspiring and practical guide for leaders ready to reach their spiritually thirsty neighbors—those who have given up on church, but haven’t given up on God. ~Amazon

The Four Dimensions of Extraordinary Leadership: The Power of Leading from Your Heart, Soul, Mind, and Strength

Jenni Catron

You have the capacity to become an extraordinary leader—if you are willing to embrace a deeper definition of leadership and take action to apply it. In The 4 Dimensions of Extraordinary Leadership, Jenni Catron, executive church leader and author of Clout, reveals the secrets to standout leadership found in the Great Commandment: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.”

Weaving a winsome narrative filled with inspiring real-life stories, hard-won wisdom, and practical applications, Catron unpacks four essential aspects of growing more influential: your heart for relational leadership, your soul for spiritual leadership, your mind for managerial leadership, and your strength for visionary leadership. Leadership isn’t easy, but it is possible to move from ordinary to extraordinary. Jenni Catron shows the way. ~Amazon

Didn’t See It Coming

Carey Nieuwhof

An influential pastor, podcaster, and thought leader believes it’s not only possible to predict life’s hardest moments, but also to alter outcomes, overcome challenges, and defeat your fiercest adversaries.

Founding Pastor of one of North America’s most influential churches, Carey Nieuwhof wants to help you avoid and overcome life’s seven hardest and most crippling challenges: cynicism, compromise, disconnectedness, irrelevance, pride, burnout, and emptiness. These are challenges that few of us expect but that we all experience at some point. If you have yet to confront these obstacles, Carey provides clear tools and guidelines for anticipation and avoidance. On the other hand, if you already feel stuck in a painful experience or are wrestling with one of these challenges, he provides the steps you need to find a way out and a way forward into a more powerful and vibrant future.  ~Amazon

Hero Maker: Five Essential Practices for Leaders to Multiply Leaders

Dave Ferguson and Warren Bird

Everybody wants to be a hero, but few understand the power of being a hero maker.

In Hero Maker you will learn how to bring real change to your church and community by developing the practical skills to help others reach their leadership potential. Drawing on five powerful practices found in the ministry of Jesus, Hero Maker presents the key steps of apprenticeship that will build up other leaders and provides strategies for how you can activate gifts, help others take ownership, and develop a simple scorecard for measuring your kingdom-building progress.

Besides rich insights from the Gospels, Hero Maker is packed with real-life ministry stories ranging from paid staff to volunteer leaders and from established churches to new church plants. A practical tool accompanies each of the five practices, with several illustrations for how to use it.

Whether you lead ten people or ten thousand, Hero Maker will not only help you maximize your leadership, but in doing so you will also help shift today’s church culture to a model of reproduction and multiplication. Authors Dave Ferguson (a Chicago pastor and church planter) and Warren Bird (an award-winning writer) make a compelling case that God’s power and purpose are best revealed when we train and release others, who in turn do likewise. Become that rare breed of leader who brings change into our world by sacrificially investing in others who become the heroes. By becoming a hero maker, you will join a movement of influencers that are impacting hundreds, thousands and perhaps millions of people around the world.  ~Amazon

Developing Female Leaders: Navigate the Minefields and Release the Potential of Women in Your Church

Kadi Cole

How to More Effectively Leverage the Leadership Gifts and Abilities of Women in Your Church

What would your church look like in the future if it were to maximize the dormant gifts of the women God has brought there? In Developing Female Leaders, Kadi Cole, twenty-year veteran in leadership and people development, offers a practical strategy to help church and organizational leaders craft cultures that facilitate the development of women as volunteer and staff leaders.

Using interviews and surveys of more than one thousand women in key church and organizational roles, combined with current research, the author has created eight easy-to-implement “best practices” that help accelerate a woman’s organizational contribution.

Thorough appendices and references add even more guidance for setting vision, milestones, and goals. Developing Female Leaders is a one-of-a-kind resource for identifying what is missing today in your church to help it flourish in the future.   ~Amazon

Church Growth Flywheel: 5 Practical Systems to Drive Growth at Your Church

Rich Birch

Are you ready to see your church impact more people than you have ever before?

Are you tired of church leadership books that are long on theory but short on practical help?

Have you wanted to reach more people in your community but you weren’t sure where to start?

Are you worried that your church isn’t reaching its full potential?

“Church Growth Flywheel: 5 Practical Systems to Drive Growth at Your Church” is full of helpful insights to help your church reach more people starting today!

Bestselling author, Rich Birch, has pulled together his own hard-fought experience leading within one of the fastest growing churches in the country as well as over 200 interviews with church leaders from prevailing churches.   ~Amazon

Thriving in the Second Chair

Mike Bonem

Serving in paid and unpaid capacities, including laity, ordained clergy, bivocational, licensed local pastors and other ministry leaders, second chair leaders play a critical role in churches across the world; yet they are not the lead or senior pastor. They are “the boss” to many yet are not ultimately in charge, leading many second chair leaders into frustration rather than joy and grace.

Author Mike Bonem’s Thriving in the Second Chair, a follow up to Leading from the Second Chair, emerged from his own journey as a second chair leader and offers a map of the “springs” that enable second chair leaders to thrive rather than just survive. Bonem points readers beyond their external circumstances to the ways they can act and think differently, highlighting ten key factors that will help second chair leaders to experience lives and ministries that are fulfilling, vital, and sustainable.

Thriving in the Second Chair is a practical, relevant, and thoughtfully crafted resource for those leading a ministry beyond their control, laying the groundwork for them to find refreshment and vitality in their life and ministry.

Culture Wins: The Roadmap to an Irresistible Workplace

William Vanderbloemen

The roadmap to making your company a great place to work in today’s job-hopping culture starts right here.

What could your company accomplish if it could attract and retain employees who buy into your organization’s mission 100%?

Culture Wins is a practical yet challenging modern guidebook for organizations that want to own the future. Its firsthand insights into building a contagious culture will drive sustainable growth and innovation for any organization. You will build a healthy workplace, increase revenue, and change the world with the lessons you’ll learn. Stop losing employees, grow your team, and build a contagious company culture that outlasts the competition.

There are books on general team building, there are books on workplace best practices, and there are books on leadership—but there is not a book that shows forward-thinking leaders how to integrate it into today’s new job-hopping culture. William Vanderbloemen uses his company’s proven experience in staffing and organizational consulting to provide a global perspective of effective, thriving cultures—and how to create them.   ~Amazon

Churchless: Understanding Today’s Unchurched and How to Connect with Them

George Barna and David Kinnaman

Churchless people are all around us: among our closest loved ones, at our workplaces, in our neighborhoods. And more and more, they are becoming the norm: The number of churchless adults in the U.S. has grown by nearly one-third in the past decade. Yet the startling truth is that many of these people claim they are looking for a genuine, powerful encounter with God―but they just don’t find it in church. What are they (or we) missing? How can we better reach out to them? What can we say or do that would inspire them to want to join a community of faith? Containing groundbreaking new research from the Barna Group, and edited by bestselling authors George Barna (Revolution) and David Kinnaman (You Lost Me), Churchless reveals the results of a five-year study based on interviews with thousands of churchless men and women. Looking past the surface of church attendance to deeper spiritual realities, Churchless will help us understand those who choose not to be part of a church, build trust-based relationships with them, and be empowered to successfully invite them to engage.

unChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks About Christianity … and Why it Matters

David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons

Christians are supposed to represent Christ to the world. But according to the latest report card, something has gone terribly wrong. Using descriptions like “hypocritical,” “insensitive,” and “judgmental,” young Americans share an impression of Christians that’s nothing short of … unchristian. Groundbreaking research into the perceptions of sixteen- to twenty-nine-year-olds reveals that Christians have taken several giant steps backward in one of their most important assignments. The surprising details of the study, commissioned by Q and conducted by The Barna Group, are presented with uncompromising honesty in unChristian. Find out why these negative perceptions exist, learn how to reverse them in a Christ-like manner, and discover practical examples of how Christians can positively contribute to culture.

Defining the Executive Pastor Role

Phil Taylor

What is an Executive Pastor? Are you wired to be an XP? How is an XP different than an Associate Pastor? Should XP’s have a degree in pastoral ministry, business, or both? Does your church need an XP? What should a church look for in seeking to fill this often overlooked, undervalued, yet critical position? These and other questions are the focus of this short work on defining the Executive Pastor Role. Written with a brevity designed to allow you to read or skim quickly, you’ll still find enough depth to provide meaningful direction and insight. Current and future XP’s should read this book for definition. Potential XP’s should read this book to clarify their calling. And church leaders considering hiring an XP should read this book before beginning their search.

Managing the Nonprofit Organization: Principles and Practices

Peter Drucker

The groundbreaking and premier work on nonprofit organizations. The nonprofit sector is growing rapidly, creating a major need for expert advice on how to manage these organizations effectively. Management legend Peter Drucker provides excellent examples and explanations of mission, leadership, resources, marketing, goals, and much more. Interviews with nine experts also address key issues in this booming sector.

Mission Creep: The Five Subtle Shifts that Sabotage Evangelism and Discipleship

Larry Osborne

Evangelism and discipleship aren’t rocket science. When Jesus sent out a ragtag team from Galilee with the expectation that they would evangelize and disciple the world, they pulled it off as a natural and spontaneous outworking of their faith. Yet 2,000 years later, this same natural and spontaneous process has been turned into a complex and highly programmed skill left to the professionals. Pastor and author Larry Osborne exposes what has gone wrong and the five subtle shifts that sabotage our best efforts to reach the lost and bring them to full maturity.

Autopsy of a Deceased Church: 12 Ways to Keep Yours Alive

Thom S. Rainer

No one wants to see a church die. And yet, far too many churches are dying. For more than twenty-five years, Dr. Thom Rainer has helped churches grow, reverse the trends of decline, and has autopsied those that have died. From this experience, he has discovered twelve consistent themes among those churches that have died. Yet, it’s not gloom and doom because from those twelve themes, lessons on how to keep your church alive have emerged.

Whether your church is vibrant or dying, whether you are a pastor or a church member, Autopsy of a Deceased Church will walk you through the radical paths necessary to keep your church alive to the glory of God and advancement of Christ’s Kingdom!

Next: Pastoral Succession that Works

William Vanderbloemen and Warren Bird

Every church and ministry goes through changes in leadership, and the issue is far bigger than the wave of pastors from the Baby Boomer generation who are moving toward retirement. When a pastor leaves a church, ministries are disrupted and members drift away. If the church is already struggling, it can find itself suddenly in very dire straits indeed. But the outcome doesn’t have to be that way.

What if when a pastor moved on, the church knew exactly what to do to find a suitable replacement because a plan and a process had been in place for some time? While there is no simple, one-size-fits-all solution to the puzzle of planning for a seamless pastoral succession, Next offers church leaders and pastors a guide to asking the right questions in order to plan for the future. Vanderbloemen, founder of a leading pastoral search firm, and Bird, an award-winning writer and researcher, share insider stories of succession successes and failures in dozens of churches, including some of the nation’s most influential. Through case studies, interviews, and real-time research, the authors demystify successful pastoral succession and help readers prepare for an even brighter future for their ministries.

Boundaries: When to Say Yes, How to Say No to Take Control of Your Life

Henry Cloud and John Townsend

Having clear boundaries is essential to a healthy, balanced lifestyle. A boundary is a personal property line that marks those things for which we are responsible. In other words, boundaries define who we are and who we are not. Boundaries impact all areas of our lives. Often, Christians focus so much on being loving and unselfish that they forget their own limits and limitations. Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend offer biblically-based answers to tough questions, showing us how to set healthy boundaries with our parents, spouses, children, friends, co-workers, and even ourselves.  —Amazon

Church Unique: How Missional Leaders Cast Vision, Capture Culture, and Create Movement

Will Mancini

Written by church consultant Will Mancini, expert on a new kind of visioning process to help churches develop a stunningly unique model of ministry that leads to redemptive movement. He guides churches away from an internal focus to emphasize participation in their community and surrounding culture. In this important book, Mancini offers an approach for rethinking what it means to lead with clarity as a visionary. Mancini explains that each church has a culture that reflects its particular values, thoughts, attitudes, and actions and shows how church leaders can unlock their church’s individual DNA and unleash their congregation’s one-of-a-kind potential.

Accidental Pharisees: Avoiding Pride, Exclusivity, and the Other Dangers of Overzealous Faith

Larry Osborne

Zealous faith can have a dangerous, dark side. While recent calls for radical Christians have challenged many to be more passionate about their faith, the down side can be a budding arrogance and self-righteousness that “accidentally” sneaks into our outlook.

In Accidental Pharisees, bestselling author Larry Osborne diagnoses nine of the most common traps that can ensnare Christians on the road to a deeper life of faith. Rejecting attempts to turn the call to follow Christ into a new form of legalism, he shows readers how to avoid the temptations of pride, exclusivity, legalism, and hypocrisy,

Larry reminds us that attempts to fan the flames of full-on discipleship and call people to Christlikeness should be rooted in love and humility. Christians stirred by calls to radical discipleship, but unsure how to respond, will be challenged and encouraged to develop a truly Christlike zeal for God.

Just Lead!: A No Whining, No Complaining, No Nonsense Practical Guide for Women Leaders in the Church

Sherry Surrat & Jenni Catron

Become the effective woman leader God intended you to be”Just Lead!” provides practical leadership help for women to develop skills to lead themselves and others with the character, confidence and authenticity of a godly woman. The book shows what holds women back and then focuses the skills women need to lead others effectively. Using this hands-on, practical resource will inspire women leaders in the church to use its ideas to gain strength and lead well.Helps women successfully navigate the transitions necessary to lead well in church and ministry settingsOffers women a practical guide for breaking the “stained-glass window” and becoming effective leaders Addresses leadership issues such as leading mixed gender teams, earning and giving respect, and navigating through relational landmines

“Just Lead!” challenges women to embrace their identity as leaders and equips them with the skills they need to lead others well.

Better Together: Making Church Mergers Work

Jim Tomberlin & Warren Bird

Thousands of Protestant churches are perplexed by plateaued or declining attendance, while other congregations nearby thrive. Is there a way for them to combine forces, drawing on both their strengths, in ways that also increase their missional impact? Church merger consultant Jim Tomberlin, with co-writer Warren Bird, makes the case that mergers today work best not with two struggling churches but with a vital, momentum-filled lead church partnering with a joining church.

In this new book, they provide a complete, practical, hands-on guide for church leaders of both struggling and vibrant churches so that they can understand the issues, develop strategies, and execute a variety of forms of merger for church expansion and renewal to reinvigorate declining churches and give them a “second life.”

Necessary Endings: The Employees, Businesses, and Relationships That All of Us Have to Give Up in Order to Move Forward

Henry Cloud

“If you’re hesitant to pull the trigger when things obviously aren’t working out, Henry Cloud’s Necessary Endings may be the most important book you read all year.” —Dave Ramsey, New York Times bestselling author of The Total Money Makeover

“Cloud is a wise, experienced, and compassionate guide through [life’s] turbulent passages.” —Bob Buford, bestelling author of Halftime and Finishing Well; founder of the Leadership Network

Henry Cloud, the bestselling author of Integrity and The One-Life Solution, offers this mindset-altering method for proactively correcting the bad and the broken in our businesses and our lives. Cloud challenges readers to achieve the personal and professional growth they both desire and deserve—and gives crucial insight on how to make those tough decisions that are standing in the way of a more successful business and, ultimately, a better life.

Amplified Leadership: 5 Practices to Establish Influence, Build People, and Impact Others for a Lifetime

Dan Reiland

If you want your ministry to reach its maximum potential, all that God wants for you, it is essential that you develop strong leaders. In Amplified Leadership, “pastor’s coach” Dan Reiland gives you a proven process for developing new leaders that are established spiritually and trained practically.

Not just a checklist of things you should do, Amplified Leadershipprovides an intentional development process that starts with your relationships and ends with empowered leaders who are ready to make an impact. With personal examples and proven advice, Reiland gives you the tools you need to: Establish relationships; Engage followers; Embrace and equip team members; Coach your apprentices; Mentor new leaders.

The ability to develop leaders is a life-changing gift. When you successfully empower and release people to leadership, you give them the opportunity to fulfill their potential and advance the mission of the church.

The Imitation of Christ

Thomas à Kempis

Only the Bible has been more influential as a source of Christian devotional reading than The Imitation of Christ. This meditation on the spiritual life has inspired readers from Thomas More and St. Ignatius Loyola to Thomas Merton and Pope John Paul I. Written by the Augustinian monk Thomas à Kempis between 1420 and 1427, it contains clear instructions for renouncing wordly vanities and locating eternal truths.  No book has more explicitly and movingly described the Christian ideal: “My son, to the degree that you can leave yourself behind, to that degree will you be able to enter into Me.” With a new Preface by Sally Cunneen, author of In Search of Mary: The Woman and the Symbol.

“God is our home but many of us have strayed from our native land.  The venerable authors of these Spiritual Classics are expert guides–may we follow their directions home.”
–Archbishop Desmond Tutu

The Other 80 Percent: Turning Your Church’s Spectators Into Active Participants

Scott Thumma and Warren Bird

In this practical resource, well-known and respected researcher Scott Thumma and professional co-writer Warren Bird draw upon new and heretofore unpublished research across a broad range of Protestant churches of all sizes and show how to create more active members. Offers solid information of what church leaders need to know about the factors and practices that create church members who are more actively and passionately involved in their congregations.

Offers a first of its kind resource for developing engaged congregations Lead author Scott Thumma is a noted researcher and writer on congregational studies Warren Bird is coauthor of Culture Shift and Viral Churches This book offers advice for moving church members from being spectators to living a life of discipleship and faith.

Cracking Your Church’s Culture Code: Seven Keys to Unleashing Vision and Inspiration

Samuel R. Chand

Why is it that the best strategic plans and good leadership often are not able to move churches in the desired direction? Sam Chand contends that toxic culture is to blame. Quite often, leaders don’t sense the toxicity, but it poisons their relationships and derails their vision. This work describes five easily identifiable categories of church culture (inspiring-accepting-stagnant-discouraging-toxic), with diagnostic descriptions in the book and a separate online assessment tool. The reader will be able to identify strengths and needs of their church’s culture, and then apply practical strategies (communication, control and authority, selection and placement of personnel, etc.) to make their church’s culture more positive.

Discusses how to diagnose the state of a church’s culture Reveals what it takes to put in place effective strategies for creating a more positive church culture Author served on the board of EQUIP (Dr. John Maxwell’s Ministry), equipping five million leaders world-wide. This important book offers a clear guide for understanding and recreating a healthy church culture.

Good to Great and the Social Sectors: A Monograph to Accompany Good to Great

Jim Collins

Building upon the concepts introduced in Good to Great, Jim Collins answers the most commonly asked questions raised by his readers in the social sectors. Using information gathered from interviews with over 100 social sector leaders, Jim Collins shows that his “Level 5 Leader” and other good-to-great principles can help social sector organizations make the leap to greatness.

Sticky Teams: Keeping Your Leadership Team and Staff on the Same Page

Larry Osborne

Serving as a church leader can be a tough assignment. Whatever your role, odds are you’ve known your share of the frustration, conflict, and disillusionment that comes with silly turf battles, conflicting vision, and marathon meetings. No doubt, you’ve asked yourself, “How did it get this way?” With practical and accessible wisdom, Larry Osborne explains how it got this way. He exposes the hidden roadblocks, structures, and goofy thinking that sabotage even the best intentioned teams.

Then with time-tested and proven strategies he shows what it takes to get (and keep) a board, staff, and congregation on the same page. Whatever your situation; from start-up phase, to mid-sized, to megachurch, Osborne has been there. As the pastor of North Coast Church he’s walked his board, staff, and congregation through the process. Now with warm encouragement and penetrating insights he shares his secrets to building and maintaining a healthy and unified ministry team that sticks together for the long haul.

A Multi-Site Church Road Trip: Exploring the New Normal

Geoff Surratt, Greg Ligon and Warren Bird

From multiple locations to internet campuses, the multi-site church movement is changing the shape of the church. What is this rapidly expanding phenomenon all about? A Multi-Site Church Roadtrip takes you on a tour of multi-site churches across America to see how they’re handling the opportunities and challenges raised by this dynamic organizational model. Travel with tour guides Surratt, Ligon, and 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.

Sticky Church

Larry Osborne

In Sticky Church, author and pastor Larry Osborne makes the case that closing the back door of your church is even more important than opening the front door wider. He offers a time-tested strategy for doing so: sermon-based small groups that dig deeper into the weekend message and tightly velcro members to the ministry. It’s a strategy that enabled Osborne’s congregation to grow from a handful of people to one of the larger churches in the nation—without any marketing or special programming. Sticky Church tells the inspiring story of North Coast Church’s phenomenal growth and offers practical tips for launching your own sermon-based small group ministry. Topics include: Why stickiness is so importantWhy most of our discipleship models don’t work very wellWhy small groups always make a church more honest and transparentWhat makes groups grow deeper and sticker over timeSticky Church is an ideal book for church leaders who want to start or retool their small group ministry—and velcro their congregation to the Bible and each other.

Becoming a Healthy Team: Five Traits of Vital Leadership

Stephen Macchia

Teams are difficult to create. They are tough to motivate and even more challenging to lead. They can inspire greatness but also can be filled with pettiness. This book discusses the characteristics that produce intimacy, authenticity, and effectiveness in a team and lead to the team’s vitality.

Teams are difficult to create. They are tough to motivate and even more challenging to lead. They can inspire greatness but also can be filled with pettiness. In Becoming a Healthy Team, Macchia discusses the characteristics that produce intimacy, authenticity, and effectiveness in a team and lead to the team’s vitality. TEAMS spells out Trust, Empowerment, Assimilation, Management, and Service—the five traits of a healthy team. With biblical guidance throughout and questions for reflection at the end of each chapter, Macchia has created a valuable team-building resource perfect for pastors, ministry leaders, and anyone involved in a leadership role. –Amazon

Leadership is an Art

Max DePree

Perhaps we should banish all of our management books except Max De Pree’s gem, Leadership Is an Art. The successful Herman Miller, Inc., chairman . . . . writes only about trust, grace, spirit, and love . . . . such concerns are the essence of organizations, small or large—Inc. magazine

This book has long been a must-read not only within the business community but also in professions ranging from academia to medical practices, to the political arena. First published in 1989, the book has sold more than 800,000 copies in hardcover and paperback. This revised edition brings Max De Pree’s timeless words and practical philosophy to a new generation of readers.De Pree looks at leadership as a kind of stewardship, stressing the importance of building relationships, initiating ideas, and creating a lasting value system within an organization. Rather than focusing on the “hows” of corporate life, he explains the “whys.” He shows that the first responsibility of a leader is to define reality and the last is to say thank you. Along the way, the artful leader must: Take a role in developing, expressing, and defending civility and values; and Nurture new leaders and ensure the continuation of the corporate culture

This book offers a proven design for achieving success by developing the generous spirit within all of us. Now more than ever, it provides the insights and guidelines leaders in every field need.

The Peacemaker—A Biblical Guide to Resolving Personal Conflict

Ken Sande

Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers.” But it often seems like conflict and disagreement are unavoidable. Serious, divisive conflict is everywhere-within families, in the church, and out in the world. And it can seem impossible to overcome its negative force in our lives.

In The Peacemaker, Ken Sande presents a comprehensive and practical theology for conflict resolution designed to bring about not only a cease-fire but also unity and harmony. Sande takes readers beyond resolving conflicts to true, life-changing reconciliation with family members, coworkers, and fellow believers.

Biblically based, The Peacemaker is full of godly wisdom and useful suggestions that are easily applied to any relationship needing reconciliation. Sande’s years of experience as an attorney and as president of Peacemaker Ministries will strengthen readers’ confidence as they stand in the gap as peacemakers.

Leading From the Second Chair: Serving Your Church, Fulfilling Your Role, and Realizing Your Dreams

Mike Bonem & Roger Patterson

This book will raise awareness of the need for strong leaders in secondary positions. It will describe the value they can bring to their organization and to primary leaders when they are serving at their full potential. It will reshape the way they view their role, with an emphasis on their own responsibility as leaders. It recognizes the unique challenges and frustrations of serving in a subordinate position and equips these leaders with the attitudes and skills that they will need to survive and thrive in this new paradigm. Because of the scarcity of resources for second chair leaders, particularly those in the church, this book will offer a practical way to improve the performance of any organization. Leading Congregational Change discussed the importance of a “vision community”–a diverse group of key members who discern and implement the vision for a congregation–to guide the transformation of a church. This work will extend the theme of an empowered leadership team as we explore how individual clergy and laity can lead effectively.

“If you are a second chair leader, are considering a second chair role, or work with a second chair leader, this book is a must read! Mike Bonem and Roger Patterson have done a superb job of defining the living paradoxes a second chair leader deals with day in and day out. Don’t consider a second chair role without reading this book first.” –Warren Schuh

Elders and Leaders: God’s Plan for Leading the Church – A Biblical, Historical, and Cultural Perspective

Gene Getz

Strong leadership in the church is exactly what God had in mind. However, very few people, Gene Getz believes, understand the biblical pattern for church leadership. He has written Elders and Leaders to unravel the mystery and alleviate the confusion surrounding this critical topic. In the first part of the book, Getz lays the historical and biblical groundwork for the position of elder. In the second part, he shares how he has applied or has seen these principles applied over the years.

“Several reviewers compare ‘Elders and Leaders’ by Gene Getz to another book on church eldership called ‘Biblical Eldership’ by Alexander Strauch. As with Strauch, Getz presents the biblical texts very well. He also includes writings of the early church fathers up to the 3rd century. What Getz does differently than Strauch is that he keeps the ‘pure text’ work to the front of the book so elders of all size and type churches can read this as ‘pure’ biblical exegesis. Later Getz draws conclusions which come from pastoring large, elder-led churches for over 3 decades” –Brad Smith

The Power of Uniqueness: : Why You Can’t Be Anything You Want to Be

Arthur Miller with William Hendricks

Based on the idea that every person is endowed from birth with a unique pattern of competencies and motivations, or giftedness, this book describes your Motivated Abilities Pattern (MAP), which indicates your personal giftedness and encourages you to pursue your unique calling and live a purposeful life that is highly productive and richly satisfying. “You can be anything you want to be.” Don’t let that lie rob you of your energy and purpose in life! You may function adequately at a job, even forge an impressive career–but unless what you do is lit by an inner fire, you’re just getting by. Because the truth is, you were created with an indelible, highly personal pattern of innate giftedness and motivation. Arthur Miller calls it your Motivated Abilities Pattern, or MAP, and it’s nothing you learned.

It’s something you were born with, the thing that makes you tick and determines your successes and failures. In this revolutionary book, Miller invites you to explore concepts far different from anything you’ve ever read in a career development guide. Drawing on nearly 40 years’ experience analyzing the achievements of over 50,000 people, Miller uncovers a discovery about human nature that can literally change your life. If you feel frustrated and unmotivated by your present occupation–if you’ve spent months and even years wondering what to do with your life–this book can steer you in new directions that pack incredible returns.

Zondervan Publishing Company, 2002. 255 pages.

Natural Church Development: A Guide to Eight Essential Qualities of Healthy Churches

Christian A. Schwarz

The book says of itself: “Critics of the church growth movement have often emphasized the need for quality congregations. ‘Don’t focus on numerical growth, concentrate on qualitative growth.’ Christian Schwarz agrees wholeheartedly! Through careful research, Christian Schwarz has verified the link between health and growth.” Schwarz has eight quality characteristics: Empowering leadership, gift-oriented ministry, passionate spirituality, functional structures, inspiring worship service, holistic small groups, need-oriented evangelism and loving relationships. None of these quality characteristics may be missing from a healthy church.

“The premise of Natural Church Development is that as obstacles to growth are removed, the church will naturally grow as God has given it the ability to grow. A comparison can be made to a plant. If you plant in poor, rocky soil, provide very little sunlight and no water, the plant will not grow. If you remove the rocks, provide good soil, adequate sunlight and water, the plant will naturally grow, as God has given it the ability to grow.”

ChurchSmart Resources, 1996. 128 pages.