Church Administration Books

A Grief Observed

C. S. Lewis

List Price: $12.95 By: Walker Large Print Amazon Marketplace: 32 new & used starting at $0.70

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Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Death & Grief -> Grief & Bereavement
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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 137 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Raw and true 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

CS Lewis looks death into the face; he does not flinch and does not console himself with platitudes. He had lost the love of his life and his pain is palpable to the reader. This is a raw and honest book but it is not at all depressing: At the end of the book, Lewis begins to recover: his wish is simply that, on his own death bed, his lover will come back to him and give him the consolation of seeing her face again.

Rather surpisingly, I was diagnosed with terminal cancer myself three weeks after doing this review. The Lord gives, the Lord takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord! If you read this, say a prayer for me that I may die with courage and joy!

Not, "When Bad Things Happen to Good People" 3 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Lost a child. C. S. asks me to work very hard. I can't do it. Kushner gets to the heart of grief.

Joy in hope does not preclude fear, sorrow, and longing 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Not every author invites readers into the intimacy of his own most personal and profound loss. But not every confirmed bachelor and university professor marries for immigration rather than for love, and later realizes that his heart belongs to the person to whom he is already married, only to formally take her as a real wife during her hospitalization and treatment for a form of cancer that will eventually end her life. But C.S. Lewis is special, and so are his readers.

This personal diary, originally published under a psedonym, offers reassurance that knowing God is good does not preclude feelings of deep sorrow, fear, and uncertainty in the loss of a loved one. Lewis explores the social, emotional, and spiritual earthquakes that are caused by the death of his wife. Losing his intellectual sparring partner, his bedfellow, his friend, and his lover shakes him to the core, yet he clings to Christ as the only source of eteral hope for himself and for his wife Joy.

During a season of grief, I read this book every few weeks. It's a classic and not to be missed, not because it's entertaining, but because it acknowleges deep longings and desires that are intended by our Creator to lead us to Truth.

Editorial Review:

This very personal anguished story of the death of Lewis's wife is reissued with a foreword by Madeleine L'Engle. The celebrated author shares an intenseaccount of the meaning of death with wit and insight.

Simple Church: Returning to God's Process for Making Disciples

Thom S. Rainer, Eric Geiger

Amazon Price: $10.19 List Price: $14.99 Not yet published By: B&H Books

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 80 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Not sure I would pay the full price for this again.... 1 out of 5 stars.
0 of 3 people found this review helpful.

This book is as skewed. The statistics are skewed and the survey findings are not able to be generalized to the overall population. There was no random sampling, and so the findings were significant because they surveyed significant churches and failing church.... several times the data in the form of graphs show something totally different than what they state their findings are, which makes the skewing even more evident than usual, if they had let the data say what the data says, and not force the data to try and say what they want it to say their findings probably would be not substantial and would not need to have a book written.

Editorial Review:

The simple revolution is here. From the iPod design to Google’s uncluttered homepage, simple ideas are changing the world.

Now in paperback after selling more than 100,000 copies in hardcover, multi-awarded #1 national bestseller Simple Church guides Christians back to the simple gospel-sharing methods of Jesus. No bells or whistles required. Based on case studies of 400 American churches, Thom Rainer and Eric Geiger prove the disciple-making process is often too complex. Simple churches thrive by taking four ideas to heart: Clarity. Movement. Alignment. Focus.

Simple Church examines each idea, clearly showing why it is time to simplify.

It: How Churches and Leaders Can Get It and Keep It

Craig Groeschel

Amazon Price: $12.91 List Price: $18.99 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Zondervan Amazon Marketplace: 39 new & used starting at $10.65

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 28 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Wonderful book! 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

This book is a great resource and should be a must read for all pastors. I would encourage the pastoral staff to read it together and go through the study questions. It can really challenge the team to go to the next level!

IT 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

This is the #1 Leadership book on my shelf at the moment. Fresh, real, and to the point. I encourage every leader to pick this book up for a inspiring challenge to their personal relationship with Christ and their organization's comittment to pursuing God's presence.

Fabulous 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I highly recomend this book to anyone in church leadership. I picked it up at a conference and loved it so much that our church staff if now doing it as a group book study. Craig Groeschel is a kingdom oriented leader that we can all learn from.

Editorial Review:

Craig Groeschel, founder of LifeChurch.tv (Edmond, OK), witnessed a powerful presence from God that he calls It at work in many churches. What is this transformational force? How can you and your ministry get—and keep—It? Combining in-your-face honesty with off-the-wall humor, this lively book tells how any believer can obtain It.

Fusion: Turning First-Time Guests into Fully-Engaged Members of Your Church

Nelson Searcy; Jennifer Henson

Amazon Price: $10.39 List Price: $12.99 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Regal Books Amazon Marketplace: 32 new & used starting at $7.34

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 18 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

All church leaders have faced the questions that arrive with newcomers: Do they feel comfortable? Is there more we could do to serve them? Will they want to come back? Creating an environment that both embraces our newcomers and excites them enough to return does not happen by chance. We must be prepared to be effective stewards of the newcomers God brings us. And, why shouldn t the Church be the epitome of service at its best, as modeled by the greatest server of all time? Built on The Journey Church of the City s Assimilation Seminar, Fusion embodies a step-by-step, biblically grounded, tested and proven plan for establishing a relationship with newcomers that ultimately prompts them to become fully developing members of our congregations. This innovative, practical guide is full of how-to information, testimonials from the recently assimilated and from participating church leaders, examples of the assimilation materials used and check points to make sure the reader is on track. Engaging, informative and immediately applicable, here is help for setting newcomers on the path toward true life transformation and spiritual maturity.

Axiom: Powerful Leadership Proverbs

Bill Hybels

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 8 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Speed of the Leader, Speed of the Team 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 3 people found this review helpful.

Bill Hybels revs up in chapter one--and the good stuff is still kicking in chapter 68, "Read All You Can." He writes, "I have little patience with leaders who get themselves into leadership binds and then confess that they haven't read a leadership book in years. If you're a serious-minded leader, you will read." In the book's foreword, Henry Cloud writes, "Great leaders do their homework so that weariness and unsteadiness are kept at bay."

Amen to that vote for lifelong learning, also affirmed in the "Book Bucket" one of 20 buckets in my book, Mastering The Management Buckets: 20 Critical Competencies for Leading Your Business or Non-profit. Consequently, I was eager to read the latest book from Bill Hybels, one of the most gifted leaders I've ever met. Axiom, with 76 pithy leadership proverbs, doesn't disappoint.

"Speed of the leader, speed of the team," was and is one of Bill's oft-mentioned axioms. Few leaders make this pronouncement because the camera immediately focuses in on them. As the first president of Willow Creek Association, I watched Hybels up close and he always shared that core value confidently, yet humbly. His walk and his talk backed it up. He writes, "If you cannot say, `Follow me,' to your followers--and mean it--then you've got a problem, a big one."

He elaborates. "Follow my values. Follow my integrity. Follow my work ethic, my commitment, and my communication patterns. Fight as I fight. Focus as I focus. Sacrifice as I sacrifice. Love as I love. Repent as I repent. Admit wrong as I admit wrong. Endure hardship as I endure hardship." Then he concludes this one-page proverb with the whole point of it. "When requisite actions back them up, these are the words that set followers' hearts soaring."

Scan the 76 mini-chapter titles and you'll be pulled into the street-smart, God-smart wisdom. They include: Language Matters, Make the Big Ask, Hire Tens, The Dangers of Incrementalism, Never Say Someone's No for Them, The Tunnel of Chaos (a key idea in my Culture Bucket), Disagree Without Drawing Blood, Admit Mistakes and Your Stock Goes Up, and Arrive Early or Not at All.

Warning! Don't carelessly toss these axioms into your repertoire without understanding the biblical and leadership context. In my days at Willow, "Don't Screw Up" was a common benediction at meetings--but it created anxiety, not blessing. The leader knew how to communicate it, but the lieutenants didn't.

Editorial Review:

Winning leaders have winning points of view—succinct, practical, portable leadership proverbs that help them arbitrate decisions and rouse troops to action. In Axiom: The Language of Leadership, Bill Hybels reveals eighty God-given, from-the-gut truths that continue to raise his game and his vision, thirty-plus years into his local-church leadership experience.

Spiritual Leadership (Commitment To Spiritual Growth)

J.Oswald Sanders

List Price: $13.99 By: Moody Publishers Amazon Marketplace: 76 new & used starting at $1.99

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 49 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Spiritual Leadership 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Easy to read with good information on leadership in the church. I also like the "reflection questions" at the end of each chapter.

A must read for all spiritual leaders 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Keisha's DilemmaThe Ultimate Dilemma

I am an Area Director for the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. My job is to cultivate leadership on middle and high school campus'. What an awesome and rewarding responsiblity. I've spent time as an Assistant Pastor and a Youth Pastor, I've read many books from Dale Carnegie to John Maxwell. J. Oswald Sanders has written a book for every spiritual leader. This book is for every demographic, and for leaders on every level. AWESOME!

Spiritual Leadership 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

The information in the book is outstanding. I have gone through secular management training and read other management and leadership books. This book has really helped me tie in the training I have had and my Christian faith to be a more effective leader.

Editorial Review:

Christianity needs powerful voices in today's world, voices from strong leaders guided by God and devoted to Christ. Spiritual Leadership will encourage you to place your talents and powers at His disposal so you can become a leader used for His glory.

Purpose-Driven® Church, The

Rick Warren

List Price: $17.99 By: Zondervan Amazon Marketplace: 12 new & used starting at $6.91

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 125 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Sudy Book 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 2 people found this review helpful.

I purchased these for my Graceful Ladies Bible Study group, at their request. We haven't begun, yet, but we are anxious to get started.

The Bible of Church Management 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

This is an excellent text for any phase of church management. I kept trying to find areas to disagree with and I found none!

Good book 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I enjoyed this book better than the Purpose Driven Life. Good sound strategies or a seeker service style program.

completely satisfied 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

This was my first experiance with Amazon and I was completely satisfied .The book was just like new ,I don't think it had ever been read .It was sent fast and packaged good .I would buy again .
Thanks for a good first time experiance .

What can you say 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I have read this book many, many times. The only things about it that I don't like are all the references to growth it contains. The dustcover has so many references to growth it sickens me, but Warren probably didn't write that and the publishers know who will be reading.

The book is great at helping a church ask questions that need to be asked and helping a church to find a paradigm that would be pleasing to God. Regardless of what type of church you are in this book will be of some benefit to you. If you've got a problem with the paradigm of being purpose driven then you've got a problem with scripture.

Editorial Review:

This condensed version covers the first half of the book, including a five-point strategy for attracting and spiritually maturing the unchurched, and is read by the author, the pastor of Saddleback Church. Read by Rick Warren.

Victory Over the Darkness: Realizing the Power of Your Identity in Christ

Neil T. Anderson

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 52 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

America needs 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I wish more books like this would just make the number one NY sellers list. Americans need to read this type of material.

The power of indentity 3 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I really want to give this book more than three stars because it is a necessary corrective to many church's teachings that we are all wretched sinners. Anderson uses the scriptures to show us that this is not how God sees us. It is this false conception of ourselves which restrains our Christian growth. However after that good start, this book lacks the practical steps of how to build-up an accurate self-identity. Anderson makes it sound very simple - you simply choose to change your view of yourself and it happens. In reality, this is a process. There is no mention in this book of how fellowship in small groups or accountability partners can be a part of this process. Also, the chapters on unforgivness and marital relationships were off the topic.

Editorial Review:

Ten years ago a breakthrough book launched a ministry that has helped more than one million people overcome this world and win the battle for their hearts and minds. Now Neil Anderson has revised and expanded Victory over the Darkness for a new generation of readers, outlining practical and more productive ways to Christian growth based on Christ's promise: "You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free." Victory Over the Darkness emphasizes the importance of believing and internalizing the cardinal truths of Scripture as a base from which to renew the mind and fend off Satan's relentless attempt to convince us that we are less than Christ empowers us to be.

Forgotten Ways, The: Reactivating the Missional Church

Alan Hirsch

Amazon Price: $13.59 List Price: $19.99 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Brazos Press Amazon Marketplace: 47 new & used starting at $11.25

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 26 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Retooling the Church 1 out of 5 stars.
8 of 23 people found this review helpful.

Tom Griner said...
I hear a desire similar to what I heard years before from the church growth folks...a desire to reach the world for Jesus by retooling Christianity. And they have had some success yet as Hirsch says, Christianity in the west continues a downward spiral. So now we have a new generation who also wants to retool Christianity. The thought is, if only we can be real and get down to where people really are... if only we can be free from the old baggage and have a new view, we can recover the declination. Yet, I believe this new analyses is just more of the same. It too will leave the church empty and void. So what is the answer to this intuitive since that something is wrong? Without sounding to simplistic, I do not believe it is a new view of relevance that is needed; I believe we simply need to be real Christians. What I mean by real Christian is not one who is a Christian in name or who attends church religiously. I mean one who is born of God and who is filled with the very Spirit of God. I mean one who is incarnating Christ. There is a problem, but it is not with how we relate to society. The problem is what we are. Much of Christianity is plastic and religious. Only a Christianity that is an expression of the Word of God in power will be a Christianity that changes the world. And when that kind of Church arises, there is always persecution. If the Church continues to try and find some new prescription that will make it fulfill its great calling, it will continue to go around the mountain. When the Apostle Peter came out of the upper room, he and his fellow brethren turned their world upside down within thirty years. When they preached, thousands were converted, when they prayed the place was shaken, when they laid hands on the sick they recovered. This is the kind of Christianity that is the source of the hunger that people are searching for but don't know what it is. This is the missing link. And this is were risk and faith turn a dull Christianity into a living and breathing expression of God that is worth living and dying for. This kind of Church cannot be engineered by some new set of tools or paradigm. Only a Church filled with God will answer the need of the hour. This is the true Apostolic Genius given by God. Tom Griner

Editorial Review:

Alan Hirsch is convinced that the inherited formulas for growing the Body of Christ do not work anymore. And rather than relying on slightly revised solutions from the past, he sees a vision of the future growth of the church coming about by harnessing the power of the early church, which grew from as few as 25,000 adherents in AD 100 to up to 20 million in AD 310. Such incredible growth is also being experienced today in the church in China and other parts of the world. How do they do it? The Forgotten Ways explores the concept of Apostolic Genius as a way to understand what caused the church to expand at various times in history, interpreting it for use in our own time and place. From the theological underpinnings to the practical application, Hirsch takes the reader through this dynamic mixture of passion, prayer, and incarnational practice to rediscover the dormant potential of the modern church in the West.

Quitting Church: Why the Faithful are Fleeing and What to Do about It

Julia, Duin

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Total reviews: 9 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

A Journalist Investigates Why Christians Are Leaving Church

Several recent studies reveal that churches across America are hemorrhaging--they are losing members at a life-threatening rate. Intrigued and disturbed by what appears to be an epidemic, Julia Duin, a religion reporter for the Washington Times, amassed research on the issue, interviewed many who have left church, and attended numerous churches in hopes of making sense of this phenomenon.

Quitting Church reveals the startling findings of her research. It explains to church leaders why this mass exodus is happening--and what can be done to reverse it. Beginning with the cold, hard facts, Duin then takes readers through a number of issues that influence a person's decision to leave the church, including irrelevancy, hidden suffering, family-centric programming that leaves singles out, impersonal or bland worship services, a lack of biblical literacy, and much more. This eye-opening book will be essential reading for pastors, ministry leaders, and churchgoers who wish to bring these disenchanted Christians back into their midst.