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The definitive guide to leading the congregation, updated to meet the needs of today's church leaders.
Presents a guide to church leadership based on the principles and practices of the Wesleyan movement.
Learn how to work for genuine and effective change in your church without trying to throw out everything that has gone before. Pastors and other congregational leaders are eager to institute meaningful and effective change in their congregations. They know that old attitudes and perspectives prevent the church from fulfilling its mission to make disciples of Jesus Christ. Yet too often church advocates insist that if genuine change is to occur in the church, then everything must change. The board must be wiped clean, and new technologies, new worship styles, and even new theologies must replace what has come before. The problem with such calls for radical change, says Lovett Weems, Jr., is t...
Few would argue that many challenges face The United Methodist Church. But what are the core issues and concerns, the ones that must be addressed if the church is to follow God’s leading into the future? Laying aside what can be merely tweaked or adjusted, what must the UMC “reset” about itself? Lovett Weems, one of the most highly-respected interpreters of contemporary United Methodism, suggests that we start with the following: - What will happen now that the increased giving that United Methodists have enjoyed (despite declining membership numbers) has reached a plateau and begun to decline? - Why, with 34,000 congregations and $6.5 billion in annual giving, can’t United Methodist...
Clergy and other church leaders often feel pressed to preserve cherished traditions even as they direct people to discern the new thing God is doing. They face this tension of sustaining tradition while guiding fresh initiatives and addressing unfamiliar issues. Frederick Douglas Powe Jr. and Lovett H. Weems Jr. guide leaders in stewarding traditions while seeking innovative opportunities for faith communities. Sustaining While Disrupting: The Challenge of Congregational Innovation offers church leaders theological insights and practical skills for two crucial tasks: to sustain and strengthen foundational elements of the churches they serve and to guide the critical innovation required to ad...
Discover how to assess ministry so that it leads congregations to fruitfulness and effectiveness.
Explains why the numbers of younger clergy are declining and shows church leaders how to thrive in spite of it
There are now over 250 theological seminaries in the United States and Canada. Leading these diverse institutions is a difficult task that combines elements of executive management, academic prowess, master storytelling, and spiritual discipline. Apart from informal mentoring relationships, however, there has been no resource specifically designed to impart collected presidential wisdom. Douglass Lewis, Lovett Weems, and the four dozen other presidential contributors to this volume -- a project of the Association of Theological Schools in the United States and Canada -- together possess hundreds of years of combined experience in institutional leadership. They pass along sage advice on every...
Dozens of brief yet powerful entries for pastors about what it really means to be on-mission, spiritual warriors who lead the local church from a biblical point of view instead of a modern traditional one.
A penetrating look at church leadership through the stories of Saul, David, and other central Old Testament figures. The Bible portrays leaders not as heroes placed on a pedestal, but rather as flawed and fallen human beings who nonetheless work with the people around them and with the situation at hand to move toward accomplishing the will of God. Lewis Parks and Bruce Birch maintain that a clear, open-eyed understanding of biblical stories on the exercise of leadership is the only way to prepare for leadership in the church. In order to provide that understanding, they engage in a dialogue with the books of 1 and 2 Samuel, texts that portray the people of Israel in frequent social and political transition, and hence in need of effective leadership.