Leading From the Second Chair
Serving Your Church, Fulfilling Your Role, and Realizing Your Dreams
by Mike Bonem
read by George W. Sarris
Part 15 of the Jossey-Bass Leadership Network series
Leading from the Second Chair 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.
Organic Church
Growing faith where life happens
by Neil Cole
read by Marc Cashman
Part 16 of the Jossey-Bass Leadership Network series
Churches have tried all kinds of ways to attract new and younger members: revised vision statements, hipper worship, contemporary music, livelier sermons, bigger and better auditoriums. But there are still so many people who aren't being reached, who don't want to come to church. And the truth is that attendance at church on Sundays does not necessarily transform lives; God's presence in our hearts is what changes people. Leaders and laypeople everywhere are realizing that they need new and more powerful ways to help them spread God's Word. According to international church starter and pastor Neil Cole, those who want to connect with young people, and those who are not coming to church, must go where people congregate. Cole shows listeners how to plant the seeds of the Kingdom of God in the places where life happens and where culture is formed: restaurants, bars, coffeehouses, parks, locker rooms, and neighborhoods. Organic Church offers a hands-on guide for demystifying this new model of church and shows the practical aspects of implementing it.
Practicing Greatness
7 Disciplines of Extraordinary Spiritual Leaders
by Ken Blanchard, Ph. D.
read by Ax Norman
Part 18 of the Jossey-Bass Leadership Network series
Based on his extensive experience as coach and mentor to many thousands of Christian leaders across a wide variety of settings, denominations, and ministries, Reggie McNeal helps his readers to understand that greatness is indeed their birthright-if they will claim it by living the 7 personal disciplines that help leaders grow from good to great.
Church Unique
How Missional Leaders Cast Vision, Capture Culture, and Create Movement
by Will Mancini
read by William Sarris
Part 23 of the Jossey-Bass Leadership Network series
Church Unique is written by church consultant Will Mancini-an 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.
Mancini explores the pitfalls churches often fall into in their attempt to grow, such as adding more programs, using outdated forms of strategic planning, or adopting the latest conference technique. He explores a new model for vision casting and church growth that has been tested with leaders in all kinds of congregations, including mainline, evangelical, small, and large. The practices and ideas outlined in Church Unique will help leaders develop missional teams, articulate unique strategies, unpack the baggage of institutionalism, and live fully into their vision.
A New Kind of Christian
A Tale of Two Friends on a Spiritual Journey
by Brian D. McLaren
read by Paul Michael
Part 27 of the Jossey-Bass Leadership Network series
A New Kind of Christian's conversation between a pastor and his daughter's high school science teacher reveals that wisdom for life's most pressing spiritual questions can come from the most unlikely sources. This stirring fable captures a new spirit of Christianity, where personal, daily interaction with God is more important than institutional church structures, where faith is more about a way of life than a system of belief, where being authentically good is more important than being doctrinally 'right,' and where one's direction is more important than one's present location. Brian McLaren's delightful account offers a wise and wondrous approach for revitalizing Christian spiritual life and Christian congregations.
Relational Intelligence
by Steve Saccone
read by Steve Saccone
Part 40 of the Jossey-Bass Leadership Network series
Relational Intelligence is for people who desire to improve their relational IQ and increase their impact on others. The book offers practical wisdom, compelling stories, and time-tested examples that reveal how a person can develop relational intelligence on their way to becoming a relational genius. The reader will discover how to delineate the essential skills that make people relationally intelligent, as the author unwraps six roles of the relational genius and provides a transformational approach to navigating complex relational dynamics. This book offers the reader both a breadth and depth of relationship-building wisdom.
The Present Future
Six Tough Questions for the Church
by Reggie McNeal
read by Lloyd James
Part 42 of the Jossey-Bass Leadership Network series
Many of the old beliefs held by church leaders and congregations read as if they are self-evident, irrefutable truths: If you build the perfect church they will come. Growing your church automatically makes a difference in the community. Developing better church members will mean better evangelism. However, time has failed to produce the evidence of these claims. In this provocative book, author, consultant, and church leadership developer Reggie McNeal debunks these and other old assumptions and provides an overall strategy to help church leaders move forward in an entirely different and much more effective way. In The Present Future, McNeal identifies the six most important realities that church leaders must address including: recapturing the spirit of Christianity and replacing 'church growth' with a wider vision of kingdom growth; developing disciples instead of church members; fostering the rise of a new apostolic leadership; focusing on spiritual formation rather than church programs; and shift, from prediction and planning, to preparation for the challenges in an uncertain world. McNeal contends that by changing the questions church leaders ask themselves about their congregations and their plans, they can frame the core issues and approach the future with new eyes, new purpose, and new ideas.
Missional Map-Making
Skills for Leading in Times of Transition
by Alan Roxburgh
read by Nicholas Tecosky
Part 43 of the Jossey-Bass Leadership Network series
Missional church simply means a way of doing church that is less focused on programs for members and more on outreach to people who are not already in church. This is a fundamental shift in what a congregation is and does and thinks (from an internal to external focus) and thus in how leaders lead.
The Externally Focused Quest
Becoming the Best Church for the Community
by Rick Rusaw
read by Kirby Heyborne
Part 44 of the Jossey-Bass Leadership Network series
The Externally Focused Quest: Becoming the Best Church for the Community will help readers understand the ten changes necessary to becoming externally focused. The changes are not about changes in degree but changes in kind that affect the very idea of what it means to be church. This book is not about getting all churches to have an annual day of community service as a tactic but changing the core of who they are and how they see themselves. This is not about 40 days of purpose but more like 40 years of re-purposing. It is a highly practical approach that shows readers the major shifts that are needed to become externally focused.
Baby Boomers and Beyond
Tapping the Ministry Talents and Passions of Adults over 50
by Amy Hanson
read by Laural Merlington
Part 45 of the Jossey-Bass Leadership Network series
This book seeks to alert the reader to the explosion of older adults that is fast hitting our world and the opportunities as well as challenges that this presents for the Christian community. The reader will be challenged to let go of many old stereotypes regarding aging and embrace a new paradigm that sees older adults as active, healthy and capable of making significant contributions. This book will: Debunk the myths of aging that keep us from fully embracing the potential of people in life’s second half, Explain who the aging Boomer is so that people can effectively minister with them, and Suggest how to re-invent ministry with older adults with a focus on unleashing them to serve and make an impact on churches and congregations.
Church 3.0
Upgrades for the Future of the Church
by Neil Cole
read by Brad Smith
Part 49 of the Jossey-Bass Leadership Network series
Since its publication in fall 2005, Neil Cole's Organic Church has become a national and international best-seller. Neil is an active speaker and presenter, traveling all over the world and continuing to be the main voice of the organic church movement, which is one of the fastest growing segments of contemporary Christianity. His organization, Church Multiplication Associates, is planting an estimated two churches per day and offers a training seminar every week (reaching over 3000 people per year). Though these churches are small, there are thousands of them, and all of them have questions about how to actually do an organic church and how to deal with theological and organizational issues that come up-questions about things like finances, children, heresy, leader training, and rituals and ordinances. Without the top-down structure of a denomination, even people who are proponents of this small, house-church model worry that they are not doing it right. Church 3.0 answers these questions, based on Cole's extensive experience in starting, nurturing, and mentoring in the organic church movement.
Viral Churches
Helping Church Planters Become Movement Makers
by Warren Bird
read by Adam Verner
Part 50 of the Jossey-Bass Leadership Network series
Leadership Network commissioned a study by Ed Stetzer (who heads up LifeWay Research) on church planting, i.e., the process of getting a new church started. Leadership Network wanted to find out what the best practices were in church planting and uncover the common threads among them. This book will use research findings to inform, guide, and even catalyze today's many church planting leaders. It will show them how to form a movement and will hopefully also inspire them to do so. It will address their felt needs of what to do next in their church planting strategies, in light of research on what's actually working best.
Hybrid Church
The Fusion of Intimacy and Impact
by Dave Browning
read by Norman Dietz
Part 51 of the Jossey-Bass Leadership Network series
Hybrid Church is a practical guide for clergy and leaders who want to have the best of both church worlds: the intimacy of small house church groups and the impact of very large mega-churches. Given that the trend is toward very large and very small, with few churches in the middle, this book will be a welcome resource for both large and small churches.
Your Church in Rhythm
The Forgotten Dimensions of Seasons and Cycles
by Bruce B. Miller
read by Arthur Morey
Part 52 of the Jossey-Bass Leadership Network series
In his new book, Your Church in Rhythm, Bruce B. Miller debunks the idea of balance basically trying to have it all, all the time. Most churches and their pastors try to do everything at once and feel guilty if any one aspect (worship, ministries, outreach, etc.) is neglected. Instead, Miller proposes replacing the exhausting concept of balance with the idea of rhythm: churches, like people, need to give attention to different programs and ministries at different times, by attending to their seasons and cycles. Influential in the formation and promotion of Church-Based training, Miller uses his newest book to propose an innovative new approach that church leaders and members can harness to understand where they are in the LifeCycle of their church, focus on what matters most, and avoid burnout.
In Pursuit of Great AND Godly Leadership
Tapping the Wisdom of the World for the Kingdom of God
by Mike Bonem
read by Mike Harding
Part 58 of the Jossey-Bass Leadership Network series
Mike Bonem recently wrote an article for Leadership, the premier journal for church leaders, on Good to Great to Godly, in which he explored the issue of how secular insights on business and leadership could or should be applied in churchesand how that intersects with the spiritual dimensions of the role. The article was exceptionally well-received, in large part because leaders at all levels and in all sizes of churches want to be better leaders but don't get the appropriate training or education. In this new book, Bonem seeks to help leaders think more productively about issues such as financial management, strategic planning, systems thinking, growth--all the things that businesses also have to consider. He has an MBA from Harvard Business School, but is also a church leader and consultant, which make him uniquely situated to help church leaders think about applying practices and insights from the secular business and management literature.
A Work of Heart
Understanding How God Shapes Spiritual Leaders
by Reggie McNeal
read by Kirby Heyborne
Part 60 of the Jossey-Bass Leadership Network series
Revised and updated edition of the classic work on spiritual leadership.
In A Work of Heart, bestselling author and missional expert Reggie McNeal helps leaders reflect on the ways in which God is shaping them by letting us see God at work in the lives of four quintessential biblical leaders: Moses, David, Jesus, and Paul. McNeal identifies the formative influences upon these leaders, which he sees as God's ways of working in their lives: the same influences at work today forming leaders for ministry in our times. He explores the shaping influence of culture, call, community, conflict, and the commonplace.
- Offers guidance for church leaders to let God shape their hearts from the inside out.
- Reggie McNeal is the author of the bestselling book Missional Renaissance.
- Gives reassurance for maintaining perspective while doing the demanding work of ministry.
The book includes illustrative stories of contemporary leaders opening their hearts to God's guidance.
Better Together
Making Church Mergers Work
by Jim Tomberlin
read by Maurice England
Part 62 of the Jossey-Bass Leadership Network series
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 cowriter 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."
Just Lead!
A No Whining, No Complaining, No Nonsense Practical Guide for Women Leaders in the Church
by Jenni Catron
read by Sherry Surratt, Jenni Carton
Part 67 of the Jossey-Bass Leadership Network series
Just Lead! will provide 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 begins by taking a hard look at what holds women back from having the influence to lead. From inner battles of insecurity, fear and comparison to the practical realities of gender dynamics, to developing confidence in speaking up, the book challenges readers to start with a look in the mirror. The second half of the book will focus on equipping the reader to lead others. It addresses leadership issues such as leading mixed gender teams, earning and giving respect and navigating through relational landmines. The book challenges the reader to embrace the messiness of relational leadership and equips them with skills to lead others well. By providing practical application to leadership issues that matter to the serious woman leader, readers will be inspired as well as encouraged as they consider the ideas presented and the experiences shared through authenticity and real life examples.