Kategoria BISAC: Religion >> Christian Ministry - Missions

When Holy Cross missionaries landed in Algeria in 1840, they had only a vague idea of what work they would be undertaking. Trained as teachers, they discovered that the country had a very weak educational system and the few schools that did exist did not want competition from new teachers.

Working first at an orphanage in Algiers, the Brothers eventually settled into schools at Oran, Bone, and Philippeville. None of the locations was ideal for teaching, and the local authorities did not want to pay the Brothers a salary. But with perseverance, the Brothers found that their schools were...

Her touching autobiography, "A Life of Faith," begins with her early years in a prosperous Pennsylvania Dutch family hit hard by the Depression. Seemingly happy on the outside, Elsie is terribly lonely and plagued by fears of death. At fifteen, she experiences personal salvation that results in life-long peace and freedom from her oppression.

Moved to share the gospel and...

Ann Monroe has written a fascinating book about the stunning variety of ways the Bible is preached, taught, studied, and revered in the United States today. Based on interviews with biblical scholars, ministers, and Bible study groups across the country, Monroe's book offers a rich mosaic of the Bible in American culture.

Drawing from primary source documents such as diaries, letters, speeches, sermons, essays, and books from seventeenth-century colonial settlements in North America to today, this volume recovers the contributions of women to American religion. With its breadth and richness of sources it will be of interest and use to feminists, church historians, and students.

Hope for the World represents a new resolve and commitment to the global context for the ministry of the church. Missions, evangelism, and theological education too often seem ill prepared to face the despair commonly shared by both the Northern and Southern hemispheres. The older patterns of ministry, still unwittingly triumphalistic, cannot cope with the deeply rooted spiritual crisis that is manifested economically, politically, and militarily in the globalization of wealth. The essays in this volume, by respecting the specific contexts of doing ministry, hold out hope as an...

In this study of church growth and membership retention, Donald Smith argues that if a church is to survive, it must concentrate on keeping its present members as well as attracting new ones. He interviews people from six hundred churches of various sizes and reviews the causes of membership decline and retention in those churches. He provides evidence that a major problem is membership dropout. He brings together and addresses the assimilation of new members, congregational vitality and church growth, and conflict management and its impact on membership retention. He asserts that churches...

Pastor, consultant, and award-winning author Art Beals challenges churches to see each member as a potential missionary; in so doing, churches return full circle to the New Testament church model of ministry. Founded in trinitarian theology, Beal's practical advice explores congregation-based mission, explains how to creatively mobilize resources for mission, and discusses how to train and care for volunteers. Beal's model for outreach emphasizes principles for partnership that provide mutual empowerment and long-term commitment.

In Starting Small Groups: Building Communities That Matter, Jeffrey Arnold discusses small groups and details step-by-step the method for designing a small-group ministry to fit a congregation's unique situations. Adapted from a workbook format that allows each congregation to identify its own particular needs and character, this resource includes ways to plan, envision, and strategize for the formation of small groups.

The author looks at significant issues related to designing or revamping a small-group ministry, including group types; group structure; leadership...

Prepares Christian congregations to fulfill their basic function - to make disciples who make a difference for Jesus Christ.

This book is about helping "stuck" and "unstuck" churches either become unstuck or constantly improve their ministry of making disciples. This book is designed to help church leaders make profound changes in the way they do ministry or constantly practice methodological innovation/improvement to be effective in creating disciples in their churches.