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We have assembled a few resources for you to look over as you think about your church, your leadership, and the transition season you are about to experience. Interim Ministry Partners (IMP) believe that an effective transition is rooted in good theology, careful process, and healthy teaching. These resources will give you tools to address each of these areas.
We hope these resources will be a blessing to you and your congregation. Your comments and feedback are appreciated.
Notice that this “Resource” area is divided into several different categories. The “Recommended Books” category identifies some of the general subject books we recommend to church leaders (and churches) as they face seasons of transition. The “Booklets” category includes links to material IMP has developed that is specific to our processes or focused on particular transition issues. The “Video Presentations” category provides links to seminars or sermons you might find encouraging and helpful. The ”Websites” category will link you to other websites (related to the interim season) you might want to view.
The Status of Churches of Christ
Click here to view the following articles/reports
- Losing Our Hope, Seeking A Future (Synopsis)
- A Demographic Study of Fifty Congregations of the Churches of Christ
- Churches of Christ in 2050
IMP Booklets, Workbooks & Downloadable PDFs
Followship by Tim Woodroof
This booklet discusses the relationship between church leaders and church members – particularly the challenges presented by a wider culture where leadership is distrusted, doubted, and disputed. Is the attitude, “We will follow you anywhere we want to go” appropriate in the church or does God expect his people to adopt a different perspective.
Decision-Making for Church Leaders by Tim Woodroof
Church leaders make decisions. It’s not all they do, but no one with any experience as a church leader would deny that making decisions is an important part of the leadership role. Church leaders make decisions together. Unfortunately, the process of group decision-making in churches is rarely defined, which leads to important steps in good decision-making being omitted or violated. This booklet charts a clear path for your group decision-making in the context of church leadership and will give your leaders a place to start down the road to better decision making.
Non-Anxious Leadership by Tim Woodroof
Church leaders are as vulnerable to anxieties as church members…perhaps more so because they care so much. But because church leaders care about their churches, they must choose to be less anxious than the people they serve…or at least less controlled by their anxiety. A traumatic and church-threatening event many not occur in your congregation tomorrow or next week. But it will occur eventually…in every church…and it can happen at any time. It is precisely in anxious times that church leaders must avoid anxious behavior, if they are to lead churches to healthier and more productive futures.
Prepping for the Search Process by Tim Woodroof
The articles gathered in this white-paper give churches looking for a new minister not only an overview of IMP’s search process but also an insider look at “best practices” for conducting any minister search.
Whether you end up working directly with IMP or not, we want you to have a successful and kingdom-effective result from your search. We hope these articles will help make that happen.
Recommended Books
*Move your cursor over a book to see its description. Click on a book to order it from Amazon.
I Am a Church Member: Discovering the Attitude that Makes the Difference by Thom Rainier – This book (that started as a 500 word blog) begins to remedy the outbreak of inactive or barely committed church members, addressing without apology what is expected of those who join a body of believers. When a person’s attitude is consistently biblical and healthy, matters of giving, serving, and so forth will fall into place more naturally.
Autopsy of a Deceased Church: 12 Ways to Keep Yours Alive by Thom 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!
Scrappy Church: How many times have we heard these statements… “We can’t compete with the megachurch in our town!” “A new church was started two blocks from us. We’ve got plenty of churches without them!” “The church brought another one of their campuses near us. It’s totally unethical what they are doing.” “We can’t reach young families. They all go to the big church that has all the children’s and student stuff.” “We don’t have the money or the people the other churches have.” Bestselling author Thom S. Rainer (I Am a Church Member, Autopsy of a Deceased Church) has heard comments like these hundreds, if not thousands, of times. They are statements of hopelessness. They are statements of despair. They are statements of defeat. Church leaders don’t want to feel this way. They desire to break out of the mediocrity of the same, lame, and tame existence of their churches. They want their churches to make a difference. There is hope. God’s hope. God’s possibilities. What does a scrappy church look like? Let’s take a look together.
The Present Future: Six Tough Questions for the Church by Reggie McNeal – 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 shifting from prediction and planning to preparation for the challenges of 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.
Deep and Wide: Creating Churches Unchurched People Love to Attend by Andy Stanley – Deep and Wide provides church leaders with an in-depth look into North Point Community Church and its strategy for creating churches unchurched people absolutely love to attend. For the first time, Andy explains his strategy for preaching and programming to “dual audiences”: mature believers and cynical unbelievers. He argues that preaching to dual audiences doesn’t require communicators to “dumb down” the content. According to Stanley, it’s all in the approach. If your team is more concerned with who you are reaching than who you are keeping, the expanded edition of Deep & Wide will be more than a book you read; it will be a resource you come back to over and over!
Congregational Leadership in Anxious Times: Being Calm and Courageous No Matter What by Peter Steinke Anxious times call for steady leadership. When tensions emerge in a congregation, its leaders cannot be as anxious as the people they serve. To remain effective, congregational leaders must control their own uneasiness. This takes self-awareness and confidence to manage relationships and influence behaviors. Knowing how to deal with anxiety and how to work throug complex challenges can lead a congregation to new insights, growth, and vitality. Anxious times hold not only the potential for loss but also for creation, important lernings, and changes that will strengthen the congregation. With this new book, internationally respected consultant Peter Steinke goes deeper into the requirements of effective congregational leadership. Steinke inspires courage in leaders to maintain the course, unearth secrets, resist sabotage, withstand fury, and overcome timidity or doubts. His insights, illustrations, and provocations will carry leaders through rough times, provide clarity during confusing times, and uplift them in joyous times.
A Church That Flies : A New Call to Restoration in the Churches of Christ by Tim Woodroof – In this book, Tim Woodroof holds up a fresh and hopeful vision. A radical vision (in the basic sense of that word–‘to the root’). At this decisive juncture, this book offers a prescription for the confusion, disarray, and disillusionment found in so many of our churches. At its heart, this new book offers a practical guide for distinguishing the enduring and universal functions of the church from its fluid and adaptable forms–precisely where many churches have experienced so much trouble and division.
Doing God’s Work: A Primer for Church Leaders by HOPE Network Ministries – This book is a compilation of wisdom from the members of Hope Network Ministries. Think of it as both an introduction and an invitation. It’s an introduction to the practical nature of what Hope Network does. Each chapter is written by someone in the trenches who both understands the challenges of contemporary ministry and has experience in navigating them. It’s also an invitation to reach out to any of the authors of this volume for deeper conversation. They didn’t write their chapters to show off what they know. They wrote them to make you aware of their availability to walk this path with you. While each chapter of this book addresses ministry challenges from a different perspective, they all communicate the same basic message. That message is that you are not alone in your struggle. There is hope in the form of a network of other ministers who are here to assist you.
Navigating the Storm: Resources of HOPE for Church Leaders by HOPE Network Ministries – HOPE Network exists to be helpful to church leaders and congregations. Like the first disciples on a boat with Jesus in a windstorm, today’s leaders and congregations feel the storm in our culture and the world. Regardless of the kind of storm, leaders are called to help navigate the storm and calm God’s people with the spirit of Jesus. We are a group of people experienced in church life with a deep commitment to the health and growth of God’s people. This book is a compilation of resources for leaders in navigating the storm—however you define it. We are convinced, that Jesus is not asleep on the boat and he is awake calming the winds and the waves. He does it today through leaders who refuse to let the waters swamp the boat.
A Spirit for the Rest of Us by Tim Woodroof – You and I are caught. We suspect there is a relationship with the Spirit more profound than what we have yet experienced. But the Spirit we often see in our religious neighbors makes us nervous. This Spirit seems strange to us, a being we do not recognize with an agenda we do not understand. In the Gospel of John, Jesus introduces us to the Paraclete — a Spirit ideally suited for the rest of us. Personal, intimate, life-giving, the Paraclete Jesus describes is a Spirit we ache to know. And in fact, this Spirit is no stranger to us — he is the essence of Jesus. How do we grow a relationship with this Spirit? How do we allow the Spirit to do transforming work in our lives? You’ll find more in these pages than theory and principle. You will discover practices for walking in the Spirit and making relationship with him a daily privilege.
As you read A Spirt for the Rest of Us and work through this workbook, you will discover practices for walking in the Spirit and making relationship with him a daily privilege.
Video Presentations, Webinars and Audio Files
Websites
- HOPE Network Ministries: Mentoring Leaders, Guiding Churches
- Thom S. Ranier: Growing Healthy Churches, Together
- The Unstuck Group: We Help Churches Get Unstuck
- IMN: Interim Ministry Network
- DIY Committee Guide: The Revised Code of Good Governance
- Turnaround Pastors: Training Church Revitalization Leaders
- Worth Financial Service
- Assist, Inc. – Ministers Tax Services
- The Bible Project
