Book: Reviving the Congregation: pastoral leadership in a changing environment

Pastoral leadership has always been challenging, but clergy and parish leaders today face unprecedented challenges, many of which simply didn't exist a generation ago. The questions of ministry and leadership in the church today range broadly across the financial and the managerial, the spiritual and the interpersonal.
In such a time, a wise mentor who can articulate a way forward for others is an immeasurable help. In Reviving the Congregation, Michael W. Foss, best-selling author of Power Surge, steps forward as that mentor.
Bringing decades of experience in congregational life and leadership and a winsome style to the work, Foss offers a compelling introduction to the new context in which we lead, and the personal and congregational strategies that will offer a way forward.
Reviving the Congregation is rooted in Foss's own experience, but it is open to all through questions for reflection, space for notes and journaling, and an extended bibliography for further reading.

Chapters include:
1. A Collision of Perspectives
2. The Pastor’s Soul
3. The Church’s Environment
4. The People’s Ministry
5. The Three Keys
6. The Value of Persistence

Available in Australia from December from Australian Church Resources

Pastor Michael Foss talking about his new book

Article: A small church redefines its mission

Discover the positive impact a small congregation had when it redefined its mission to one of being community focussed.....and what that meant for its congregation and the community God had placed it in

Go to http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=2878

Free EBook: Turning passion into mission planning book

Christian outreach tools offers a free planning ebook to help congregations, life groups and small teams of members to move from being passionate about sharing God's love to actually sharing God's love....
For more information visit http://www.christianoutreachtools.com/uploads/3/4/0/0/3400790/_____turning_passion_into_mission_sngl_pg.pdf

Book: Reconstructing Church: Tools for Turning Your Congregation Around

The general decline of American mainline Protestant churches today is well documented. Church redevelopment—imagining and actualizing new life for dying churches—is a productive and vital response to congregational decline, but it can be daunting. Here is guidebook for church leaders, to help them reinvigorate their churches with both practical advice and tested theory. A comprehensive case study of Beneficent Congregational Church, which successfully turned the tide and quadrupled its worship attendance, provides inspiration as well as concrete strategies for church redevelopment. The study indicates that successful and faithful church redevelopment involves a shift from a modern-patronage ministry model to a postmodern-plural ministry model.

Building on current church redevelopment literature by bringing selected Biblical and theological texts into conversation with leadership concepts, systems theory, social sciences, and congregational studies, this book creates a multidisciplinary transformative conversation. The result is both strategic proposals for growing your church and a model for doing practical theology in your own ministry context. Dedicated, trained leadership in cooperation with the power of the Spirit can create the possibility of new life in dying congregations.

Article: How to deal with conflict in the church and not pretend it doesn't exist

Conflict consultant Tim Dyer has a theory: of all organisations on the face of the earth the Christian church is probably the most prone to conflict.
It seems illogical. Jesus called his disciples to love one another, he gave us the Holy Spirit and we’re supposed to be on the path of transformation. So why is church is so frequently bogged down in conflict?
Read more of the article to discover why and to discover some steps in resolving conflict at http://www.biblesociety.org.au/news/conflict-church