We become what we say. How do you grow your church in its health and mission? Sometimes our communities lack focus or vision. We lose sight of our ministry priorities, or our people don't have concrete reminders of why we do what we do. We need concise, memorable tools for cultivating culture, communicating ministry vision, and developing leaders. The language we use shapes our communities. Pastors J.R. Briggs and Bob Hyatt share seventy-five short and memorable mantras they use to cast vision, inspire ministry, and create a healthy church culture. These brief chapters provide a wealth of practical wisdom for leadership, discipleship, community, and witness, embodying best practices with vivid stories of on-the-ground ministry. These bite-sized ministry insights are ideal for church leaders to discuss with their teams and implement in their communities. They provide accessible handles for growing the health of your local church, for the sake of the kingdom.

Every church needs leadership. But leadership should not reside in a single pastor. The biblical model for church leadership is found in teams of elders who together guide the community into God's mission. Church leaders J.R. Briggs and Bob Hyatt provide a comprehensive picture of elders as agents of mission for their communities. Healthy eldership structures a church for mission, as elder teams model the kind of community the local church is intended to be and steward the gospel in a local context. Looking at eldership through a missiological lens, Briggs and Hyatt unpack the role, character and posture of a mission-oriented elder. Elders oversee, shepherd, teach, equip and model for God?s people what life with Jesus looks like in a particular context. Including a study guide that elder teams can work through together, the authors provide practical guidance for how elders are selected, work together, make decisions, protect the congregation and invest in the lives of others. Discover here a clear vision for what it means to be a faithful elder. May it help you and your church thrive in pursuing God's mission in the world.

2014 Best Books About the Church from Byron Borger, Hearts and Minds Bookstore "I thought God had called me to plant this church. Why did we have to shut our doors after only three years?" "I was at my breaking point. Then I got the news that our nine-year-old daughter had leukemia. I would have quit ministry forever, but I had no other employable skills." "False accusations were made against me and my family, wrecking our reputation permanently and forcing us to leave not only the church, but move out of the area." "I've served my church for the past 27 years and I've grown that church from 150 to 24 people." What do we do when we've failed? Some ministries are shipwrecked by moral failures like affairs or embezzlement. But for most of us, the sense of failure is more ordinary: disillusionment, inadequacy, declining budgets, poor decisions, opposition, depression, burnout. Many pastors are deeply broken and wounded, and we come to doubt that God has any use for us. J.R. Briggs, founder of the Epic Fail Pastors Conference, knows what failure feels like. He has listened to pastors who were busted in a prostitution sting or found themselves homeless when ejected from ministry. With candid vulnerability, Briggs explores the landscape of failure, how it devastates us and how it transforms us. Without offering pat answers or quick fixes, he challenges our cultural expectations of success and gives us permission to grieve our losses. Somehow, in the midst of our pain, we are better positioned to receive the grace of healing and restoration.