Church leaders understand that managing the day-to-day operations of a church can be challenging because of limited resources, managing volunteer labor, and supporting the needs of the congregation. Smart Church Management: A Quality Approach to Church Administration, Third Edition is an updated guide for managing the resources of a church - which is people, time and money. This book provides tools and examples for decision making and problem-solving for church administration that is easy to understand and more importantly, quick to implement! This book also includes discussion questions to provoke thought and discussion for church teams. This book is ideal for ministry students, church boards, church leadership and church administrators.

The business of the Christian Church is communication. Its job is to spread a good message--the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Word of God. The church that doesn't know how to communicate with its members and with its environment is a doomed church. It is, therefore, necessary that Christian churches have to understand how communication works and how effective communication has to take place. This book deals with the following aspects of communication in the church: the pastoral conversation, marketing the church in the world and the art of composing an effective sermon. It is aimed at all preachers and church leaders.

Communication is integral to the mission of the church, but it can go awry in myriad ways, both obvious and subtle. Communication in the Church helps congregations create healthier ways for their members to relate to one another for greater personal and congregational success. The book offers practical guidelines to help readers become more effective in how they build relationships, lead meetings, experience trust, practice forgiveness, use power, and bridge cultures. Communication in the Church distills the latest social science research for readers including clergy, lay leaders, continuing education planners, students, scholars, and others. Each chapter includes real-life scenarios, sensible guidelines, practical applications, and suggestions for further learning. This book aims to help readers communicate more effectively—from leading more engaging and productive meetings to preventing or addressing communication breakdowns.

Communication has become an important theme and heuristic concept in practical theology for Roman Catholics during the ecumenical age. Communication Habits for the Pilgrim Church explains why the moral order is given priority in Vatican teaching about communication and the reasons for Catholic social teaching to make moral judgments about these new realities. Attention is given in the book to the historical context of Vatican Councils I and II. The first chapter shows that behind the pilgrim Church lies an emerging vision of the threefold ecclesial offices of priest, prophet, and king. Chapter two examines the text and context of the Second Vatican Council's pastoral decree «Inter Mirifica». Chapter three provides a documented history of the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Social Communication and its teachings. In chapter four we return to the threefold office and examine the contribution of Pope John Paul II. It includes an analysis of how the politics of the Magisterium shapes Catholic social teaching. Chapter five develops major tenets of a critical analysis of the communication of the post-Vatican II Church: attention is given to the discursive aspects of religious authority, argumentation, bureaucratization, and market culture. Chapter six takes a step toward examining the pragmatics of contemporary Vatican teaching. For Roman Catholic moral theology, religious ethics is now deeply concerned with providing moral teaching and guidance on ethical questions raised by the social conditions of globalization and media communication. Communication Habits for the Pilgrim Church concludes that there are three basic sociological and theological aspects of the pilgrim Church. These include a ritual approach to religious communication, the generational experience of Catholics and their respective attitudes toward Church teaching, and the important link in the faith's praxis between reflexivity and forming habits of communication.

This textbook is an interdisciplinary collection of scholarly and religious articles about Asian American Christianity. Its four sections -- contexts, sites, identity, and voices ? offer in-depth understanding of both Catholic and Protestant traditions, practices, theologies, and faith communities. It also highlights diversity and complexity across lines of gender, generation, denomination, race and ethnicity in Asian American Christianity.

Although numerous studies have examined biblical and theological rationales for using the visual arts in worship, this book by Lisa J. DeBoer fills in a piece of the picture missing so far — the social dimensions of both our churches and the various art worlds represented in our congregations. The first part of the book looks at Orthodoxy, Catholicism, and Protestantism in turn — including case studies of specific congregations — showing how each tradition’s use of the visual arts reveals an underlying ecclesiology. DeBoer then focuses on six themes that emerge when Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant uses of the visual arts are examined together — the arts as expressions of the church’s local and universal character, the meanings attributed to particular styles of art for the church, the role of the arts in enculturating the gospel, and more. DeBoer’s Visual Arts in the Worshiping Church will focus and deepen the thinking of pastors, worship leaders, artists, students, and laypeople regarding what the arts might do in the midst of their congregations.

Issues for 1865- include directory.

The Chronicles are more than a history of ancient Israel under the ascent and rule of the Davidic dynasty. They are a story whose grand theme is hope. Great battles are fought, heroes and tyrants vie for power, Israel splits into rival kingdoms, and the soul of God's holy nation oscillates between faithlessness and revival. Yet above this tossing sea of human events, God's covenant promises reign untroubled and supreme. First and Second Chronicles are a narrative steeped in the best and worst of the human heart--but they are also a revelation of Yahweh at work, forwarding his purposes in the midst of fallible people. God has a plan to which he is committed. Today, as then, God redirects our vision from our circumstances in this turbulent world to the surety of his kingdom, and to himself as our source of confidence and peace. Exploring the links between the Bible and our own times, Andrew E. Hill shares perspectives on 1 and 2 Chronicles that reveal ageless truths for our twenty-first-century lives. Most Bible commentaries take us on a one-way trip from our world to the world of the Bible. But they leave us there, assuming that we can somehow make the return journey on our own. They focus on the original meaning of the passage but don't discuss its contemporary application. The information they offer is valuable--but the job is only half done The NIV Application Commentary Series helps bring both halves of the interpretive task together. This unique, award-winning series shows readers how to bring an ancient message into our postmodern context. It explains not only what the Bible meant but also how it speaks powerfully today.