It is often necessary for pastors of small churches to work another job in addition to serving their church, leaving them in danger of burnout if some of their duties are not delegated to others. Terry W. Dorsett provides concise and effective guidance for small-church congregations and pastors looking to build and strengthen their leadership teams. --from publisher description

Use this LEADER'S GUIDE for seminars on building ministry partnerships. An eBOOK/PDF version is available. (See also the Student Workbook, orange-red cover.) CHRISTIANITY / CHURCH RESOURCES

Use this STUDENT WORKBOOK for seminars on building ministry partnerships. An eBOOK/PDF version is available. (See also the Leader's Guide, blue cover.) CHRISTIANITY / CHURCH RESOURCES

Rediscover this Old Testament book of Malachi. Midst the pronouncements of coming judgment is a thread of hope that helps Christians understand the refining process of adversity. What are those blessings God pours out from heaven? How do we obtain them? Dr. Dorsett explains in seven practical and theologically sound lessons that will challenge your Bible study group. RELIGION / Christian Education / Adult

FROM THE FORWARD: The Calling of a Part-Time Pastor is written for all leaders of small churches. This guidebook is a gateway into fully understanding the trials and joys of working together to lead your small church to fulfill your calling in Jesus Christ. The insights you will discover on these pages will help you make the best decisions as you seek to call a part-time pastor to your church. So valuable is the guidance you will receive in this book that I urge your leaders to read it before looking for a minister, while the search is being conducted, and once again when the task is complete. If you use this book as a guide, you will find help in making the future ministry of your church the very best it can be. This book is also for ministers considering a call to a small church. Here you will be reminded of what you already know-- that your ministry matters-- and that small churches matter in the kingdom of God. This book will resonate with what is in your heart and mind about Jesus Christ. The Calling of a Part-Time Pastor will elevate you in your calling, reminding you that your service and your church is holy and indispensable, and will serve as a valuable guide to effective and faithful part-time or bivocational ministry.

Ministry Makeover examines the decline within the church, especially the United Methodist Church (UMC), and some causes for this decline. It calls for a reforming of United Methodist structure and polity by drawing more attention to the value of the bi-vocational model of ministry and a re-visitation of the Wesleyan/United Brethren view and historical perspective. This book establishes a solid theological foundation upon which to build this shift and it goes a step beyond typical ecclesiology (the study of the church) to identify Trinitarian theology as the basis for the practice of the church. In turn, this text reveals bi-vocational ministry and support of new congregations as not only a viable option, but also arguably the model towards which the church is heading. These insights will transform the church and lead to more effective church ministry with respect to resources, structure, and reach in a post-Christendom world context. Picardo uses Embrace Church (Lexington, KY) as a case study, and incorporates his experiences into this text in order to show how these implications have played out in a true bi-vocational, church-plant context.

Would it surprise you to know that New Testament scholars, missiologists, and church-planting authorities cannot agree on how to define tentmaking, whether or not the church should be practicing it today, or even why Paul did it in the first place? It's true. In Tentmaking, the widespread confusion and overall disagreement within the church regarding Paul's self-support are exposed. Commonly held assumptions are removed from their entrenched positions and myths are debunked. In their place, Tentmaking offers an unadorned yet powerfully convincing presentation of Paul's own self-disclosed reasons for intentionally selecting to support himself in some ministry contexts, but not others. This well-researched book provides answers to crucial questions that currently surround tentmaking, as well as a practical guide intended to lead to the recovery of biblical tentmaking within the church. Readers who pick up this book should be prepared to embark on an engrossing journey that will reward them with clarity on the often-misunderstood topic of Paul's tentmaking.

Tentmaking is a growing reality in Western society that necessitates more reflection and relevant response from pastoral and mission leaders. The need to consider bivocational or multivocational ministries is catalyzed by established congregations wrestling with decline in attendance, by new immigrant communities looking for sustainable ways to minister, and by misunderstanding or lack of information on the nature of this ministry approach. This need is also triggered by the urgency to address biblical, theological, and pragmatic issues of tentmaking that can forge a way forward for the Canadian church in the midst of an uncertain future. This volume seeks to forge a way forward as a result of the Canadian Multivocational Ministry Project (CMMP), a qualitative and community-based research project among tentmaking pastoral leaders across Canada. This research partnered with the Wellness Project @ Wycliffe, which uses online questionnaires to assess wellness in congregational ministry. The CMMP research report and the wellness findings form the basis of the multifaceted reflections in the book by Canadian scholars, researchers, and multivocational practitioners. This book offers an accurate pulse of the challenges, opportunities, and future of tentmaking in relation to Christianity and the church in these uncertain times.

Devotional guide based on a trip my wife and I went on to the Holy Land with a group of pastors from New England. It was an amazing week as we visited the places we had learned about in seminary and preached to others about for years. Walking where Jesus walked was intensely spiritual and humbling. Throughout the trip I made notes of what the Spirit was speaking to me. Though my notes were originally only for my own spiritual edification, a few months after the trip I realized that others might be as blessed by the experience as I was. This devotional guide grew out of those notes, and is a picture into my soul of what the Lord taught me as a result of the trip. It is my prayer that through taking this spiritual journey with me, we will all touch the footprints of Jesus, and in so doing, be spiritually refreshed and renewed.

Planting a church is one of the most exciting adventures you’ll ever embark on. It’s also one of the hardest. It requires initiative, leadership, strategy, systems, and a lot of prayer. In this second edition of Planting Missional Churches, not only will you find a completely redesigned book with new content in every single chapter, but you will also find several new chapters on topics such as church multiplication, residencies, multi-ethnic ministry, multisite, denominations and networks, and spiritual leadership. So if you’re planting a church, be prepared. Use this book as a guide to build the needed ministry areas so that you can multiply over and over again. For additional resources visit www.newchurches.com/PMC.