Break out of the trap of average and pursue God’s best for your ministry. The average church in America is declining by 9% every year, behind on budget and unable to move forward with the kingdom plans God has in store. The average pastor is stressed out and struggling to maintain healthy relationships and life balance. But while the cycle of average is strong, there is a way to overcome its pull and step into a life of impact and excellence. Drawing from Nelson Searcy’s decades of ministry experience, The Renegade Pastor is a relevant, step-by-step resource for church leaders who are ready to break out of the trap of average and step up in surrender to the pursuit of God’s best for his or her life and work. Addresses issues of personal and professional growth including: Managing Stress Controlling Emotions Dealing with Criticism Setting Godly Goals Planning with Purpose Establishing Healthy Friendships Developing Strong Church Systems Personally Honoring the Sabbath Becoming a Better Spouse and Parent

No matter how great Sunday's worship service was, there's always another Sunday lurking at the end of the next week that must be planned. Church leaders often fall into ruts, working on automatic pilot just trying to get things together, which does not allow for much creativity or focus on designing services that lead to transformation for those involved in them. Engage is a step-by-step, stress-free guide to planning worship services that allow for and foster true life change. Comprehensive in scope, Engage provides teaching pastors, worship leaders, and volunteers with the tools they need to work together to develop and implement a worship planning system that improves communication, enhances creativity, and honors Jesus every week.

Creating an environment that both embraces our newcomers and excites them enough to return does not happen by chance. We must be prepared to be effective stewards of those God brings us. And, why shouldn't the Church be the epitome of service at its best, as modeled by the greatest server of all time? Built on The Journey Church of the City's As...

Starting a church from scratch? Start here! Launch offers specific strategies for beginning a church with no members, no money, and no staff. Readers get clear, practical how-to strategies for quickly raising funds, creating a team, planning services, effective evangelism, and rapidly developing a growing membership. Specific advice is included for reaching that often difficult-to-target demographic, the 20- to 40-year-old. Now thoroughly revised and expanded to keep up with the ever-changing landscape of church planting.

Church leaders want to know how to make their small groups work. Drawing from the startling success of small groups at The Journey Church, Nelson Searcy and Kerrick Thomas debunk the myths, set the record straight, and show how church leaders can implement a healthy small group ministry that gets the maximum number of people involved and solves many of the important problems facing churches of all sizes. These practical strategies will produce life-changing results.

What if your church had more volunteers than you knew what to do with? Sound far-fetched? It doesn't have to be. Now consultant, pastor, and author Nelson Searcy unveils his secret to doubling your volunteer base in as little as one day. Yes, you read that right. This step-by-step guide shows church leaders how to create a culture that attracts, keeps, and grows volunteers. Taking a comprehensive approach to the often frustrating issue of finding and retaining volunteers, Connect gives leaders the practical insight and tools they need to effectively involve people in serving the local church. It details how to help people see the importance of serving, how to continually raise up new volunteers, how to really delegate, and even how to "fire" a volunteer. Every church leader who has struggled with getting and keeping people active in the church (and that's all of them) will love the practical, workable strategies found here.

Ignite is the ultimate how-to book for church leaders who want to reach more people for Jesus Christ. Pastor and founder of Church Leader Insights, Nelson Searcy, will provide practical, inventive guidelines for bringing first-time guests through the doors. This book sets forth a step-by-step, biblically grounded, proven plan for creating immediate church growth by utilizing a "Big Day" to mobilize the church for evangelism. This user-friendly guide will show church leaders what they need to do to reach the unchurched in their communities and break through the debilitating growth barriers that are holding them back. Through the inspiration of testimonies and stories, combined with the down-to-earth, applicable teaching that Searcy readers have come to expect and appreciate, Ignite will give church leaders the tools they desperately need to reach and keep modern-minded, unchurched people to create and sustain growth momentum.

Worship in today's church takes place beneath the shroud of a dangerous and far-reaching myth--that worship is an experience meant for our own personal gratification and that it occurs only on Sunday mornings within a church service. Revolve challenges lay people to understand the truth about worship--that it revolves around God, not us, and that worship is something we can perform with our whole lives, not just an hour a week in church. With Revolve, readers will see that when they approach worship with a "what can I get out of this" attitude, they're bound to be disappointed. However, worship of God as a way of life not only honors God but also satisfies our souls. Built-in action steps at the end of each short chapter will give readers specific ideas about how to refocus their attention on God and live each day in an attitude of worship.