Within Reach: The Power of Small Changes in Keeping Students Connected
A few small changes can make a big difference. As your students graduate high school, are they graduating from church too?
Research shows that the majority of teenagers who are active in church during high school stop attending shortly after. In a new study, LifeWay Student Ministry and LifeWay Research have partnered to identify the factors that are contributing to this disturbing trend as well as those factors that contribute to teens staying in church. In his first book, Student Ministry That Matters, Ben Trueblood laid out a clear approach to creating a healthy student ministry in any context. In this book, Ben points student ministry leaders to the hope found within this startling statistic. The solution is not a full-scale revamping of student ministry. Rather, the hope for helping students build lifelong faith and keeping them connected to the church after high school is just a few small changes away.
Purchase: LifeWay.com
9781535900874 • 128 pages • Paperback
Ben Trueblood
LifeWay Christian Resources
Nothing Less: Engaging Kids in a Lifetime of Faith
We love our kids. We want to be good parents. We want our kids to know God and grow in their relationship with Him. But trends show that our culture is increasingly secular with fewer younger generations staying in church. In fact, even the church-going faithful attend less often. Families are busy and fill their lives pursuing what is practical in their eyes and to make them happy.
In today’s culture, what can parents do to help their kids know God and continue to stay in a growing, thriving relationship with Him? LifeWay Research reveals the top 10 influencers of spiritual health to guide parents and churches to avoid negative influences and focus on what’s most important for your child.
But where do we begin? The research helps us see that we need not look further than God’s Word. Read it. Read it consistently. Read it together. Talk about it. Apply it to your life. And don’t shy away from any of it. In the words of A.W. Tozer, “Nothing less than the whole Bible can make a whole Christian.”
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9781462780235 • 160 pages • Paperback
Jana Magruder
LifeWay Christian Resources
No Silver Bullets
What if I told you that you were only one step away from unlocking new levels of maturity and growth in your church?
The myth of the silver bullet still exists because we desperately want it to. We all prefer quick fixes and bandage solutions to the long, hard, slow work that produces real change. So the moment we learn about a new ministry or strategy and see its effect in another church, we run to implement it in our own. Unfortunately, this impulse is usually met by opposition, skepticism, and ultimately, rejection.
What if the solution isn’t a new model or a complicated strategy, but a shift in perspective? What if you could keep your church’s current vision, values, and model, and simply make a few micro-shifts…leading to macro-changes?
No Silver Bullets explores five micro-shifts that have the potential to produce macro-changes in your church. As you read, you will discover how to integrate these micro-shifts into the life of your church, starting with the way you disciple. You will finish by developing a plan to structure, communicate, and evaluate these changes to ensure that they take root and pave the way for lasting change and kingdom impact.
Purchase: LifeWay.com • eBook
9781433651540 • 288 pages • Hardcover
Daniel Im
B&H Publishing Group
Transformational Groups: Creating a New Scorecard for Groups
God designed the church to be a place of transformation. God designed such transformation to often happen in the context of smaller groups of people. But what characteristics are true of churches that are making transformed disciples through group-based ministry-whether small groups, missional communities, Sunday school, or some other expression of groups?
In Transformational Groups , Ed Stetzer and Eric Geiger have created a new scorecard that will provide a map to transformational success for a church’s groups ministry. Using data from the largest survey of pastors and laypersons ever done on the condition of groups in the church, they define a simple process to lead your groups from where they are to where God wants them to be.
Purchase: LifeWay.com • eBook
9781433683305 • 224 pages • Paperback
Ed Stetzer & Eric Geiger
B&H Publishing Group
Transformational Discipleship: How People Really Grow
A Christian’s desire to grow in faith is beautiful and biblical, best illustrated in Jeremiah 17 where Scripture describes “The man who trusts in the LORD” as being “like a tree planted by water . . . It will not worry in a year of drought or cease producing fruit.” But how do people really grow? Transformational Discipleship describes the process that brings to life that kind of person described in the Bible. There’s no magic formula or mantra to recite here, but rather a substantive measure of research with churches and individuals who have wholeheartedly answered the call of Jesus to make disciples.
A compilation of their wisdom and stories, it surely guides church leaders and members to practice the intentional efforts needed to foster an entire culture in which people grow in Christian faith. And they will grow, not because of human research, but by the power of the Word and of the Holy Spirit working through the church—the same way disciples have always been made. When the people of God engage in the mission of God through the Spirit of God, lives are transformed.
Purchase: LifeWay.com • eBook
9781433678547 • 230 pages • Paperback
Eric Geiger, Michael Kelley, & Philip Nation
B&H Publishing Group
Transformational Church: Creating a New Scorecard for Congregations
In Transformational Church, best-selling research authors Ed Stetzer and Thom S. Rainer address the question: how does a body of believers do its part to be in the “sweet spot” where true spiritual transformation occurs? By surveying fifty thousand churches — then narrowing the scope down to five hundred congregations — Stetzer and Rainer share with readers the qualitative answer. Transformational Church, the most comprehensive study of the modern American church to date, contains a wealth of indispensable new data, nuanced insights, and how-to guidance, all centered on this key finding: “Transformational churches make disciples whose lives are being transformed by the gospel, so that people engage the culture around them for its ultimate transformation. Deeply committed to the essential foundations of discipleship (worship, community, and mission), transformational churches practice their faith and make disciples through vibrant leadership, prayerful dependence upon God, and relational intentionality. And they do so paying mind to their unique context and with a missionary mindset.”
Purchase: LifeWay.com • eBook
9781433669309 • 244 pages • Hardcover
Thom Rainer & Ed Stetzer
B&H Publishing Group
The Mission of God Study Bible
The Mission of God Study Bible encourages followers of Jesus Christ to see their everyday life from God’s perspective and have His heart for people. It’s a reminder that we live around people in desperate need of redemption and reconciliation with God, which can only be found in Jesus. The mission of God has never been just for specialists; it is for all believers to live out through their daily lives and by sharing the good news of what God has done through the death and resurrection of His Son Jesus. Wherever you are, you are on mission.
In The Mission of God Study Bible, readers will hear from today’s top thinkers, theologians, and leading voices in the church about what it means to live in the mission of God. Essay contributors include Matt Chandler, Tullian Tchividjian, Ed Stetzer, Matthew Barnett, Andrea Mullins, Dave Ferguson, Christopher J.H. Wright, and many others.
Readers will also discover “Letters to the Church” from elder statesmen that speak to the grand narrative of God’s mission in Scripture. These words from Billy Graham, Jack Hayford, R. T. Kendall, Erwin Lutzer, Calvin Miller, and R.C. Sproul will inspire you to live God’s mission daily.
Purchase: LifeWay.com • eBook
9781433601552 • 1418 pages • Various
Ed Stetzer and Philip Nation
B&H Publishing Group
Lost and Found
Lost and Found takes a close look at who young unchurched are, and how can they be reached with the good news of Jesus Christ.
In a poll result highlighted by CNN Headline News and USA Today, nearly half of nonchurchgoers between the ages of twenty and twenty-nine agreed with the statement, “Christians get on my nerves.” Now, researchers behind the larger study present Lost and Found, a blend of dynamic hard data and modern day parable that tells the real story of an unchurched generation that is actually quite spiritual and yet circumspect, open to Jesus but not the church.
As such, Lost and Found is written to the church, using often-surprising results from the copious research here to strike another nerve and break some long established assumptions about how to effectively engage the lost. Leading missiologist Ed Stetzer and his associates first offer a detailed investigation of the four younger unchurched types. With a better understanding of their unique experiences, they next clarify the importance each type places on community, depth of content, social responsibility, and making cross-generational connections in relation to spiritual matters.
Most valuably, Lost and Found finds the churches that have learned to reach unchurched young adults by paying close attention to those key markers vetted by the research. Their exciting stories will make it clear how your church can bring searching souls from this culture to authentic faith in Christ.
Those who are lost can indeed be found. Come take a closer look.
Purchase: LifeWay.com • eBook
9780805448788 • 240 pages • Hardcover
Ed Stetzer, Richie Stanley and Jason Hayes
B&H Publishing Group
Multi-Site Churches
Based on research of forty congregations that have grown by opening one or more additional worship locations, Multi-Site Churches provides the next generation of believers interested in this same type of growth with practical insights about how and when to proceed. Common practices and mistakes to avoid are clearly explained, and first-person advice and anecdotes from leading multi-site church pastors offer an invaluable advantage for when your church considers whether or not to follow this path of ministry.
Purchase: LifeWay.com • eBook
9780805448771 • 243 pages • Paperback
Scott McConnell
B&H Publishing Group
The Parent Adventure
Backed by research that reveals destructive parenting patterns (even in Christian homes), The Parent Adventure looks to the church to help break the cycle and teach moms and dads how to prepare their kids for a lifetime with God.
The problem starts when parents raise children based on their personal experiences growing up instead of using the Bible as the timeless, authoritative guide. Although seemingly painful at first, the parental attitude of “letting go” must begin intentionally at birth, keeping in mind that each child’s life is more about knowing God than anything else. With this outlook established, the future-focused mom and dad will move more joyfully through each stage in the adventure of parenting as detailed in the book.
Knowing that God has a lifelong plan for each family member, parents and kids will grow closer to each other just as sure as they will grow closer to God.
Purchase: LifeWay.com • eBook
9780805448726 • 226 pages • Paperback
Rodney Wilson, Selma Wilson, Scott McConnell
B&H Publishing Group
The Millennials: Connecting to America’s Largest Generation
At more than 78 million strong, the Millennials-those born between 1980 and 2000-have surpassed the Boomers as the larger and more influential generation in America. Now, as its members begin to reach adulthood, where the traits of a generation really take shape, best-selling research author Thom Rainer (Simple Church) and his son Jess (a Millennial born in 1985) present the first major investigative work on Millennials from a Christian worldview perspective. Sure to interest even the secularists who study this group, The Millennials is based on 1200 interviews with its namesakes that aim to better understand them personally, professionally, and spiritually. Chapters report intriguing how-and-why findings on family matters (they are closer-knit than previous generations), their desire for diversity (consider the wave of mixed race and ethnic adoptions), Millennials and the new workplace, their attitude toward money, the media, the environment, and perhaps most tellingly, religion.
Purchase: LifeWay.com • eBook
9781433670039 • 288 pages • Hardcover
Thom Rainer & Jess Rainer
B&H Publishing Group
Essential Church? Reclaiming a Generation of Dropouts
Why do so many young adults (18 to 22) leave the church, and what will it take to bring them back? This important question is examined and duly answered in Essential Church?, a follow-up to Thom S. Rainer’s best-selling Simple Church cowritten this time with his son, research expert Sam Rainer. The book is based on a study of one-thousand so-called “church dropouts” who were interviewed about why they left. Their answers are quite surprising, having less to do with “losing their religion” and more about the desire for a community that isn’t made stale by simply maintaining the status quo. In turn, the Rainers offer churches four concrete solutions toward making their worship community an essential part these young people’s lives again:
- Simplify – develop a clear structure and process for making disciples.
- Deepen – provide strong biblical teaching and preaching.
- Expect – let members know the need for commitment to the congregation.
- Multiply – emphasize evangelism, outward focus, and starting new churches.
Purchase: LifeWay.com • eBook
9780805443929 • 260 pages • Hardcover
Thom Rainer & Sam Rainer
B&H Publishing Group
Simple Life: God, Time, Relationships, Money
Simple Life breaks life down into four key sections (God, Time, Relationships, Money), authors Thom S. Rainer and Art Rainer show how four key goals (Clarity, Movement, Alignment, Focus) can begin to foster a life that is more spiritual and less busy, a life rich in experiences with family and friends rather than double-booked to-do lists and late nights at the office. The book even lays out an easy-to-follow action plan that will move readers assuredly toward the simple life in just thirty days. Authors Thom S. Rainer and Art Rainer interviewed a cross-section of 1,077 individuals to confirm that most people feel their lives are overly stressful and misguided, not allowing enough time for what really counts. As they share these highly relatable stories, the Rainers chart a simple path from joyless to joyful.
Purchase: LifeWay.com • eBook
9780805448863 • 324 pages • Hardcover
Thom Rainer & Art Rainer
B&H Publishing Group
Simple Church: Returning to God’s Process for Making Disciples
The simple revolution is here. From the design of Apple products to Google’s uncluttered homepage, simple ideas are changing the world. Now in paperback, multi-awarded #1 national bestseller Simple Church guides Christians back to the simple gospel-sharing methods of Jesus. No bells or whistles required. With insights based on case studies of four hundred American churches, Thom Rainer and Eric Geiger prove the disciple-making process is often too complex. Simple churches thrive by taking four ideas to heart: Clarity. Movement. Alignment. Focus. Simple Church examines each idea, clearly showing why it is time to simplify. This updated trade paper edition includes a new chapter with further insights the authors have gained through hundreds of conversations with church leaders since this landmark book’s original release.
Purchase: LifeWay.com • eBook
9780805447996 • 288 pages • Paperback
Thom Rainer & Eric Geiger
B&H Publishing Group
The Shape of Faith to Come
In The Shape of Faith to Come, research expert Brad J. Waggoner and his team measure the beliefs and actions of 2,500 active Protestant churchgoers from across the country against seven key standards of biblical spiritual formation:
Learning the truth, obeying God and denying self, sharing faith, serving God and others, exercising biblical faith, building solid relationships, seeking God. The findings reveal the current state and potential forecast of spiritual formation in the U.S. Adding encouragement to his insights, Waggoner calls all Christians to spiritual maturity and challenges church leaders to intentionally take up the mantle of making true disciples.
Purchase: LifeWay.com • eBook
9780805448245 • 315 pages • Paperback
Brad J. Waggoner
B&H Publishing Group