Many congregations are declining due to an inward focus, and see their pastor as someone who should only minister to their needs. But pastors must anticipate a better future. Direct Hit offers hope to leaders of congregations that have lost their outward focus. By preparing for and leading systemic change, pastors can bring new life into the culture of a congregation, guiding it to answer God’s call to reach people with the good news.

Direct Hit offers practical explanations for how to:

• Develop a vision and communicate a strategy for its implementation
• Motivate a congregation to embrace the vision
• Develop resources, ideas, and personnel to prepare for change
• Embrace and implement change
• Embed a new DNA into the life of a congregation

Systemic change occurs as a result of hard work, but the gain far outweighs the pain. Once change has occurred, a whole new world of opportunity opens up—a world in which you are privileged to equip, lead, and oversee a congregation that has joined God’s mission. Ready. Aim. Go for it!

Accurately counting the right things can profoundly impact ministry effectiveness. Knowing “the story in the stats” can inform decisions and lead to the things that produce the results most pleasing to God. Gathering and studying the right numbers can help a church wisely invest its resources of time, effort, people, money, and facilities. Effectiveness by the Numbers will help ensure that your church is measuring the right things for the right reasons. Counting what counts enables a church to fulfill its mission--making mature followers of Jesus Christ. 

The business world is a place of constant change, with stories of corporate mergers, layoffs, bankruptcy, and restructuring hitting the news every day. Yet as veteran consultant William Bridges maintains, the situational changes are not as difficult for companies to make as the psychological transitions. In the best-selling "Managing Transitions," Bridges provides a clear understanding of what change does to employees and what employees in transition can do to an organization. Directed at managers and employees in today's corporations, Bridges shows how to minimize the distress and disruptions caused by change. "Managing Transitions" addresses the fact that it is people who have to carry out the change. When the book was originally published a decade ago, Bridges was the first to provide any real sense of the emotional impact of change and what can be done to keep it from disrupting the entire organization. With new information and commentary on layoffs, corporate suspicion, and the increasing tumult in the business world, "Managing Transitions" remains the definitive guide to dealing with change.

Advanced Strategic Planning explains why planning was so important to carrying out the church's mission. Now in its second edition, this practical resource offers - a nine-step strategic thinking and acting model - useful ideas for developing a strategy - diagrams to help illustrate concepts - a new chapter on spiritual formation This updated edition places a stronger emphasis on disciplemaking and clarifies answers to nine fundamental ministry questions. The methods in this book are proven to work, having already helped many churches articulate their vision and implement their mission.

Research shows that over time, most churches plateau and then eventually decline. Typically, they start strong and experience periods of growth, then stagnate and lose members. Since 1991, the North American population has increased by 15 percent while the number of & quot; unchurched& quot; people has increased by 92 percent. Large church houses that were filled in the 1950s and 60s now hold a fraction of their capacity. To counter this trend, authors Ed Stetzer and Mike Dodson surveyed 300 churches from across ten different denominations that recently achieved healthy evangelistic growth after a significant season of decline. What they have discovered is an exciting method of congregation reinvigoration that is shared in the new book entitled Comeback Churches.

When printing technology revolutionized mass communication more than five hundred years ago, the church embraced technology - making the Bible widely available and changing the course of history. Today the Internet offers the church an opportunity for worldwide impact of the same revolutionary proportions. Now the church must decide how to creatively and appropriately exploit technological benefits for the sake of the gospel. Coauthored by a father-son team combining ministry expertise and technological savvy, this book provides a balanced look at the twenty-first century challenges of uniting ministry with technology. By examining reasons behind the decline of American Christianity, the authors illustrate the urgent need to make strategic use of Internet technology to reach the upcoming generations. Combining their uniquely matched experiences, they provide workable solutions to reach online generations with the message of Christ.

Discover the tools to create a new kind of church and move from merely surviving to thriving. Drawing on an extensive two-year field study of 200 churches from a variety of denominations and geographic regions, Milfred Minatrea--a missiologist, urban strategist and practioner in minister--presents the best practices for re-energizing Christian spirituality in a congregational setting. He provides readers with the tools for assessing their congregation's position on the continuum between maintenance and mission and for determining the actions that will move them toward becoming a missional community. He also outlines key strategies that successful churches have used to become relevant in a postmodern society without losing what is distinctly Christian in their spiritual practices.

Milfred Minatrea (Irving, TX) is Director of the Missional Church Center for the Baptist General Convention of Texas.

No Little Places takes advantage of two small-town-church strengths that city churches dream of nurturing--intimacy and involvement. The authors help city pastors successfully cross the urban-rural cultural barrier.

TrueFaced draws a clear distinction between two very different underlying motives: my determination to please God or to trust Him. The resulting difference from these two starting points could not be more profound. One results in a striving that never feels it has done enough to please Him. The other results in a trust that experiences His full pleasure. Our motives as followers of Christ will either keep us in unresolved sin and immaturity or free us into God's astonishing dream for our life.

Discover how you can deal with the sin in your life so that you can live TrueFaced. Read in conjunction with TrueFaced Experience to fully grasp the concept of trusting God and others with who you really are.

Discover how to build a grace-based community. In eight, interactive sessions, you’ll find real-stories and tools to help you you’ll discover what it means to live in grace and to be real with yourself, God, and others.