Who decides what your church (local or denominational) will look like twenty-five or thirty years from now? How can you ensure that your church will continue to fulfill its God-given purpose in the next generation? What can be done now to reverse negative trends in ministry such as pastoral burnout? Much of the answer to these questions about pastors and other local church leaders is tied to the training they receive. Training Spirit-Filled Local Church Leaders for the Twenty-First Century encourages all stakeholders in ministry training--educators, pastors and other local church leaders, church members, and those who sense God is calling them to ministry--to prayerfully consider the foundational issues that determine the effectiveness and relevance of a ministry training program. These foundational issues are: -What is the local church, really? -What is spiritual leadership? -What is ministry training? -What is the role of the Holy Spirit in all this? -What did effective training look like in the past, and what might it look like in the twenty-first century?

Who decides what your church (local or denominational) will look like twenty-five or thirty years from now? How can you ensure that your church will continue to fulfill its God-given purpose in the next generation? What can be done now to reverse negative trends in ministry such as pastoral burnout? Much of the answer to these questions about pastors and other local church leaders is tied to the training they receive. Training Spirit-Filled Local Church Leaders for the Twenty-First Century encourages all stakeholders in ministry training—educators, pastors and other local church leaders, church members, and those who sense God is calling them to ministry—to prayerfully consider the foundational issues that determine the effectiveness and relevance of a ministry training program. These foundational issues are: •What is the local church, really? •What is spiritual leadership? •What is ministry training? •What is the role of the Holy Spirit in all this? •What did effective training look like in the past, and what might it look like in the twenty-first century?

Leadership development is a life-long process. Yet the church of Jesus Christ is in desperate need of strong leaders in this generation. In Charting a Bold Course, Andrew Seidel provides an exceptional tool to get you started on cultivating the unique gifts and abilities God has given you and your leadership team. This leadership course will fit perfectly in a leadership training program.

The church is a global body of believers called to grow in Christ. Yet too often, it privileges a few voices and ignores the practical dimensions of the faith. Offering a multi-denominational, multi-ethnic vision, this volume brings together biblical scholars, theologians, and practitioners from around the world to pursue a theology and praxis of spiritual formation for the global church.

This book explores biblical values that critique the ecclesiology of the New Apostolic Reformation Church (NARC) and compares the ecclesiology to other missional movements in the North American context. A biblical exegesis of Ephesians 4:11-13 as well as C. Peter Wagner's conceptualization of an apostle and apostolic ministry allow the author to demonstrate the gap between the biblical perspective and Wagner's concept of an apostle. The biblical role of an apostle is to make the church missional by emphasizing the concept of sending, whereas Wagner sees the apostle as a church leader. Based upon interviews and participant observation in three NARCs, SuYeon Yoon describes the leadership and ecclesiology based on their own self-descriptions. This book then demonstrates the gap between the biblical and conceptual ideals and the reality of ecclesial practice. The author argues that the NARC serves as a charismatic manifestation of a similar cultural response to establish a relational structure for church communities that can appropriately reflect upon and identify with the contemporary context. This implies that each movement needs to be biblically sound, faithful to its conceptualization, and relevant to the context in order to cultivate its own way of being the church.

Emphasizes the importance of ministry's core values, mission, and strategy and shows church planters how to focus on the essential ingredients for success.

Haggard presents a successful and tested model of a small-group ministry that can be implemented by a church of any size. This need- and interest-based approach redefines the model for powerful church growth.