Many small membership churches today are faced with the sobering reality of attendance loss and overall decline. This resource provides a guide to help you find hope, alternatives, and the possibility of a new beginning. Included are tools to help you measure your church's vitality, evaluate the results, and diagnose your church's condition, along with several options for treatment plans as you seek to faithfully serve your community.
 Remember that we can choose our story. If we believe in our hearts there is another possibility, we can be faithful in choosing intentional pathways forward that honor God, the church founders, and generations to come. Follow the steps outlined in these pages to evaluate where you are and what the next steps on your journey need to be as you seek to be a "not yet big church," "a stable, small church," or a church that chooses to close and be repurposed for unexpected new life.

Small Church Checkup: Assessing Your Church's Health and Creating a Treatment Plan

Religion & Spirituality

Kotan, Kay

Schroeder, Phil

Christian Books & Bibles

Discipleship Resources

Tie your worship service to your neighborhood to impact the neighborhood and grow more disciples who gather to worship Christ in Christian community. The worship service must be both COMPETENT and COMPELLING to do that. “Competent” equates with technical changes, like having a great band and playing music that is high quality. “Compelling” indicates spiritual depth and a willingness to keep finding new ways to share God in your context so that new people can fit in. Growing churches change their worship services regularly to adapt to the changing mission field in their back yard. The book Building Worship Bridges and the workbook go hand in hand … you will need both to create the competent, compelling worship service God has called you to.

Building Worship Bridges: Accelerating neighborhood connections through worship

Farr, Robert

Townley, Cathy

Market Square Publishing

Companion workbook for "Building Worship Bridges," by Cathy Townley, Kay Kotan and Bishop Robert Farr.

Building Worship Bridges: The Workbook: The Complete Construction Manual For Building Your Worship Bridges

The church likely rises and falls with the missional investment of the laity. So, of course, this book is for the laity, but it is also for pastors and judicatory leaders. Our hope for this resource is to rekindle the spark and set the laity on fire – on fire for Christ. Our tribe, the United Methodist Church, was founded as a movement of laity and reached millions of people. Our hope and prayer is that this resource will help re-engage and empower the laity.

Impact: Reclaiming the Call of Lay Ministry

Bradford, Blake

Be the Church Jesus calls us to be. Bob Farr asserts that to change the world, we must first change the Church. As Adam Hamilton says in the Foreword, “Read [this book] carefully with other leaders in your church. . . . You’ll soon discover both a desire to renovate your church and the tools to effectively lead your church forward.” If we want to join Robert Schnase and claim radical hospitality, passionate worship, intentional faith development, risk-taking mission and service, and extravagant generosity, we must also engage pastors and motivate churches. We must renovate and overhaul our churches and not merely redecorate and tinker with our church structure. With straightforward language and practical tips, this book will inspire and help you organize your church for new life on the mission field. Learn how to grow your church and discover the commitments that denominational leaders must make to guarantee the fruitfulness of local congregations.

Renovate or Die: 10 Ways to Focus Your Church on Mission

Farr, Bob

ABINGDON PRESS *

As a church leader, you are (probably) targeting the wrong people with your ‘evangelism’ efforts. You are operating a model that no longer works, because it is too passive, too polite, and focused in the wrong direction. You are not making new disciples, not adding significantly to Christ’s transformation of the world. And you—or at least your congregation--are (probably) unaware of this fact. There is hope, and you will find it in these pages. Farr, Kotan and Anderson reveal the ways most churches unwittingly misdirect their reach into the community. The authors show in practical terms how to change the habits of leaders and entire congregations, so that invitation is natural, constant, systemic, genuine, and easy. Get Their Name clearly demonstrates how your church can change, and equips your people to share their faith in a way that is effective, biblical, and transformational.

Get Their Name: Grow Your Church by Building New Relationships

Anderson, Doug

Power-boost your team’s capacity to share faith without anxiety! Most churches and Christians target the wrong people with "evangelism" efforts. The model we use no longer works because it is passive, too polite, and focused in the wrong direction. We are not making new disciples, not adding significantly to Christ’s transformation of the world. But there is hope and practical help for churches who are ready to take a new approach. Get Their Name by Bob Farr, Kay Kotan, and Doug Anderson outlines that hope and help. The Get Their Name Workbook provides the critical next step. Church leaders can use this resource with their teams, small groups, and staff to power-boost the book’s ideas in their own church context. The workbook is formatted to function as an individual study, too. The Get Their Name Workbook: -Creates conversation starters for group discussion or personal reflection -Poses powerful questions, which can lead to honest and authentic reflection and evaluation -Encourages group participants to process the information together, increasing understanding and commitment -Stimulates calls to action, increasing the likelihood of real and sustainable change in the congregation

Get Their Name Workbook

Willard, Ken

Conventional wisdom is that leaders are born, not made. In reality, that is one small piece of the leadership puzzle. The fact is, approximately 10% of church leaders are naturally-gifted leaders who actually don’t need any help. Another 10% of church leaders do not have the capacity to lead nor learn to lead with the skill set needed for the 21st century church. This means approximately 80% of church leaders have the possibility of becoming a more effective church leader. This book is for them. The Necessary Nine contains nine simple axioms for effective pastoral and lay leadership for the church. These axioms have the greatest potential for fruitful ministry. These strategies are straightforward and easy to use. The reader will have “that’s true” moments and learn to put those insights into regular practice. It will help the reader with the simple leadership strategies that, if practiced over and over and over, will change the effectiveness of their leadership, the church and the world.

The Necessary Nine: Things Effective Pastors Do Differently

The Participant Guide is a workbook to facilitate the layperson’s experience as the church studies Get Their Name. It includes group and individual activities, and personal devotional material. Church leaders and members should all read the original Get Their Name book during the month of this church-wide experience.

Get Their Name: Participant Workbook: Grow Your Church by Building New Relationships

In the book Get Their Name, authors Bob Farr and Kay Kotan show how people can share their faith with others in natural, genuine ways, drawing all kinds of people to Christ. The next step for many churches is to implement the Get Their Name approach as a congregation, an all-church approach to building a culture of invitation. This is a two-pronged program, including a group study and a sermon series. This DVD includes a conversation-starter video for each week of the study, plus a promotional video to introduce people to Get Their Name and invite them to the study and/or sermon series. 1. Get Their Name Promotional Video (1:10) 2. Week One: Do You Know Your Own Story? (2:59) 3. Week Two: The Person Behind The Need (2:47) 4. Week Three: Being An Everyday Christian (2:43) 5. Week Four: Are You Prepared? (4:50)

Get Their Name: Videos: Grow Your Church by Building New Relationships

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