The goal of the book is to call Church members and leaders to get off the Church-As-Merry-Go-Round…take a deep breath…and to make the hard decision to look into the mirror and compare our churches to this portrait of a healthy Bride.

About Randy Millwood:
Randy consideres himself a freelance Christian worker. Randy works with the churches of the Baptist Convention of Maryland/Delaware where he coaches pastoral leaders, particularly the soul care of pastors and pastoral staff; consult with small, home/market-based groups; and champions relational spiritual formation. He am also a Department Team Leader and faculty member for a completely online, purpose-driven seminary called Rockbridge Seminary. Previously, Randy served as Professor of Christian Education at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.

Praise for To Love and To Cherish From This Day Forward:
Leaders need to make sure they are working on the right questions. Answering the wrong questions precisely right still won’t matter! Randy Millwood gives church leaders a better set of questions to work on than the ones consuming so many. Don’t read this book if you want to figure out how to do church better; by all means read it if you want to BE church better.
Reggie McNeal
Author of Missional Renaissance: Changing The Scorecard for the Church
Missional Leadership Specialist Leadership Network
leadnet.org/reggiemcneal

Possibly never before in the history of the Church is such a book needed to encourage followers of Jesus to love the Bride of Christ, like He loves her. It is easy to become disillusioned and disenchanted with the institutional church. Randy Millwood skillfully and poetically examines the characteristics of a healthy Bride and inspires Christian leaders to equip the Church to live out her passion for Christ in a skeptical world. This book offers real hope for those desiring to follow the “Way” of Jesus and experience real community.
Daryl Eldridge
President
Rockbridge Seminary

I know Randy Millwood. He is the real deal. He lives what he writes. In To Love and to Cherish from This Day Forward, Randy calls on the church to be the real deal, to understand clearly what the writers of the New Testament wrote and practiced, and to live and make disciples accordingly. This is a must read for those who are serious about growing a healthy, disciple-making church.
David Lee
Executive Director
Baptist Convention of Maryland/Delaware

Randy Millwood offers a powerful, personal contribution to missional writings as he provides sound theological insights cradled in stories of God’s transforming work in people, churches and the world. A tool for those in pulpits, pews and leadership in the world as the church at work in the world! Thanks Randy!
Edward Hammett
Author of Spiritual Leadership in a Secular Age
Partner with The Columbia Partnership www.thecolumbiapartnership.org

Here comes the Bride! In To Love and To Cherish from This Day Forward, Randy Millwood has provided an enjoyable and winsome look at the Bride of Christ, the church. Using the analogy of 1st century Jewish marriage practices to inform the modern reader, he offers a helpful critique to those of us within the Body of Christ, calling her to be about healthy disciple-making by focusing on the process rather than the results. Millwood reminds Christ-followers to live out the wonder of their relationship with the Bridegroom before the eyes of the world.
David Jackson
Church Multiplication Strategist, BCMD
Author of PlantLIFE: Principles and Practices of Church Planting

Casual, fresh, and insightful, a great combination for a book on such vital subject areas as church health and making more disciples. Randy has a unique way of communicating significant insights intertwined with everyday stories. There are truths about our life in Christ and His church that you don’t want to miss. If you are wondering what it means to be a church in the midst of all the spiritual confusion, read this book. It might just give you some new perspectives and pieces of the mosaic puzzle you have been missing.
Will McRaney
Director of Evangelism Strategy
Florida Baptist Convention
Author of The Art of Personal Evangelism

Among the mentors who have most shaped my understanding of “church” and “mission” and “discipling” and “equipping,” Randy is at the top of the list. This is his heart and wisdom shared for our benefit and ultimately for the benefit of those to whom we will live sent in our daily lives. A very important book for the church of America to read and to apply.
Jason Dukes
Pastor, Westpoint Church
Author of Live Sent: you are a letter
www.LiveSent.com

Purchasing Information:

The book is available through Missional Press by clicking the Store link above. The book is also available for order at Barnes and Noble, Amazon and other retailers soon.

This is a book about the journey towards wholeness from a life of unhealthy, addictive, and sinful behavior. In it the author examines how findings from emerging disciplines like neurobiology and behavioral science enrich and even validate the scriptures regarding the reason for unhealthy, addictive and sinful behavior.

Holy Rewired describes how changing our behavior is not simply a matter of being more disciplined about prayer and Bible reading or adding additional spiritual activities like fasting. Behavioral change requires accessing the deepest parts of our emotional lives. Engaging and dealing with our emotions leads to increasing emotional health, which in turn leads to behavioral change. Emotional health allows us to change our thinking about ourselves, our actions, and our relationship to others. It offers the freedom to regain a healthy understanding of who we are in Christ and in our relationship with God the Father. In this context, we can make progress in our journey toward wholeness.

In order to effectively change our behavior, we must also remember who we are as created by the Father. The ultimate impact of sin has been to destroy our sense of identity. We have lost the sense of being created in the image of God and being created for perfect relationship with our Creator. Because we are broken eikons (the Greek word for man being created in the image of God), we are searching to discover who and whose we are. Unhealthy behavior is an expression of that searching and longing that is within all of us. However, without the reshaping skill of the Potter, the cracked pots cannot be made whole and thus continue to struggle finding themselves in a world ignorant of the hope that brings wholeness.

Unfortunately, the institutional church has frequently dismissed the issues of unhealthy behavior as simply sin or a lack of self-discipline. The antidote for dealing with the behavioral dysfunction, according to those who emphasize spiritual disciplines, is to do more things that are spiritual: pray more, read the Bible more, spend more time in church. This prescription is limited in addressing the real cause of destructive behavior. It does not address the impact of other people’s destructive behavior upon us. The unhealthy behavior of others can negatively impact our own behavior. The negative impact is often, perhaps even always, the source of the unhealthy and destructive behaviors a person exhibits.

In addition, the spiritual prescription does not take into account multiple memory storage areas with which our minds are created. The emotional memory holds traumatic experiences, which cause us to react out of pain when we sense we are in a similar situation. These experiences, part of our emotional memory, are rarely readily accessible in our cognitive memory. These memories must be probed, remembered, and released.

Drawing on recent research from emerging sciences such as neuroplasticity, emotional intelligence, and family systems theory, behavioral change is a result of our journey towards emotional health and wholeness. It requires us to unlearn and put aside the practices and effects of self-destructive behavior and fully embrace our identity as people created in the image of God for relationship with him.

Endorsements:

In this encouraging study of spiritual whole-making, the key to a whole-souled life is to be wholly souled in biblical truth and integrity. – Leonard Sweet, Drew University, George Fox University, sermons.com

Purchase Now

Missional Press announces the publication of Sword of the Spirit: How God’s Word Changes Lives by Dr. Kelly Malone.

People tend to base their spiritual hope on their own strengths and abilities. To say, “While we are saved by the blood of Jesus, real spiritual change comes by means of our own toil and sweat.” We encourage this tendency when we explain what people must do in a way that nullifies God’s role in the process. For example, we tell people that if they believe in Jesus and say the sinner’s prayer they will be saved. As a result, many people believe that these human actions, apart from any intervention on God’s part, can save a person from sin, death and hell. This is more like belief in magic than it is a biblical understanding of salvation by God’s grace through faith (Eph. 6:10). It is the work of God’s Spirit in us that saves from sin and brings new life; no human activity can save.

The same problem occurs in many popular presentations of spiritual growth. People are told, “Go to church, read the Bible, pray, witness, serve others, and you will grow to be like Christ.” The problem with this assertion is that a person can follow through with all these activities and never even have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. The disciple’s life is not primarily a matter of human activity; it is a life lived out in relationship to Jesus. We learn to be like Jesus by following Him; we develop the character of Christ through obedience to His Word.

Spiritual change is not the result of mere human ingenuity, effort or methodology. The Sword of the Spirit challenges us to allow God’s Spirit to use God’s Word to transform us into the likeness of God’s Son, Jesus Christ. As God’s Word comes to life in us, He enables us to change the world for Him!

Author Biography
Kelly Malone is Assistant Professor of Intercultural Studies and the Jack Stanton Chair of Evangelism at Southwest Baptist University. He served for fifteen years as a missionary in Japan with the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention. Kelly lives with his wife Molly, his daughter Maggie, and his son Kevin in Bolivar, Missouri.

Purchase the book
The Sword of the Spirit can be purchased through Missional Press or through online retailers such as Amazon.com

Missional Press announces the publication of Caminos Olvidados: Reactivemos la Iglesia Misional, the Spanish edition of Alan Hirsch’s book The Forgotten Ways.

The retail price of the book is $19.99 and will be available at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble.com and other online retail sites as well as in select stores in the US and Latin American.

You can also PURCHASE THE BOOK through Missional Press for the discounted price of $17.99 by using our reseller CCNow.

Descripción del producto
Alan Hirsch está convencido de que las fórmulas de crecimiento heredado el Cuerpo de Cristo no funcionan más. Y en lugar de confiar en soluciones ligeramente revisada del pasado, él ve una visión de futuro crecimiento de la iglesia viene por aprovechar el poder de la iglesia primitiva, que pasó de tan sólo 25.000 fieles en el año 100 a un máximo de 20 millones de en el año 310. Esa también es increíble el crecimiento que experimenta hoy en día en la iglesia en China y en otras partes del mundo. ¿Cómo lo hacen? ¿Ha olvidado la formas explora el concepto de genio apostólica como una manera de entender lo que causó la iglesia para ampliar en diversos momentos de la historia, la interpretación de que para su uso en nuestro propio tiempo y lugar. A partir de la bases teológicas para la aplicación práctica, Hirsch lleva al lector a través de esta dinámica mezcla de pasión, la oración y la encarnación práctica de redescubrir el potencial latente de la iglesia moderna en Occidente.

Descargar libro como pdf gratis: Caminos Olvidados (1649)

1. Walks with the Lord
2. Maintains an Outstanding Character
3. Serves the Local Church
4. Remains Faithful to the Call
5. Shares the Gospel Regularly
6. Raises Up Leaders
7. Encourages with Speech and Actions
8. Responds Appropriately to Conflict

Dr. J.D. Payne is a National Missionary with the North American Mission Board and an Associate Professor of Evangelism and Church Planting in the Billy Graham School of Missions, Evangelism and Church Growth at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Having taught church planting and evangelism courses in evangelical institutions for nine years and served with several church planting teams and with the largest Protestant evangelical missions agency in North America, Dr. Payne is aware of the lack of quality church planting resources, particularly resources addressing church planting teams.

Purchase the book at the discounted rate of $14.99 $12.99 by going here.  Or purchase at amazon, other online retailers, and brick and mortar retailers.

Praise for The Barnabas Factors:

Given the risky and pioneering nature of church planting, it is essential to develop healthy relationships amongst members of the founding team. Here J. D. Payne gives us a biblical model of engendering healthy team dynamics by looking to the life and ministry of Barnabas. This is a book for those of us who want to keep a joyful camaraderie whilst advancing the kingdom.

Alan Hirsch
Author of The Forgotten Ways and The Shaping of Things to Come
Founding director of Shapevine.com

The Barnabas Factors: Eight Essential Practices of Church Planting Team Members is a unique and much needed book for anyone interested in church planting. I strongly believe it is a must-read for newly appointed missionaries and just as essential for veteran missionaries. This book powerfully sets forth the need for godly personal characteristics that are vital for successful church planting teams. The diagnostic tool at the conclusion of the book will be a great help in evaluating potential team members.

Charles Brock
President, Church Growth International
Author of Indigenous Church Planting: A Practical Journey

I highly recommend this book. From end to end it is practical: it’s the relationship stuff, the personal qualities of team members, and the realistic nuts and bolts of ministry that are so ultimately determinative to fruitfulness in the church planting and team contexts. Payne brings great clarity as to what is a missionary “call.” And for no extra charge there is a powerful tool at the end pulling all the principles together to help you decide who to take onto your team and who not to. A must-read for all church planters.

Daniel Sinclair
Author of A Vision of the Possible: Pioneer Church Planting in Teams

You reproduce what you are! In The Barnabas Factors: Eight Essential Practices of Church Planting Team Members, J. D. skillfully uses Barnabas to expose eight critical factors that enable a person to be an effective team player. Often, in the West we focus on glittery leaders; J. D. focuses on Barnabas, the glue of Paul’s first team. He does an excellent job of making these attributes practical and applicable in the team church planting context . . . The book certainly should be read by those headed for the field and those teams already functioning in a field context.

Dick Scoggins
Head of Leadership Development, Frontiers
Author of Building Effective Church Planting Teams

Dr. J. D. Payne stresses the crucial need for possessing the personal and character qualities that were evident in the life and ministry of Barnabas. I wholeheartedly recommend this book to those who are dead serious about planting churches that are built on a solid biblical foundation and impacting their communities in the same manner in which the churches started by Barnabas and his team members impacted theirs.

Daniel R. Sanchez
Director, Scarborough Institute for Church Planting and Growth,
Roy Fish School of Evangelism and Missions,
Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary

Having served as a church-planting missionary and trainer of church planters for over twenty years, I believe the greatest obstacles to effective church planting teams were, and today remain, unresolved team conflict and personal character issues of team members. Now there is a tool to help church planters be more proactive in effectively selecting suitable team members. If there is a priority need today in church planting, it is a need for the church planting team members first to be people of exemplary Christ-like character . . . Payne’s book addresses this issue in a clear and concise manner. This tool is a necessity for every church planter’s, mission agency’s, and church’s toolkit as they seek to develop and deploy effective church planting teams for the glory of God.

R. Bruce Carlton
Associate Professor of Missions, Boyce College
Author of Acts 29: Practical Training in Facilitating Church-Planting Movements Among the Neglected Harvest Fields

J. D. Payne offers sound biblical advice for building a strong church planting team. Often, in an attempt to build the perfect “Dream Team” many church planters rush the process and end up shipwrecking the potential of a new church. Nothing can be more devastating to the birth of a new church than a spiritually dysfunctional team. Whether you are planting a new church or leading a church planting organization, The Barnabas Factors: Eight Essential Practices of Church Planting Team Members is a must-read!

Stephen Gray
National Missions Director for the General Association of General Baptists
Author of Planting Fast Growing Churches

UPDATE: Purchase Planting Churches from:

Amazon & Barnes & Noble

Coming Soon to Lifeway Christian Stores

Missional Press would like to announce it’s latest publication. Planting Churches in the Real World is written by Dr. Joel Rainey, Director of Missions for the Mid-Maryland Baptist Association, a network of more than 50 evangelical churches located in the Baltimore-Washington, D.C. area. Dr. Rainey has been involved in planting more than 30 churches, and trains church planters nationally and internationally. He lives in central Maryland with his wife and their two sons.

Most church planting literature highlights enormously successful ministries. While such ministries can serve as a noble benchmark for every church planter, they are far from the norm. Most who plant churches will never see their name in lights, and all who plant churches will find it to be one of the most difficult things they have ever sought to accomplish.

In this book, the author invites you to take an “inside look’ at those difficulties. He shares his own successes and failures with candor, and lays bare the reality of planting a new church, which include both strenuous difficulties and glorious rewards. Read this book to be prepared for the effort, and ready for the blessing that comes from planting churches.

Praise for Planting Churches:
Church planting is not for the easily discouraged. The average new church is less than 100 attenders after four years, but most conference speakers and book writers tell stories of hundreds after the first year– a reality few church planters experience. Rainey paints a picture of reality, including both the difficulties involved in starting a new church, and the evidence that planting a church is worth enduring those difficulties. If you are a planter drunk with vision, this will sober you up. But, it is more than that. It also shows that church plants make a difference whether they are thousands or dozens after the first year. I’ve known Joel for years, and he tells the stories from his own journey– telling lessons he learned the hard way. It’s real world church planting and it is worth your time.
Dr. Ed Stetzer, author of Planting Missional Churches. Director of Research, Lifeway Christian Resources, Nashville, TN

“Dr. Rainey amuses the reader with countless stories of life on the field. His “lessons learned” approach to the book serves as a clear warning for future church planters: “The Kingdom of Heaven is near you, but this won’t be easy!”
Dr. Jack Allen, Director, The Day Center for Church Planting. New Orleans, LA

“Candid, winsome, thoroughly biblical, keenly missional, and sensibly linked to the real world. Don’t be fooled. The weightiness of this little book is inversely proportional to its size, and its wise counsel will help point a safe way through the tangle of neglected assumptions, misguided strategies, ill-founded hopes, and unintentional blunders that accosts the unwary planter on the way to church. Well done!”
B. Spencer Haygood, Senior Pastor, Orange Hill Baptist Church. Marietta, GA

“Born in the ward of real world experience, Planting Churches in the Real World is theologically sound, theoretically tenable, and practically accessible. During a time when starting a church can be faddish, Rainey’s work is a dose of both Biblical wisdom and common sense that will stop many would-be church planters before a frustrating failure, and direct many others onward toward biblical success.”
Marty Duren, co-author of Journeys: Transitioning Churches to Relevance. Lead Pastor, New Bethany Church. Buford, GA

“Reality bites, as the saying goes. Yet in the age of incredible lostness in America, we must see church planting for what it is . . . a way to spread Gospel influence to every, man, woman and child. High birth weight churches, although fun and influential for the Kingdom, are not the norm, nor are they the answer. Joel Rainey has captured the reality and yet the incredible potential of church planting. New churches running less than 100 are key players in the Kingdom. Small does not have to mean ineffective. Small groups of missionary Christians are critical to our mission and our future. Way to go!
Dr. Dino Senesi. Church Planting Movement Leader, Columbia, SC

From the Cover:
When did the church become our refuge from the world? How did it happen that the church became the place we went when trying to get away from those we are supposed to be trying to reach?

How did we ever become convinced that lost people remain lost because they will not come to church, rather than because followers of Christ refuse to live the gospel while sharing the gospel with them?

For various reasons, many church leaders today have a tendency to ignore the value of understanding the changing times. Others simply preach against the changing seasons, as if by doing so they will prevent the times from coming.

In JOURNEYS: Transitioning Churches to Relevance, Pastors Todd Wright and Marty Duren share candidly about the road they each traveled as they labored to bring their churches to a place of significance and cultural relevance. Wright and Duren speak candidly about their struggles and their own pharisaical attitudes that for years kept them from experiencing lives lived on mission with Jesus Christ.

JOURNEYS is about seeing every encounter as a divine appointment to somehow bring Jesus to the surface of life. It is a challenge issued to the church to intentionally find areas of need in their communities to be the eyes, ears, heart, and hands of Jesus.

Lots of people can tell you what to do. Some can do so through research, others through personal observation, and still others through their intuition. In JOURNEYS: Transitioning Churches To Relevance, Marty and Todd take us on a journey and tell us a story—and it is a worthwhile journey and a moving story. Instead of telling you what to do, Marty and Todd tell their journey from religious role-playing to personal transformation… and from personal transformation to fresh expressions of mission and ministry in their churches. I found myself engaged and challenged and believe you will as well

Ed Stetzer, Co-author Comeback Churches and Compelled by Love

When it comes to writing books about leading transition in the church, there are three types of pastors. There are those who have led change and do not take the time to write about it. There are those who have not led change but write about how to do it anyway. And there are those that have actually done it well and written it down. Todd Wright and Marty Duren are definitely in the right category.

This book rocks! It is the actual story of how they did it – and provides big insights and big ideas. If your church is transition, this is a must read!

Dan Southerland
Author, Transitioning: Leading Your Church Through Change
Pastor of Extension, Next Level Church , Charlotte

“It is a call to have a Kingdom philosophy of ministry as well as a missional approach to life. I commend this book to you. It is one that will help the next generation as they struggle in a less than easy environment in seeking to reach an ever increasing secular culture.”

Dr. Frank Page, Senior Pastor, Taylors (S.C.) First Baptist Church
Southern Baptist Convention President, 2006-2008

About the Authors:

Todd Wright has been the Lead Pastor of Midway, in Villa Rica, GA since 1996. He holds a Master of Arts in Biblical Studies degree from Luther Rice University. He has a passion for the world, having served internationally 22 times in 13 nations in Central and South America, Africa, Europe, and the Middle East. Todd is also a leadership conference speaker with the International Leadership Institute. He has been married to his wife Lisa since 1982. They have two teenage daughters, Hannah and Olivia. They enjoy living on a farm in West Georgia. Todd can be contacted though Midway’s website at www.midwaychurch.com.

Marty Duren has been in pastoral ministry since 1989, most recently as Lead Pastor of New Bethany in Buford, GA. Largely self-taught, he hopes to complete his undergraduate degree in time to jointly celebrate his 30th high school reunion. His desire to see the glory of God displayed to the peoples of the world has taken him to every inhabited continent and compelled him to engage unreached people groups such as the Tuvan people of Siberia. He has been married to the longsuffering Sonya since 1984 and abundantly enjoys his three children, Beth, Timothy and Abigail. He enjoys reading, laughing, hiking and blogging and can be contacted via email, martyduren@hotmail.com