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

Sword of the Spirit

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

Caminos Olvidados: Reactivemos la Iglesia Misional

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 (95)

Steve began his research into Christian movements in the late 1980s while serving as a church planter in Melbourne, Australia. He carried that interest into his Doctor of Ministry with Fuller Seminary. Steve currently serves as Director of Church Resource Ministries (CRM) Australia, a member of the CRM global community. CRM empowers leaders for the church.

Steve’s calling is to empower godly leaders who strengthen and multiply churches, everywhere.

Steve has been married to Michelle for twenty-four years. Together they have four children and one dog and live in Melbourne. Steve loves to walk, read historical novels, see Shakespeare performed and support the Collingwood (Aussie rules) Football Club.

The book is how Jesus founded a missionary movement that now spans the globe. His followers are called to continue his mission in the power of the Holy Spirit.

A movement is a group of people pursuing a common cause. Movements are characterized by discontent, vision, and action. For good or for evil, movements change the world.

From biblical, historical, and contemporary case studies, we can identify five recurring characteristics of dynamic missionary movements.

1. White hot faith
2. Commitment to a cause
3. Contagious relationships
4. Rapid mobilization
5. Adaptive methods

Jesus calls us to participate in a missionary movement that will one day reach every tribe, every language, every people, and every nation. These five characteristics point the way to how we can obey his call.

The book has received some great endorsements as well:

Steve and I go a long way back. We were enrolled in seminary together and shared many of the same classes. It became clear early on that we shared a similar passion for the idea of movements and their relevance for the mission of the Church today. And as we met together regularly over the years, we have shared many ideas that we think are vital to recover in our day if we are going to reverse the decline of the Church at the dawn of the 21st Century. The net result has been one of the most theologically fertile friendships that I have ever had. Certainly we argued some, agreed mostly, and refined our thinking all the time, but definitely we mutually enriched each other’s views on this vital topic over the last twenty years. Speaking personally, I would have to say that Steve’s friendship has also been a kind of mentorship that has left me a much richer person than before and for which I am profoundly thankful. His influence can be found throughout my own writings on this topic.

Steve is a veritable gold mine of useful information. But even more than that, he brings a passionate love for God and his people to the task of writing. In reading Movements that Change the World you will discover a thoroughly readable description of the dynamics of missionary movements, as well as how to initiate, maintain, and extend them. Trust me, behind this unencumbered, non-technical portrayal of the examples of history and their ongoing witness to us lies is a lifetime of dense research that brings together disparate insights from theology, church history, sociology, business studies, change processes, missiology, leadership studies, spirituality, and anything in between. This book is indeed a labor of love that has taken decades of loving service to prepare.

Instructed as it is by the educative experiences of history, fueled by a missionary’s vision of what the world can be, and guided by deep commitment to orthodox, historic Christianity, Steve Addison’s book should be read by all who wish to rediscover what it means for Christianity to be a missional movement again in the West.

Alan Hirsch

Founding Director of Forge Mission Training Network and Shapevine.com
Author of The Forgotten Ways and co-author of The Shaping of Things to Come
www.theforgottenways.org

I had the privilege of meeting Steve for the first time in 2008 at a small global gathering of influential pastors who had all planted churches and were planting churches out of their churches. I’ve followed Steve’s blog and writings for years, and I’m delighted he has gathered his insights into book form. Studying church planting movements is challenging because of all the history, facts, and contexts – it isn’t easy work, and sometimes it is not easy work to read! That’s where Steve comes in!

Steve has done his homework and has all the academic qualifications necessary to identify the five core characteristics of a church planting movement – maybe any movement. The good news is he does it in a way that enables all of us, not just the academics, to understand it. After all, it’s going to be our “everyday disciples” that will make this happen. He then gives both historical and contemporary examples of how it works to illustrate.

The character and experiences of the book’s author are huge in terms of how much can you trust what’s written. That is another point where Steve really stands out. He lives this stuff. He has planted churches, been involved and is recognized as one of the top global leaders in training church planters, and is also a student and researcher of church planting and movements.

I not only endorse this book but also will require all of our interns, students, and residents to read it. Thanks, Steve, for a great gift to the body of Christ!

Bob Roberts, Jr.

Pastor, NorthWood Church in Keller, Texas
Author of Transformation; Glocalization; The Multiplying Church; and Real-Time Connections
www.glocal.net

“There are very few who have truly studied, dissected, and understood church multiplication movements at the core. My friend Steve Addison is one who has done his homework. I have anticipated this work for some time and am pleased to report it is better than I ever expected. In a single volume vast amounts of experience, wisdom, research, and testing have been synthesized into an easy-to-read book that all of us should be familiar with. Steve has put in the years of research, and now you and I can benefit from all of his hard work in a few hours of reading. It would be foolish to not take advantage of this resource.”

Neil Cole

Founder of Church Multiplication Associates and Awakening Chapels and author of Organic Church; Organic Leadership; Search & Rescue; and Cultivating a Life for God.
www.cole-slaw.blogspot.com

“I love this book! Every so often a book comes along that fuels the flame that was started in my heart years ago when I was a young and very passionate world changer. I love reading this type of book. I’m still a fanatical, passionate, fiercely focused, imbalanced, apostolic type guy. I’m older now, but more passionate than ever. If you’re looking for an intelligent and passionate book to stir you to dream big dreams, a dream of how a movement can begin through your life, and give you practical tools to help implement those dreams, then read Movements that Change the World!”

Floyd McClung

All Nations
Cape Town, South Africa
Author of You See Bones, I See an Army: Changing the Way We Do Church; The Father Heart of God; and Living on the Devil’s Doorstep.
www.floydandsally.org

“Steve has been tantalizing me with tales of this book for years. He has talked to me about the content on numerous occasions. The chapters are distilled from years of experience and thought, and the final product has not disappointed. Practitioners and thinkers with a passion for mission will want to read and re-read this book.”

Dr. Martin Robinson

Together in Mission, (UK based interchurch agency encouraging mission and church planting)
Author of Metavista: Bible Church and Mission in an Age of Imagination and Planting Mission Shaped Churches Today.
www.togetherinmission.org

An important book for our times- well-researched, well-written, and well thought-out. Steve puts his fingers on the essential qualities that have defined movements of the Spirit throughout the ages. And the stories he tells-biblical, historical, contemporary, and personal-give us hope for fresh movements of God in our day.

Dr. Robert E. Logan

CoachNet International Ministries
Author of Be Fruitful and Multiply

“As I read through your manuscript I felt that I had met a long lost brother. I had to read it through in a single sitting because it pulled me through from start to finish. Excellent work, brother! This will be a valuable contribution to our growing understanding of church-planting movements and their history, scope, and nature. I love the way you have woven together insights from sociology, history, Scripture, contemporary case studies, and even personal experience. I will be recommending this to everyone I know. Thank you for vividly reminding us that Jesus did not found a religion, but a movement!”

David Garrison

Global Strategist for Evangelical Advance,
International Mission Board, Southern Baptist Convention
Author of Church Planting Movements: How God is Redeeming a Lost World
www.churchplantingmovements.com

“Adaptive, innovative and consuming…” Those words characterize the movements Steve Addison describes and prescribes in his book. They also depict the book–pick it up and it won’t let go of you. I couldn’t put it down till it finished re-arranging my mind. This is a keeper!

Ralph Moore

Pastor: Hope Chapel Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii
Author: How To Multiply Your Church

On the Web:

Bob Roberts

Ed Stetzer

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