Recommended Reading

Monthly book reviews

Book reviews by various authors.

The Apathetic and Bored Church Member: Theological and Psychological Implications

John Savage, LEAD Consultants, Pittsford, New York, 1976, 142 pages, $5.95.

Why do people become inactive? The answers are based on the author's research project; his findings are important for an effective program of evangelism.

Assimilating New Members

Lyle E. Schaller, Abingdon, 1978, $4.95, paper.

Explains how to bring people into the church family and actively involve them in church programs. (Creative Leadership Series.)

Building an Effective Youth Ministry

Glenn E. Ludwig, Abingdon, 1979, $4-95, paper.

This handbook discusses the basic principles of organizing and leading youth groups. (Creative Leadership Series.) Church Growth: America Bimonthly publication of the Institute for American Church Growth, 150 South Los Robles, Suite 600, Pasadena, Calif., 91101. (Published by Win Am.)

Church Growth and Christian Mission

Donald McGavran, ed., William Carey Library, 1976, 256 pages, $4.95, paper.

Church Growth: Strategies That Work

Donald McGavran and George Hunter, Abingdon, 1980, $4.95, paper.

Current trends in the church growth movement are explored, along with effective strategies for church growth. (Creative Leadership Series.)

A Comprehensive Plan for Evangelism: Local Church Planning Guide

Harold K. Bales, Discipleship Resources, Nashville, Tennessee, 1978, $3.00.

Contemporary Christian Communications: Its Theory and Practice

James F. Engel, Thomas A. Nelson, 1979, $12.95.

This book looks at Christian communication and how to motivate conversion and spiritual growth.

Design for Church Growth

Charles L. Chancy and Ron S. Lewis, Broadman, 1978, $5.50, paper.

Down to Earth

John Stott and Robert Coote, Eerdmans, 1980, 276 pages, $7.95.

This book contains seventeen papers delivered at the Willowbank Consultation on the Gospel and Culture held in January, 1978. The three major sections are Focusing on Culture and the Bible; Culture, Evangelism, and Conversion; and Culture and Ethnic Ethics.

Effective Church Planning

Lyle Schaller, Abingdon, 1979, $5.95.

Forty Proven Ways to a Successful Church

Al Stauderman and Jim Morentz, Abingdon, 1980, $4.95, paper.

Global Church Growth Bulletin

Bimonthly publication of O. C. Minis tries, Box 66, Santa Clara, Calif., 95052 (Edited by Donald McGavran.)

Growth: A New Vision for the Sunday School

Charles Arn, Donald McGavran, and Win Arn, Church Growth Press, Pasadena, California, 1980, 152 pages, $5.95.

Three well-known specialists apply church growth principles to the Sunday school. Step-by-step directions are given for bringing effective growth and outreach to the Sunday school.

How Can I Get Them to Listen?

James Engel, Zondervan, 1977, $4.95, paper.

How Christians Grow

Russell T. Hitt, Oxford University Press, 1979. $7.95.

How Churches Grow in an Urban World

Francis Dubose, Broadman, 1978, $5.95.

How to Grow a Church

Donald McGavran and Win Arn, Regal Books, 1973, 180 pages, $4.25, paper.

How to Grow an Effective Sunday School

Elmer L. Towns, Accent Books, 1979, $3.95, paper.

How to Grow a Sunday School

Win Arn, Donald McGavran, Charles Arn, Christian Communication, 1980.

Leading Churches Through Change

Douglas Alan Walrath, Abingdon, 1979, $4-95, paper. (Creative Leadership Series.)

The author uses case studies of six churches, both rural and urban, and deals with the leadership principles that can emerge when change occurs.

The Living Church: A Guide for Revitalization

Donald J. MacNair, Great Commission Publications, Philadelphia, 1980, $4-50, paper.

Make Your Sunday School Grow Through Evaluation

Harold J. Westing, Victor Books, 1977, 120 pages, $1.95.

Making the Small Church Effective

Carl S. Dudley, Abingdon, 1978, $4.95, paper.

The Measure of a Church

Gene Getz, Regal Books, 1975, $2.25.

The Minister of Education as a Growth Agent

Reginald M. McDonough, Convention Press, 1978.

Ministering to Youth— a Strategy for the '80s

David Roadcup, ed., Standard Pub., 1980, 256 pages, $5.95, paper.

Roadcup has pulled together a broadly based handbook for youth ministers facing the uncertainty of the 1980s. Each chapter is written by a specialist in that phase of youth work and almost every phase is considered. A thirty-two page appendix is included that lists books and other resources.

Missions, Evangelism, and Church Growth

C. Norman Kraus, ed., Herald Press, 1980, 176 pages, $5.95, paper.

Written from a Mennonite perspective, this book will challenge you with its high view of the church. It contains seven addresses on the history and theology of mission given in the Discipleship Lecture Forum series at Goshen College. Authors include Howard Snyder and Peter Wagner.

A New Face for the Church

Lawrence O. Richards, Zondervan, 1981, 288 pages, $6.95, paper.

A well-known Christian educator focuses on the basic issues facing the church today and suggests steps that can be taken at the local level to bring renewal and revitalization.

Organize to Evangelize: A Manual for Church Growth

Larry L. Lewis, Victor Books, 1980, $2.95, paper.

Our Kind of People: The Ethical Dimensions of Church Growth in America

C. Peter Wagner, John Knox, 1979, 163 pages, $8.95.

Paul's Idea of Community: The Early House Churches in the Historical Setting

Robert Banks, Eerdmans, 1980, $4.95, paper.

The Pastor's Church Growth Handbook

Win Arn, The Institute of American Church Growth, Pasadena, California, $4.95.

Planning Strategies for World Evangelization

Edward R. Dayton and David A. Fraser, Eerdmans, 1980, 537 pages, $14.95.

This is a management book, a how-to manual—but one that emphasizes thinking rather than doing. Since each situation is unique, the book suggests the use of a ten-step model to analyze and plan for each special missionary project. Goals are useful, not as end-alls, but statements of faith. The book is full of helpful charts, diagrams, graphs, and models.

Planting Churches Cross-culturally

David J. Hesselgrave, Baker, 1980, 462 pages, $12.95, paper.

Donald A. McGavran has written the foreword to this church-planting guide. It is a practical one-step-at-a-time approach for beginning work in a new community.

Racial Transition in the Church

James H. Davis and Woodie W. White, Abingdon, 1980, $5.95, paper.

This book is based on six years of research in twenty cities and hundreds of congregations. It studies ways the church leadership can cope with the challenge of our changing cities.

The Search for America's Faith

George Gallup, Jr., and David Poling, Abingdon, 1980, 153 pages, $8.95.

The authors report current trends and attitudes and predict a favorable future for religion in America in the eighties, especially for conservative churches. The first chapter deals with teen-agers, the second with the home and family values. Chapter three explores new feelings in the Catholic community. The results of a 1978 poll and a study of the unchurched American make up chapter four. The last two chapters look into the future of religion in America. A twenty-two-page appendix includes some of the poll data on which the six chapters were based.

Secrets for Growing Churches

Charles Myland, Harper & Row, 1979, 149 pages, $4.95.

This book is directed to church leaders and is similar to other church growth books. There are helpful sections, but readers may disagree with some of the author's basic concepts.

Strategy for Leadership

Red W. Engstrom and Edward R. Dayton, Revell, 1979, $8.95.

Survival Tactics in the Parish

Lyle Schaller, Abingdon, 1977, $4.95, paper.

Ten Steps for Church Growth

Donald A. McGavran and Winfield C. Arn, Harper & Row, 1977, $3.95.

A Theology of Church Growth

George W. Peters, Zondervan, 1980, 368 pages, $8.95, softcover.

This full-length theological discussion of church growth principles is a first! It is not a polemic against the various other schools of thought. Neither does it apologetically defend church growth and multiplication, although the author believes this to be valuable. Rather, he draws church growth principles from the whole Bible, focusing primarily on those found in the book of Acts.

A Theology of Church Leadership

Lawrence O. Richards and Clyde Hoeldke, Zondervan, 1980, 425 pages, $12.95, cloth.

Christ's body, the church, is not an organization but an organism. The living head of the church, Christ Himself, is also a servant of the church. Based on these propositions and their implications, the authors argue that authoritarian and managerial attitudes are not appropriate to church leadership. The authority of leaders is for building; their position is to be that of servants. Church members are ends, not means; thus church activities should be people oriented, not project oriented. The book contains more than forty charts and several exercises for group interaction.

The Total Image: Or Selling Jesus in the Modern Age

Virginia Stem Owens, Eerdmans, 1980, 97 pages, $4.95.

This short book looks at the church's cultural accommodation and concludes that there are better ways of witnessing than copying Hollywood. Various contemporary approaches must be used, but the local church cannot be replaced as the primary evangelization unit.

Understanding Church Growth (revised)

Donald A. McGavran, Eerdmans, 1980, 488 pages, $12.95, paper.

McGavran updates his widely accepted treatise on church growth and applies its missionary principles to the North American situation.

Understanding Church Growth and Decline, 1950-1978

Dean R. Hoge and David A. Roozen, eds. Pilgrim Press, 1978, 398 pages, $9.95.

Where Have All Our People Gone? New Choices for Old Churches

Carl S. Dudley, Pilgrim Press, 1979, $5.95, paper.

Why Conservative Churches Are Growing (revised)

Dean M. Kelley, Harper & Row, 1977, $3.95, paper.

Your Church Can Be Healthy

C. Peter Wagner, Abingdon, 1979, $4-95, paper.

Eight common church growth problems are described; then the author uses illustrations from actual churches to show how churches can be made to operate effectively. (Creative Leadership Series.)

Your Church Can Grow: Seven Vital Signs of a Healthy Church

C. Peter Wagner, Regal, 1976, $3.95, paper.

Your Church Has Real Possibilities

Robert H. Schuller, Regal, 1975, $4.95, paper.

Youth Ministry: Its Renewal in the Local Church

Lawrence O. Richards, Zondervan, 1979, 364 pages, $11.95.

Book reviews by various authors.

July 1981

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More Articles In This Issue

How Churches Grow

Within the same denomination, some local congregations are growing while others are not. Why? A recent scientific sampling of white, black, and Hispanic Seventh-day Adventist churches across North America indicates some expected (and some unexpected) factors that definitely influence how a church grows.

Sharing the ministry

Pastors need to teach both by example and word that ministry is not some optional phase of Christian living. A church may have only one pastor, but every member is a minister sharing responsibility with leadership.

Why so few successes?

With a shelf full of books on how to handle all kinds of difficult problems, why does a pastor find nothing but successful examples in the books and so few in his own ministry?

Israel and the church

Does the New Testament represent the church as the new "Israel," the only heir to God's present and future covenant blessings, or does it keep Israel separate and distinct from the church?

I believe in Jesus Christ

Raoul Dederen continues the series "This We Believe" with an examination of the central belief of the Christian faith—Jesus Christ, Son of God and Son of man, Creator, Redeemer, and Lord of lords.

Worldview

Roland R. Hegstad has some strong feelings about voting on Sunday. You may be surprised at the reasons for his stand. He also shares with us some encouraging statistics about religion in the U.S.S.R.

The devotional life of Brother Lawrence

The influence of a seventeenth-century Carmelite lay brother who practiced the presence of Christ reaches down into our day.

Help for the sight and hearing impaired

The United Nations has designated 1981 as the International Year of Disabled Persons. Since 1899 an unusual organization, the Christian Record Braille Foundation, has expressed its Christian concern by providing devotional materials for the blind and deaf.

Is your 'pick-me-up' letting you down?

That cup of coffee so many need in order to get going in the morning may be doing more than just getting the eyes open. In fact, the long list of health problems coffee seemingly causes is a real eye-opener.

Moving can almost be fun

Don't let the prospect of those boxes and barrels send you into a panic. All you need are some helpful hints from an expert of twenty-four moves, a little organization on your part, and presto, order from chaos!

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