Carl S. Dudley, Effective Small Churches in the Twenty-First Century Revised edition. Abingdon Press, 2003. Referenced in: Small Church Leadership LifeandLeadership.com Summary This is completely updated from the 1978 edition by Carl S. Dudley and Douglas Alan Walrath, Developing Your Small Church’s Potential. Many of the insights in this revised edition are based on The
David Ray, The Indispensable Guide for Smaller Churches. Pilgrim Press, 2003. Referenced in: Small Church Leadership LifeandLeadership.com Summary This is the closest thing to an “Encyclopedia of Small Church Development” one may find. Ray takes the best concepts covered by most other authors on the subject and ties them into one text. In a survey
Anthony G. Pappas, Entering the World of the Small Church: A Guide for Leaders, Revised and Expanded Edition. Alban Institute, 2000. Referenced in: Small Church Leadership LifeandLeadership.com Summary This book is the quintessential primer on understanding small church dynamics, written with Pappas’ characteristic balance of sensitivity for the present and vision for the future. He
Kennon L. Callahan, Small, Strong Congregations: Creating Strengths and Health for Your Congregation. Jossey-Bass, 2000. Referenced in: Small Church Leadership LifeandLeadership.Com Summary The name Kennon Callahan is legendary in the field of church leadership. His popular Twelve Keys to an Effective Church series remains a standard text on development of established churches. If he writes
Dennis Bickers, Intentional Ministry in a Not-So-Mega Church: Becoming a Missional Community. Beacon Hill Press, 2009. Referenced in: Small Church Leadership LifeandLeadership.com Summary Bickers focuses on creating missional vs. maintenance congregational cultures in small-membership churches. He provides three special values for the small church leader. First is the insistence that small church leaders must courageously
Dennis Bickers, The Healthy Small Church: Diagnosis and Treatment for the Big Issues. Beacon Hill Press, 2005. Referenced in: Small Church Leadership LifeandLeadership.com Summary Bickers, an experienced small church pastor, presents a health-based model of small church development, assuming that if a church is healthy, it grows and thrives as naturally as any healthy living
Glenn C. Daman, Shepherding the Small Church, 2nd Edition: A Leadership Guide for the Majority of Today’s Churches. Kregel Academic and Professional, 2007. Companion volumes: Daman, Leading the Small Church Daman, Developing Leaders in the Small Church Referenced in: Small Church Leadership LifeandLeadership.com Summary Daman presents a five-step developmental strategy for effective ministry in the
Jeffrey H. Patton, If It Could Happen Here: Turning the Small Membership Church Around. Abingdon, 2002. Referenced in: Small Church Leadership LifeandLeadership.com Summary Patton relates his experience of being called to a ministry in a declining rural Pennsylvania setting, and experiencing amazing congregational transformation. He acknowledges that his account of turnaround is particular to one
Ron Crandall, Turnaround and Beyond: A Hopeful Future for the Small Membership Church. Abingdon Press, 2008. Referenced in: Small Church Leadership LifeandLeadership.Com Summary This is the updated edition of the Crandall’s popular volume first published in 1995. The original reflected the research of over 100 small church pastors who had successfully employed turnaround strategies. Though
Steve R. Bierly, Help for the Small-Church Pastor: Unlocking the Potential of Your Congregation. Zondervan, 1995. Referenced in: Small Church Leadership LifeandLeadership.Com Summary This is a realistic and hopeful guide to small church development. It is especially helpful for those who have read all the highly marketed volumes authored by church planters and leaders of
