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
Steve R. Bierly, How to Thrive as a Small-Church Pastor. Zondervan, 1998. Referenced in: Small Church Leadership LifeandLeadership.com Summary Few authors are able to make the kind of deep emotional connection with small church leaders than Bierly. His passion for small church ministry bleeds into this volume that is designed to help small church ministers
Ron Klassen & John Koessler, No Little Places: The Untapped Potential of the Small Town Church. Baker, 1996. Referenced in: Small Church Leadership LifeandLeadership.com Summary Klassen and Koessler are seasoned veterans of small-town ministry. Warren Wiersbe, in the foreword, describes their book as “a heart-to-heart account of cross-cultural evangelism right here in the United States.
Shawn McMullen, Releasing the Power of the Smaller Church. Standard Publishing Company, 2007. Companion volume: McMullen, Unleashing the Potential of the Smaller Church Referenced in: Small Church Leadership LifeandLeadership.com Summary McMullen is a founding member of the Energizing Small Churches Network. He edits this collection of insightful articles from twelve leading small church practitioners among
