Neighborhoods are moving. While neighborhood changes can mean exciting and fresh opportunities for some, the experience can be vastly different for long-time residents. The rapid movement of people means changes in employment, economics, landscape, demographics, and the feel of a community. Churches often experience the painful impact of these shifts. Depending on how a church navigates through these changes determines if it will either live, die, or be reduced to a tragic...

Fatherlessness has reached epidemic levels.Forty percent of children in the U.S. will go to bed tonight in a home without a father. Studies show that people without fathers are at much higher risk for low educational performance, drug abuse, crimeand poverty.Fatherlessness is rampant in our churches as well. When planting his church, Mark Strong realized that fifteen of twenty core leaders, whether they were in their twenties or sixties, white or black, had grown up without an active fathe...

What would happen if your community had a head-on collision with Jesus? Pastor and community leader Mark Strong says, "You would have exactly what God wants: a divine merger!" He continues: "A divine merger is when the church intentionally integrates with its community. . . . The result is a kingdom transformation."This book is designed to give you the vision and tools you need to fulfill your own God-given mission in your community and church. Ranging from single-person sponsored ministri...

God made your heart for love, joy, peace, and wholeness. But pastors say that more than 90% of their congregations struggle with unforgiveness—and unforgiveness can make us forget what we were made for.What if the most pervasive sin of our day is invisible, hidden deep inside our hearts? What if it affects every aspect of our lives and relationships so quietly and insidiously that most of us miss it altogether? Bruce Wilkinson believes unforgiveness is that sin.