Concern for Church Polity and Discipline

Concern for Church Polity and Discipline
Author: Laura Schmidt Roberts
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 178
Release: 2022-03-30
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1725261014

CONCERN: A Pamphlet Series for Questions of Christian Renewal was born in the 1950s of shared concerns over a gap between an Anabaptist vision and contemporary, North American Mennonite reality. The initial group views the increasingly hierarchical denominational structure, the emergence of centralized, professionalized, pastoral ministry, and the resultant changes in polity and practice as fundamentally incompatible with a Believers’ Church ecclesiology. Essays here present that critique and discussion of the reconfiguration of pastoral and communal authority, as well as the assertion that reclamation of a disciplined priesthood of all believers is the path of Christian renewal. Today the question of what institutional forms best structure the leadership, authority, and shared life of congregations persists, marked by particular concern to attend to the exercise of power within actual communities of faith.

Budgeting for a Healthy Church

Budgeting for a Healthy Church
Author: Jamie Dunlop
Publisher: Zondervan
Total Pages: 176
Release: 2019-04-02
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0310093872

Many pastors conceive of the church budget as primarily a financial tool, but in fact it is primarily a pastoral tool. A church's philosophy of ministry is locked into its budget, and so the budget will either stifle or accelerate any attempts to move a congregation toward a biblical model of church health. As such, the church budget is a far more potent pastoral tool than many church leaders realize. Budgeting for a Healthy Church examines each section of the budget in light of Biblical principles to show how a church budget can lock in healthy approaches to ministry. Whereas most books on church budgeting are "how" books, explaining how the budgeting process should work, this is a "what" book, helping church leaders determine the pastoral implications of what they choose to fund in their budgets.

Church Discipline

Church Discipline
Author: Jonathan Leeman
Publisher: Crossway
Total Pages: 146
Release: 2012-04-30
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1433532360

More and more church leaders, pastors, and members are looking for guidance on how to practice church discipline in a biblical way. Here is a contemporary and concise how-to guide that provides a theological framework for understanding and implementing disciplinary measures in the local church, along with several examples of real-life situations. Drawing on both Matthew 18 and 1 Corinthians 5, this brief hardback helps leaders face the endless variety of circumstances and sins for which no exact scriptural case study exists, sins which don't show up on any list and need a healthy framework to be corrected appropriately in love. This volume is part of the 9Marks: Building Healthy Churches series. Look for upcoming, quick-read formats of the following marks of a healthy church: expositional preaching, biblical theology, the gospel, conversion, evangelism, church membership, discipleship and growth, and church leadership.

Nine Marks of a Healthy Church (3rd Edition)

Nine Marks of a Healthy Church (3rd Edition)
Author: Mark Dever
Publisher: Crossway
Total Pages: 306
Release: 2013-08-31
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1433540010

Now in its third edition and featuring a new foreword by New York Times best-selling author David Platt, pastor Mark Dever’s classic book is not an instruction manual for church growth. Rather, it is a wise pastor’s recommendation for how to assess the health of a church using nine crucial qualities often neglected by many of today’s congregations. Church leaders and church members alike will resonate with the principles outlined here, breathing new life and health into the church at large. In this newly revised edition, fresh arguments have been added (for example on expositional preaching, about the nature of the gospel, on complementarianism), illustrations have been updated, appendices have been changed, and cover has been improved.

The Main Points of Church Government and Discipline

The Main Points of Church Government and Discipline
Author: Christopher Love
Publisher: Puritan Publications
Total Pages: 96
Release: 2020-02-11
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1626633487

In this work, Love sets down the plain teaching of Scripture demonstrating Presbyterial Government. It is a simple, but profitable, short, but sound teaching on the subject. Though the work is shorter than most works on the subject, there is a great deal of matter in a few words. It is a brief but yet biblically solid work so that not only the weak may be instructed, but the strong also established in the truth. There has always been a debate surrounding church government, concerning the question, “What is the best oversight of the church that could be had by Christ’s people while the church militant is established in the world?” Mr. Love will demonstrate, in catechistical form, that Presbyterial Government is of Divine Right, and is the best means for governing the people of God under Christ as a church body. The government of the church by Presbyters or Elders, who have the rule (Heb. 13:7, 17, 1 Tim. 5:17), and the keys of Christ’s church (Isa. 22:22, Rev. 1:18, 3:7), as well as power to remit and retain sin (John 20:23), are those who feed and govern the flock (1 Peter 5:2, Acts 20:17, 28), and are over people in the Lord (1 Thess. 5:12). Such men, as Love masterfully demonstrates, are Guides, Leaders, Bishops, Governors, and Pastors. And it is by this Divine Right that Christ rules his church in a Presbyterian form of church government. His section on the support of the church, minister and tithing is worth the cost of the volume alone. This work is not a scan or facsimile, has been carefully transcribed by hand being made easy to read in modern English, and has an active table of contents for electronic versions.

Handbook of Church Discipline

Handbook of Church Discipline
Author: Jay E. Adams
Publisher: Zondervan
Total Pages: 129
Release: 2016-10-11
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0310535476

This is a handbook for pastors, elders, and all Christians who want to see how Scripture presents the process of discipline that should operate in the Christian community. It was written in response to the various concerns that threaten to tear apart marriages, families, friendships, and congregations--concerns that call for a biblical approach to discipline that can heal fractures, restore right relationship, and ensure the health of the church. Developed around the five corrective steps found especially in Matthew 18:15-17, this book helps church leaders deal with the sorts of problems that require the church’s disciplinary response. Charting a course that combines discernment with appropriate action, this simple, readable handbook can have a profound effect on the community of believers.

Calvin's Company of Pastors

Calvin's Company of Pastors
Author: Scott M. Manetsch
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 445
Release: 2015
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0190224479

In Calvin's Company of Pastors, Scott Manetsch examines the pastoral theology and practical ministry activities of Geneva's reformed ministers from the time of Calvin's arrival in Geneva until the beginning of the seventeenth century. During these seven decades, more than 130 men were enrolled in Geneva's Venerable Company of Pastors (as it was called), including notable reformed leaders such as Pierre Viret, Theodore Beza, Simon Goulart, Lambert Daneau, and Jean Diodati. Aside from these better-known epigones, Geneva's pastors from this period remain hidden from view, cloaked in Calvin's long shadow, even though they played a strategic role in preserving and reshaping Calvin's pastoral legacy. Making extensive use of archival materials, published sermons, catechisms, prayer books, personal correspondence, and theological writings, Manetsch offers an engaging and vivid portrait of pastoral life in sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century Geneva, exploring the manner in which Geneva's ministers conceived of their pastoral office and performed their daily responsibilities of preaching, public worship, moral discipline, catechesis, administering the sacraments, and pastoral care. Manetsch demonstrates that Calvin and his colleagues were much more than ivory tower theologians or "quasi-agents of the state," concerned primarily with dispensing theological information to their congregations or enforcing magisterial authority. Rather, they saw themselves as spiritual shepherds of Christ's Church, and this self-understanding shaped to a significant degree their daily work as pastors and preachers.

Polity

Polity
Author: Mark Dever
Publisher:
Total Pages: 586
Release: 2001
Genre: Baptists
ISBN: 9780970125217

Patterns of Polity

Patterns of Polity
Author: Edward Le Roy Jr. Long
Publisher: The Pilgrim Press
Total Pages: 195
Release: 2001-06-30
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0829820760

An excellent primer on the spectrum of ways in which Christians organize their institutional life, Long's study of polity—that is, methods of religious organization—intends to enlighten the reader about the ways in which belief shapes personal and communal function. "Patterns of Polity" is a comparative examination of church governance by bishops, governance by elders, and governance by congregations across contemporary branches of Christianity. "Patterns of Polity" does not defend the validity of any particular polity, but instead raises questions that are essential to all polities and to all communities: How is power created and used? In what ways are polities most likely to function well? In what ways are polities susceptible to corruption and dysfunction? How are conflicts adjudicated and finances handled?