For Elders/Shepherds

HN Books

  • Navigating the Storm: Resources of HOPE for Church Leaders by HOPE Network Ministries
    This book provides practical guidance and encouragement for church leaders navigating the challenges of ministry. Drawing on themes such as group leadership, vision, non-anxious leadership, spiritual formation, and church health, the chapters offer wisdom from experienced ministry leaders. Together, these resources help leaders guide their congregations with maturity, discernment, and faith, trusting that Christ is present and at work even in difficult seasons.
  • Doing God’s Work: A Primer for Church Leaders by HOPE Network Ministries
    This book introduces the ministry of HOPE Network through practical wisdom from experienced church leaders. Its chapters address topics such as mentoring, leadership identity, renewing a church’s mission, shepherd selection, spiritual formation, soul care, and helping weary leaders. Together, these insights encourage and equip church leaders while emphasizing that they are supported by a network of ministers ready to help them navigate ministry challenges.

Elders: Shepherding and Leading

  • Am I Called to Serve as an Elder
    This is a tool for a couple to discern the call of a local congregation to serve.
  • Shall I Continue to be an Elder
    This is a tool for a couple to discern whether to step away from serving as an elder.
  • The Practice of Communal Discernment
    This tool is designed to guide your team of leaders through the discernment process. It offers detailed guidelines and reflection questions that help the difficult process of group discernment remain productive and beneficial.
  • Communication Timeline
    Communicating news at church presents problems for sure, but when you want people to take action, it becomes critical to have a strategy that will produce results. The communication timeline delivers in a big way and will help any large or small-scale project achieve success.
  • 81L3wDZ9xQLThey Smell Like Sheep
    “Shepherd” is something that every follower of Christ, the Good Shepherd, is called to become. In this series, Lynn Anderson leads us backwards in time to discover and identify the biblical leader for the future needs of the Christian community. Anderson’s deep dig for truth will concern, convict, and confront us about where leadership has been, and will set a new standard for where the future leader must go.
    They Smell Like Sheep: Spiritual Leadership for the 21st Century
    They Smell Like Sheep, Volume 2: Leading with the Heart of a Shepherd
    They Smell Like Sheep – Spiritual Leadership Training Package
  • The Carpenter’s Plan
    This organization provides churches and non-profits with guidance and assistance with capital campaigns. HOPE Network Ministries Partner Jason Thompson is a Senior Consultant for the Carpenter’s Plan.
  • Leaders Who Last: 12 Conversations
    This resource is designed for leaders for peer learning and friendship. Some may choose to use it for mentoring with a more experienced leader; however its primary design is for peers in leadership. The questions are designed to be as “open” as possible. They do not have a specific or “right” answer. You are encouraged to bring your life stories to the questions and apply your experiences as they fit for you.

Congregational Transition

  • Interim Ministry Partners
    IMP helps churches through seasons of transition … to transition so effectively that those churches are transformed. They believe that the transition to a new pulpit minister marks one of the most important and significant seasons in the life of a church, and they help the church embrace and take advantage of the interim time by asking important questions and helping the church rethink the call of God on their communal life and ministry. HOPE Network Partners Brent Isbell, Rodney Plunket, Steve Shaffer, and Grady King serve as the ministers for Interim Ministry Partners.

Spiritual Formation

  • God Hungry
    This blog, “A Place for the God-Hungry,” is where HOPE Network Ministries Partner Jim Martin shares encouraging ideas about life, marriage, parenting, leadership, and ministry.  Each week, he dedicates at least one post to those who serve as church leaders.
  • In the Name of Jesus by Henri Nouwen
    For a society that measures successful leadership in terms of the effectiveness of the individual, Father Nouwen offers a counter definition that is witnessed by a “communal and mutual experience.” For Nouwen, leadership cannot function apart from the community. His wisdom is grounded in the foundation that we are a people “called.” This beautiful guide to Christian Leadership is the rich fruit of Henri Nouwen’s own journey as one of the most influential spirtiual leaders of the 20th century.
  • The Way of the Heart: Connecting with God Through Prayer, Wisdom, and Silence by Henri Nouwen
    Within this one small book lies the most relevant and inspiring challenge that we shall ever face: to surrender the compulsive noise of the world for the way of the heart that leads us to God.
  • Practicing God’s Presence: Brother Lawrence for Today’s Reader (Quiet Times for the Heart) by Robert Elmer
    For centuries, the sayings of Brother Lawrence, a seventeenth-century monk, have shown believers how to follow and live like Christ. Now a new generation can discover the joy of practicing the presence of God with this updated version.

Church Health

Leadership Marriage Care

  • WebGrowing Love Network
    Growing Love Network, founded and directed by HOPE Network Ministries Partner Jon Anderson, exists to help struggling and/or failing marriages through weekly classes, seminars, retreats, and professional counseling.
  • Growing Love: The 9 Essentials of Lifelong Love  by Jon R. Anderson
    A nine-week guide to transforming relationships. Designed for optimal use as a class curriculum or group study, this workbook can also be used as a self-growth aid for individuals whose mate or spouse is unwilling to get help. No matter how tough your past relationships, or how hopeless you see your future, within the pages of this book you’ll find your unique path to a transformed heart.
  • 365 Days of Growing Love by Jon R. Anderson
    Devote just a few moments, every day for a year, to growing the way you love, and your marriage can’t help but get profoundly better. 365 Days of Growing Love is like taking a daily supplement of all the essential nutrients for your relational health. It doesn’t take much time and the rewards far outweigh the effort!
  • Marriage Mentoring: 12 Conversations

 

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