Books from Resurrection

Discover your purpose, passion, and mission for your retirement years.

Retirement can be the most purpose-filled, satisfying, fun phase of your life!

Thousands of men and women are retiring each day, and many look forward to this phase of life with equal parts excitement and anxiety. Baby boomers have high expectations of retirement: they want to be redeployed to a life that is meaningful, significant, and full of joy. But this requires thoughtful planning, and many soon-to-be retirees wonder how they’ll get there, or if they’re even on the right path. 

At the Crossroads, by Clayton Smith and Dave Wilson, is a six-week Bible-based study offering comprehensive, practical help for Christians who are approaching, entering, or already in retirement. Readers can work through the book on their own or as part of a group. 

The book guides readers through a study and reflection process to discover their purpose, passion, and mission for retirement. It includes self-assessments and other planning tools to help readers develop a personal and spiritual mission statement. The book also facilitates discussions with family and friends about shared priorities, expectations, and end-of-life decisions, bringing a sense of peace for all involved. Finally, the book includes a chapter on financial planning, with a focus on the reader’s legacy, for an impact that will last through generations.

Using this four-session study, modeled after The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kansas, churches can form an effective team by addressing four key areas of congregational care: prayer ministry, support ministry, hospital visitation, and grief and death ministry.

Karen Lampe says congregational care should be modeled after the ministry of Jesus, who offered compassion, understanding, healing, and wholeness as a way of offering God's redemptive gift of grace. Congregational care is one reason, according to pastors Adam Hamilton and Karen Lampe, that their church is successful in attracting and keeping new members.

In each richly illustrated session, readers will find inspiration, Bible-connection, skill building, practical tips, and resources, including: information about anointing, helpful scriptures, application forms, suggested requirements and application for team member, a volunteer leader covenant, safety and self-care contract, and a counseling guide.

Do you sometimes feel that you're spinning your wheels trying to attract visitors and welcome them into your church? Help is on the way. 

Catch is a comprehensive program for invitational evangelism developed by the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection, one of the fastest-growing churches in the U.S. This newly revised and updated resource shows you how to attract visitors to your church, connect them with your faith community, and help them learn to know, love, and serve God. The Catch program has three phases: 

Planning Phase

Using the Program Guide with DVD-ROM, the pastor and church leaders learn about the program, then set a vision and plan for using it in their congregation. 

Teaching Phase

Four-week period to get church members on board through small groups and worship. Small-Group Participant Book and Small-Group DVD with Leader Guide will help get the congregation informed and excited about the new evangelism effort. 

Implementation Phase 

Using the Implementation Guide, church teams carry out the plan. This guide includes step-by-step directions for changing church culture and beginning to invite and welcome people outside the church. 

This kit contains everything you need to get started with this program: 

Program Guide with DVD-ROM 
Small-Group Participant Book 
Small-Group DVD with Leader Guide 
Implementation Guide

This Program Guide with DVD-ROM lays out the basic plans for the initiative, complete with worksheets, team roles, task lists, and a plan for a four-week study and worship emphasis. Topics include:
- Becoming relentlessly outward focused
- Understanding what makes your church unique
- Transforming to a welcoming environment
- Helping individuals on their journey

The accompanying DVD-ROM offers training clips, inspirational clips about Bible study, worship, and small groups; and examples of useful tools and documents-- emails, letters, ministry team tips, and more--for your use in attracting visitors and connecting them to the life of your church.

This Small-Group Participant Book takes small groups through four weeks of Bible study and intense evaluation designed to help your church attract visitors and then welcome them into the life of your community. Participants emerse themselves in the concepts and practices of invitational evangelism through daily readings that include Scripture, devotion, and reflection questions.

This four-week study features a Small-Group DVD with Leader Guide (available separately) that will lead your group through prayer, Bible study, and discussion. The study includes ideas for transforming your congregation, as well as action steps and personal reflection. The four weekly topics include:

1. Becoming relentlessly outward focused
2. Deciding what makes your church unique
3. Welcoming and inviting people in
4. Ways you can help

Chris Folmsbee is an experienced youth worker, an author and speaker, and a dad. He understands that you the parent of a preteen is learning as you go.

Understanding the Common Cry of Preteens is the first piece of a three-part series designed to help you help your teen develop spiritually as he or she develops physically and mentally. The ultimate goal is to prepare you as you lead your child to conform to the image of God through Jesus Christ.

Gladhearted Disciples: Equipping Your Congregation with Generous and Enduring Faith addresses a critical need for church leaders and pastors: How can we guide people to live like Jesus and to draw others into that life? This is a book to study and with your leaders and teams.

I recommend this book for faith communities and all who yearn for a new way of understanding our sacred calling as followers of Jesus.--DJ del Rosario, Sr. Pastor, Bothell UMC, Bothell, WA

If you are seeking to guide others in following Jesus into the mission field that exists right outside your front door, read this book. You’ll encounter vivid stories and a theologically grounded, practical, and missional approach to discipleship in a post-Christian world. --Sara B. Thomas, Chief Strategist for Vital Congregations, Discipleship Ministries, The United Methodist Church

Gladhearted Disciples takes a radically different and welcome approach to evangelism and discipleship. It is a winsome and accessible book with two audaciously important messages. First, Christian discipleship is grounded in grace, characterized by humility, upwardly focused in gratitude, and outwardly-turned in compassion. Second, Christian communities should be marked by the same. Every church would do well to heed this prophetic yet hopeful message.  --Robert K. Martin, Dean and Professor of Christian Formation and Leadership, Wesley Theological Seminary

If you seek a fresh way to understand and share our faith—a way that makes sense in our current reality, I invite you to delve into this book. May you be newly inspired! --Dottie Escobedo-Frank, author of The Jesus Insurgency with Rudy Rasmus, from Abingdon Press

Based on the research of author Scott Chrostek, this book dives deep into the character and leadership traits of both Millennials and Gen Z. Pastors, lay staff, and volunteers will learn how to steadily rotate their individual leadership skill sets while identifying common leadership needs that emerging generations crave.

The implementation of the ideas and principles found in this book will produce better leaders who will serve a greater number of people, resulting in the ability to cultivate and sustain attractive environments that ignite the imagination of emerging generations.

This ministry guide has been written to provide information about how to provide support ministry to the people with whom you work. This guide is also for people who work in many different ministry settings, a church or denominational administrative office, a small or medium size church, a parachurch or missions focused organization, and large churches. It will assist them with how they look at their ministry, and the level of support that is needed for their particular setting.

A call to ministry is an important thing to understand for an administrative assistant; your heart and the way you deal with people and tasks are different if you understand your position as a call to ministry rather than a job for a paycheck. If you understand that you represent not just your pastor and your church, but Christ to every person who calls, stops by, e-mails, etc., you approach your tasks and people differently. Working as the assistant to a pastor, or any person in ministry, you have to approach your tasks with an understanding of who you are serving, and you are serving Christ and his people.

The position of Administrative Assistant is a vital part of the over-all ministry of your church and the congregation. You are the gate-keeper, bridge-builder, keeper of the "information", soother of wounded feelings, and the deliverer of unwanted news. You are the person who has your finger on the pulse of your congregation and your community. You are the person people will come to for answers. You will handle thousands of details related to dozens of different projects and commitments for your pastor. You will help make your pastor's ministry seamless.

While all of these descriptions may make your head spin, this is a part of the ministry of being an assistant. You can look at each day as a challenge or an adventure. If you understand your job as a ministry and understand your call to this ministry you are ready for a great adventure. Begin each day with a prayer for wisdom and strength, surrender your mind and will to God, and prepare yourself to work with the heart of a servant.

As Christ walks alongside you in your daily life, you will learn to walk along side your pastor and to be a partner in their ministry.

The Abingdon-Church of the Resurrection Ministry Guides are the first choice for recruiting, motivating, and developing lay leadership for specialized ministries from A to Z—from adult ministries to ushering. Each inexpensive, 64-page Guide brings together Church of the Resurrection’s can-do attitude with Abingdon Press’s ministry of empowering church leaders. The result is a series that is user-friendly, encouraging, and most important, practical. The passion to help churches experience how many things they can do to encourage participation drives these Ministry Guides.

Each Guide is concise, conversational, and current, full of ideas you’ll be able to implement immediately, with little or no budget. Recognizing that volunteers are busy people who work hard, the Guides will be the first place to turn when you’re new to a topic, to help you feel empowered, prepare quickly, and get up and running with confidence and creativity. You’ll find eye-catching icons and features that help you move directly to practical, fun, and effective solutions.

An excerpt from the Circuit Rider review: "This little guide, another in the series out of The Church of the Resurrection in Leawood Kansas, will be helpful to churches large, medium and small desiring to develop and expand lay participation in all aspects of congregational life and work. Dan Entwistle, managing executive director for programs and ministries at The Church of the Resurrection, writes out of years of experience in recruiting, training and deploying laypeople for ministry. His book will be no less valuable to UMM and UMW units, campus ministries, conference and district staff and church-related non-profits."

How do we walk with Christ--daily follow him, grow in him, and faithfully serve him? In the Gospels, Jesus modeled for us the Christian spiritual life. The apostles taught it in their writings. And the Church has, through the last 2,000 years, sought to pursue this Christian spiritual life.

In The Walk, Adam Hamilton focuses on five essential spiritual practices that are rooted in Jesus' own walk with God and taught throughout the New Testament. Each of these practices is intended as part of our daily walk with Christ while also being an essential part of growing together in the church.

In each chapter, Hamilton explores one of these practices, its New Testament foundation, and what it looks like to pursue this practice daily in our personal life and together in the life of the church. Deepen your walk with Christ as we explore the five essential practices of worship, study, serving, giving, and bearing witness to our faith.

Additional components for a six-week adult study include a comprehensive Leader Guide and a DVD featuring the engaging teachings of author and pastor Adam Hamilton. Also available are resources for children and youth.

How do we walk with Christ--daily follow him, grow in him, and faithfully serve him? In the Gospels, Jesus modeled for us the Christian spiritual life. The apostles taught it in their writings. And the Church has, through the last 2,000 years, sought to pursue this Christian spiritual life.

In The Walk, Adam Hamilton focuses on five essential spiritual practices that are rooted in Jesus' own walk with God and taught throughout the New Testament. Each of these practices is intended as part of our daily walk with Christ while also being an essential part of growing together in the church.

In each chapter, Hamilton explores one of these practices, its New Testament foundation, and what it looks like to pursue this practice daily in our personal life and together in the life of the church. Deepen your walk with Christ as we explore the five essential practices of worship, study, serving, giving, and bearing witness to our faith.

Additional components for a six-week adult study include a comprehensive Leader Guide and a DVD featuring the engaging teachings of author and pastor Adam Hamilton. Also available are resources for children and youth.

In the Wesley 21-day Challenge small groups or whole churches will spend three weeks working through 21 questions that will engage their physical, spiritual and emotional lives and their relationship with God and others.

With fast-paced emphasis on graphics and short content bits, the challenge will inspire us to a new kind of commitment--one that is more authentic, vulnerable and soul shaping resulting in thousands of people who have a renewed passion to discover deeper levels of commitment to God and others.