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Seven qualifications to look for in a church consultant

How can a church effectively choose a good church consultant? Dr. Aubrey Malphurs suggests seven credentials to look for when searching for someone who will guide your ministry and could change your church.

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Setting the Stage for Good Stewardship -- Use this in-depth guide to discover ways to increase tithing and maintain healthy finances at your church.

New Church Health Survey -- New, improved Church Health Survey debuts on Church Central.

FREE guide: 3 laws of buying church supplies -- Learn how to get the best deal for your church - every time!

Is your church struggling to get to the next level? -- The Society for Church Consulting offers a 5-level training program for pastors, consultants and lay leaders.

Going Outside The Church Walls -- Get your outreach plan going! A successful outreach plan will impact your community. There are so many options for outreach - discover the right ones for your church using this free resource.

Planning for big success with small groups - free download -- This 9-page guide will help you learn how to manage small-group schedules, communication, tracking, evaluation, planning and more.

How secure is your children's ministry? - free download -- For most ministries, security is seldom given the attention and planning necessary to prevent problems before they happen. In fact, many churches are unaware that their systems are setting them up for legal liability, irrecoverable data loss or financial

	Ministry - Finding ministry encouragement and your RPE Reaching the point at which you think you simply can't go on happens more often than not in ministry. Church consultant Tom Fillinger puts exhaustion and encouragement in runner's terms, extolling pastors to run the good race—by tuning in the encouragement they can foster around them.

	Architecture & Construction - BOOK REVIEW: 'Building to Glory: Creating Sacred Space in a Secular World' What does your church building tell people about your congregation? A new book on church architecture guides church leaders through a discussion of form and function in order to think through building choices as ministry choices, too.

	Parachurch/Missions - Church missions that create lasting change Watching hurricanes tear through communities in the southern United States and the Caribbean should stir Christians toward compassion and acting upon the immediate needs of others. Perhaps the people in your church are considering reaching out to help. But how do these emergency response mission projects work in the context of an entire church missions program? Can a short-term emergency relief trip really transform lives through the good news of Jesus? Here is a closer look at one successful missions model that brings community transformation.

	Ministry - Measuring transformation in ministry Checking church attendance, counting the number of baptisms and adding up the offerings can provide one picture of the health of a congregation. But finding a way to measure the effectiveness of discipleship efforts by assessing changed lives provides a more accurate portrait of what is most important in a church.

	Parachurch/Missions - Seven steps toward meeting the challenge of the Great Commission How can your church make disciples of Christ throughout the world? Dr. Chuck Lawless offers some perspective on the ever-growing need for global outreach and some simple starting points for any congregation to move toward world evangelization.

	Ministry - Making sense of calling and ambition Why are you in ministry? Was your calling definitive and specific, or did you gravitate to a career in ministry through giftedness and ambition? Maybe we'll never really know why we do what we do. But after four decades of ministry work, one pastor realized his calling and his ambition were two different things.

	Leadership - How churches can mix religion and politics legally The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life has released a guide to permissible and impermissible political activities, based on tax exemptions listed in the Internal Revenue Service code. Although a complete version is available on line, as a service to our readers Church Central offers the most frequently asked questions and answers for church leaders in the heat of a hot political season.

	Sunday School - What makes a church group grow? Sunday school and small group consultant, Josh Hunt, surveyed more than a thousand group leaders to find out exactly what is necessary for a class or group to grow. He collected his findings into three categories: things that don't matter much, things that matter a little, and things that matter most. Are you spending your time on energy on the things that matter most?

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