Becoming a Contagious Church: Increasing Your Church's Evangelistic Temperature

by Mark Mittelberg

Book Overview

Discover a Proven Approach to Raising Your Church's Evangelistic Temperature Evangelism. It's one of the highest values in the church. So why do so few churches put real effort into it? Maybe it's... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0310279194
• ISBN13: 9780310279198
• Release Date: November 2007
• Publisher: Zondervan
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.52 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.3" x 8.0"
• Age Range: 18 years and up

Customer Reviews

Top-notch!

Becoming A Contagious Church is an excellent resource to guide your congregation to becoming the evangelical church that God called it to be. Where other books and guides usually just skim the surface of evangelism, this book delves deeper, providing a 6-step process to light your church on fire for the Lord. I recommend you first get their other book that focuses on individual evangelism, Becoming a Contagious Christian. In fact, you'll eventually need it anyway if you decide to implement the process recommended in this book.

It works North and South...for New and Old

While Canadians highly value their neighbours to the south, we can also be a bit reluctant to embrace ideas developed in the U.S. We wonder if they fit the Canadian context. Mark Mittelberg's Becoming a Contagious Church is a book that crosses the border with ease. The author communicates Biblical values that transcend culture. He does so not with lofty ideals and methods suited only for a resource-rich U.S. mega church...but with highly transferable and effective strategies that can be applied to various church contexts. I have been pleased to use Mittelberg's book to successfully train young pastors starting new churches on both sides of the border. I have also heard a variety of my Canadian colleagues in established churches comment on the book's effectiveness. My highest recommendation, however, comes from the impact this book is having on our local church's evangelism planning. Our leadership is sold on the concepts the book teaches. Mittelberg's six-step strategy is a brilliant addition to our thinking and promises to be our strategic guide for years to come.

Beyond Bandaids

For those who long to see the local church organized and intentional about reaching the lost for Christ, Mark Mittleberg's new book will move them beyond merely placing bandaids on the ailments that are holding the church back. Mark offers a six stage process that begins with the foundational elements that need to be in place in order for a church to effectively reach lost people. As an outreach pastor, I have always known that there were forces in the church keeping us from being as effective as I sensed we should be at reaching people. The result was that no matter what I tryed, I always felt like I was putting bandaids on an unknown disfunction that was holding us back.Mark's book helped me see that before training will be effective, before our teams can be empowered, and before our outreach events will have the impact we hope they will have, there are three foundational elements that must be in place first. They are:1. The leadership of the church must own and model evangelistic values. 2. The leadership must strategically work to instill those values in the people around them. 3. An evangelistic point person must be empowered.With insight, Mark shares ideas compiled from his own experience, the expereince of other churches, and biblical examples, concerning how to actually accomplish these steps within our churches.In addition, the book is formatted in such a way that it can be used to as a study tool for church leadership. Excellent questions at the end of each chapter are provided for teams to work through and help facilitate thought and planning.I have been waiting for a book like this. To my knowledge it is the only one of it's kind because where many books focus on issues related to personal evangelism or revival, this focuses on the bigger picture of effecting an entire church system and culture to embrace evangelistic values. It will help us move beyond bandaids and give us insight into providing real help for our churches.Brian Allen Outreach Pastor Central Baptist Church Sioux Falls, SD

Evangelism with Wisdom, Depth, and Intentionality

Until I read this lively, resource-packed book, I had no idea of the depth and wisdom that Willow Creek Community Church pours out to help people find Christ. Now I really see how evangelism at Willow Creek works, and just how careful and intentional it is. Every ounce of evangelical effort put forth in this book is designed to teach pastors, staff and church members how to show lost people just how much they matter to God. From post Easter messages carefully designed to keep seekers coming back to church for more week after week, to the scores of ordinary Christians at Willow who are actually trained to lead seekers to Christ using their own personal style, to the loving modeling of evangelistic lifestyles set forth by church leadership, this book demonstrates hundreds of ways to make evangelism a force to be reckoned with in any community . Because of Willow's experience, expertise and above all, love, they've come to understand the needs of seekers probably better than seekers understand themselves. Mittelberg's book puts the theology, theory and strategy of Willow Creek evangelism and other seeker oriented evangelistic churches together in one place. This book tells why evangelism needs to be done throughout all of the ministries of your church, and how to do it. It clearly explains how Willow Creek, and dozens of other healthy, seeker oriented Churches, are bringing people all over the world to Christ. I am so grateful to God for all of the hard, careful, thoughtful work that Mittelberg and his many colleagues in the field of evangelism do to help make believers out of people like you and me. Read it, and make your church contagious!

Don't wait- This model is Revolutionary

Hi, I have just concluded a one year evaluation (Masters Thesis)of Mark Mittelberg's six stage evangelsim model. It works! Not just in the mega-church, but in the church around the corner. You need to buy the book and spend time digesting it with the leaders and evangelists in your church. We found that once the leadership caught the vision- others joined quickly. For the first time, this model gives churches a well defined plan for evangelism. Now, evangelism becomes driven by values and vision rather than events and strategy. The model is practical and does not require complicated analysis. Mark Mittelberg has done all the work for you. Several benefits we have seen: 1. The senior pastor was energized. 2. Gifted evangelists were more effective 3. Outreach events were better and more numerous 4. More members were evangelisitcally energized 5. More people were praying for unbelievers 6. Leadership watched God work and relied less on human effort. It's the best investment that your church could ever make. In Christ, Marc Harrienger (mch906@aol)