The government model you choose will determine your church's destiny. Some churches foster an environment of harmony, stability, and leaders who feel energized. Other churches are plagued by disunity, conflict, lack of growth, and leaders who feel alone and overwhelmed. How do you ensure your church is on a path to fruitful ministry? Tom Lane is one of the foremost authorities on church government. He has more than 30 years as a ministry leader and a foundational guide at both Trinity Fellowship Church in Amarillo, Texas and Gateway Church in Dallas/Ft. Worth, Texas. Ministries across America have relied on Tom's wisdom and experience as a board member or governing elder. He teaches with a warm relational style and an unwavering moral authority. Foundations of Healthy Church Government will help you: Develop an enduring, biblical model of governance for your church. Replace time-wasting and internal strife with harmony and accountability. Avoid power struggles among leadership before they start. Reignite church growth and membership. Move your church staff and vision from confusion to unity. Turn a potential battleground into fertile ground for ministry.

Church leaders must fundamentally change the way they view leadership, governance, and management in their organizations if they are to take seriously the need to listen to God's desires before acting. In Leadership and Listening, readers will find encouragement and specific suggestions for re-imagining church governance and management. Zimmer observes that the contemporary church is rooted in both the kingdom of God and the systems and cultures of government and business. Most people who serve in governing and management roles in the church in the United States today have been formed in the corporate world and acculturated to parliamentary process. As a result, many church governing boards are about 'business,' rather than their primary task: discerning God's desires for the part of the church they serve. Through research with more than one hundred church leaders, Zimmer learned that the church and the business community possess many insights and resources that can help boards shift toward a focus on seeking first the desires of God's heart and then responding effectively. By drawing on the guidance Zimmer offers, a church board can transform itself from a group that manages the day-to-day affairs of the church to one that makes listening, prayer, worship, reflection, and community the first priority.

Just as the government structure of Russia differs from that of the United States, and both differ from that of Great Britain, so it is with church government. Yet, as the institution governed by God's written word, the church must find and defend its governing structures using that word--the Bible. In this book, Dr. Simon Goncharenko argues that it is, in fact, possible to identify a specific preferred model of church polity within the Bible and to model our current church structure after Scriptural precedent.