Acting on Your Faith: Congregations Making a Difference

Victor Claman and David Butler with Jessica Boyatt

An excellent resource using models and success stories of congregations involved in their community. Photos and accompanying text tell 70 stories of Catholic, Protestant and Jewish congregations' ministries serving their immediate communities and the world beyond. Includes basic how-to help and a resource list of organizations and community funding sources. Stimulate your congregation's imagination and bring social ministry alive through sermon illustrations, Lenten retreats or committee study.

Available at your local bookstore or online retailer.

Building communities from the Inside Out: A Path Toward Finding and Mobilizing a community’s Assets

John P. Kretzman, John L. Mc Knight

This book guides readers to a new, asset-based approach to community building that proves everyone has a gift to share. The book offers practical advice, helpful tools and powerful stories that help us see communities in new ways — as treasure troves of talent. Kretzmann and McKnight's front-line experience working with neighborhoods across America has created a vital tool for transforming city blocks into neighborhoods and isolated residents into change agents.

Available at online retailers or your local bookstore.

Grassroots Bible Study

This five-unit, small group Bible study in both Spanish and English uses the pedagogical method of Paulo Frieire to explore the biblical imagery of why Christians should be involved in their communities. Available from PHEWA, Room 4717, 100 Witherspoon Street, Louisville KY 40202-1396.

$10.00
To order call (888) 728-7228 x5800.

Handbook for Urban Church Ministries and All Who Reach Out with Their Neighbors

edited by Phil Tom and Sally A. Johnson, 1996

“This book is a kind of crisis kit for urban church leaders. It provides a ready catalogue of problems that every urban pastor faces all the time, and it lists places where help can be found ... It should be within reach of every stressed-out pastor who wants to help the congregation get mobilized in community ministries.” (From the preface by Carl Dudley)

Available from the Urban Ministry Office, 100 Witherspoon St., Louisville, KY 40202-1396.
(888) 728-7228 x5845

The Louisville Letter on Community Based Ecumenical and Interfaith Ministry

If you are engaged in community ministry or would like to be, this Web site might be of some assistance to you. Includes answers to your questions and some helpful contacts and resources.

Organizing for Social Change: A Manual for Activists in the 1990’s

Kim Bobo, Jackie Kendall, Steve Max
Seven Locks Press. Santa Ana, California: 1991, 1996

This manual is a comprehensive manual for grassroots organizers working for social, political, environmental and economic change at the local, state and national level. It also includes anecdotes about a wide variety of real organizations working on issues concerning labor, pollution, housing, voter registration, racism, health care, peace, religion and consumer protection, among others.

Available at online retailers or your local bookstore.

Rebuilding Our Communities: How Churches Can Provide, Support, and Finance Quality Housing for Low Income Families

ASIN: B0006OVCD4.

Seeking the Peace of the City

Article in Church & Society magazine, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), November/December 1995

$2.50
PDS# 7263095606

Studying Congregations: A New Handbook

Nancy Ammerman, Jackson Carroll, Carl Dudley, William McKinney
Abingdon Press, 1998

This is a useful reference for pastors, denominational leaders and strategic planning committees. The authors update what has become the primary textbook in the field of congregational studies in the seminary classroom.

Available at online retailers or your local bookstore.

The Soul of the Congregation: An Invitation to Congregational Reflection

Thomas Edward Frank
Abingdon Press

The author urges the reader to move beyond newfangled church marketing or growth paradigms that do not feed the soul. He encourages us to lean on what we already have among us and in doing so, we discover the soul of the congregations.

Available at online retailers or your local bookstore.