In this book Stefan Paas offers thoughtful analysis of reasons and motives for missionary church planting in Europe, and he explores successful and unsuccessful strategies in that post-Christian secularized context.

Drawing in part on his own involvement with planting two churches in the Netherlands, Paas explores confessional motives, growth motives, and innovation motives for church planting in Europe, tracing them back to different traditions and reflecting on them from theological and empirical perspectives. He presents examples from the European context and offers sound advice for improving existing missional practices. Paas also draws out lessons for North America in a chapter coauthored with Darrell Guder and John Franke. Finally, Paas weaves together the various threads in the book with a theological defense of church planting.

Presenting new research as it does, this critical missiological perspective will add significantly to a fuller understanding of church planting in our contemporary context.

There have been many great books written on the need for biblically qualified elders in the church. They do an excellent job unpacking the pertinent scriptures and theology to explain both why we need elders and what they should look like, act like, smell like, etc. once we actually have them. This is not one of those books.

Rather, "Eldership Development-From Application to Affirmation" seeks to show you the actual process that one church uses to develop their elders over a two year period. Think of it like a case-study. You'll see the prerequisites and the application that potential elders fill out, and even the questions asked during the interviews. You'll get an in-depth look at the two-year process, all the way to the final moment when you affirm the new elder on stage in a gathering. Along the way, the author stops to explain from experience why he made the decisions he made on everything from book assignments to awkward questions in an application.

After you've read the books that tell you why you need church elders and what the Bible teaches, consult this book to build your own Eldership Development program at your local church. This field tested guide is meant to save you time and energy as you train up your church elders.

Contents include:

Introduction

Step One: Surfacing Potential Elders

Step Two: The Prerequisites to Entering the

Eldership Development Process

Step Three: The Application and Post Application Meeting

Step Four: Year One of the Elder Development Collective

Step Five: Year Two of the Elder Development Collective

Step Six: The Post Development Process Check-In Form

Step Seven: The Final Meeting Before the Public Affirmation

Step Eight: Public Affirmation Conclusion

Appendix 1: Our Covenant Partnership Agreement

Appendix 2: Our Elders/Pastors Covenant

Appendix 3: Our Experiment with the Elder Teams Model

Appendix 4: How to Get Everything You See Here in a Word File

Bibliography and Resources on Biblical Eldership

About the Backstage Pastors Series:

The Backstage Pastors series of books have been designed to target specific topics with enough depth to provide meaningful direction but with a brevity that facilitates reading or skimming quickly. My hope is to put extremely practical tools into your hands at a reasonable cost that will quickly train you up so that you are quickly freed up to continue with the demands of life and ministry.

Other titles from this series:

"Defining The Executive Pastor Role" (available in English and Spanish via ebook and paperback)