Study Guides
Leadership & Ministry
Grow as a leader in your church and community. These guides equip groups to think about servant leadership, team building, vision, and the unique challenges of ministry life.
Twelve Ordinary Men
by John MacArthur
In Twelve Ordinary Men, John MacArthur makes a stunning and deeply encouraging claim: Jesus did not choose the most gifted, the most educated, or the most religiously polished men to carry the gospel to the world. He chose twelve ordinary men — men marked by doubt, pride, impetuosity, political zeal, and even betrayal — and transformed them into the pillars of the church. MacArthur's central thesis is that God's pattern has never changed: He delights to display His glory through weak and unlikely vessels, so that no one can mistake the power as belonging to the messenger rather than to the message. By examining each apostle's personality, background, failures, and transformation, MacArthur invites readers to see that the same Jesus who made fishermen into world-changers is still in the business of making something extraordinary out of ordinary lives.
View Discussion GuideNecessary Endings
by Henry Cloud
Henry Cloud's Necessary Endings (2011) makes a counterintuitive but liberating argument: endings are not failures — they are necessary conditions for growth. Just as a rosebush requires pruning to thrive, our businesses, relationships, and personal lives require us to cut away what is dying, what is already dead, and what is simply not able to become what we need it to be. Cloud draws on his experience as a clinical psychologist and business consultant to show that the inability to end things — to fire an underperforming employee, leave a destructive relationship, or abandon a strategy that isn't working — is one of the most common and costly sources of personal and professional stagnation. The book's central thesis is that hope is not a strategy: wishing things will get better without doing something different is a form of magical thinking that keeps us stuck. Learning to end well, Cloud argues, is a learnable skill, and this guide is designed to help you develop it.
View Discussion GuideSpiritual Leadership
by J. Oswald Sanders
J. Oswald Sanders' Spiritual Leadership, first published in 1967, remains one of the most beloved and enduring books on Christian leadership ever written. Sanders' central thesis is simple but radical: spiritual leadership is not an achievement of natural talent, ambition, or organizational skill — it is the product of a life wholly surrendered to God. True spiritual leaders are not self-appointed; they are Spirit-appointed. Drawing on the lives of biblical figures, church fathers, and missionary heroes such as David Livingstone, Samuel Brengle, and Hudson Taylor, Sanders paints a portrait of leadership that looks nothing like the world's version — one marked by sacrifice, prayer, servanthood, and a willingness to bear costs that others will not.
View Discussion GuideThe Emotionally Healthy Leader
by Peter Scazzero
Peter Scazzero's The Emotionally Healthy Leader begins with a provocative claim: the vast majority of Christian leaders are, in Scazzero's words, leading out of a state of emotional immaturity — and it is killing their churches, their families, and themselves. Forged out of twenty-six years leading New Life Fellowship, a large multiracial church in Queens, New York, Scazzero argues that the interior life of a leader is not a secondary concern to be addressed once the "real" work of leadership is done. It is the work. The book is structured around two movements: first, four foundational "being" areas that shape who we are as leaders (facing our shadow, leading out of our marriage or singleness, slowing down for loving union with Jesus, and practicing Sabbath delight); and second, four "doing" areas where that inner life intersects with the practical tasks of leadership (planning and decision-making, culture and team building, community and dual relationships, and endings and new beginnings). The thesis throughout is simple and searching: you cannot give what you do not possess.
View Discussion GuideLeading on Empty
by Wayne Cordeiro
Leading on Empty by Wayne Cordeiro is a courageous and searingly honest book written by one of America's most effective church-planting pastors — a man who ran himself into the ground and nearly lost everything in the process. Cordeiro describes his descent into burnout and clinical depression, and then, drawing on Scripture, the wisdom of counselors and doctors, and hard-won personal experience, he maps a way back to sustainable ministry and life. The book's central thesis is both simple and countercultural: the tank you lead from must be regularly refilled, or you will one day find yourself leading on empty — and the consequences reach far beyond yourself to your family, your church, and your calling. Cordeiro does not treat burnout as a character flaw or a faith failure; he treats it as a physiological, emotional, and spiritual reality that demands honest diagnosis and intentional renewal.</p><p>This study guide is designed to be used week by week, one chapter at a time. Before each group meeting (or your own personal study session), read the assigned chapter slowly — perhaps with a journal open beside you. Let the questions marinate for a day or two before you discuss or write your answers. Some questions ask you to recall what Cordeiro said; others ask you to examine your own patterns honestly; still others invite you to think theologically about what the chapter implies for your understanding of God, the gospel, and the nature of ministry. Together they form a full-orbed engagement with the text. If you are using this guide in a small group, covenant with one another at the outset to be honest — burnout and depression thrive in silence, and this book is an invitation out of silence.</p><p>By the end of this guide you should have done more than finish a book. You should have a clearer picture of your own energy reserves and what depletes or replenishes them, a realistic plan for sustainable rhythms of rest and renewal, and a deeper theological conviction that God is not honored by your exhaustion. Whether you are a pastor, a ministry leader, a volunteer, or someone who simply gives more than they receive, Leading on Empty offers you both a diagnosis and a remedy — and this guide is designed to help you receive both as personally and as practically as possible.
View Discussion GuideDo Hard Things
by Alex Harris
Do Hard Things by Alex and Brett Harris is a rallying cry to a generation that has been told to sit down, take it easy, and wait until adulthood to do anything that really matters. Written when the twins were eighteen years old, the book challenges the modern concept of adolescence as a "vacation from responsibility" and replaces it with a bold vision: the teen years are not a holding pattern but a launching pad. Drawing on biblical truth, history, and the stories of real young people who are already doing extraordinary things, Alex and Brett introduce the concept of the "Rebelution" — a rebellion against low expectations that fuels genuine personal and social change. Their central thesis is simple but countercultural: doing hard things is not the exception for young people who follow Christ; it is the calling.
View Discussion GuideWhen Helping Hurts
by Steve Corbett
When Helping Hurts by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert challenges Christians to rethink the way they engage in poverty alleviation. The book's central thesis is that much of what the church does in the name of helping the poor actually makes things worse — not because of bad intentions, but because of a fundamental misdiagnosis of poverty itself. Rather than seeing poverty primarily as a lack of material resources, the authors argue that poverty is rooted in broken relationships: with God, with self, with others, and with the rest of creation. True poverty alleviation, they contend, requires restoring those relationships, which means that "development" — walking alongside people as they grow in dignity and capacity — is almost always preferable to "relief," which should be reserved only for genuine crisis situations.
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