Off-Road Disciplines: Spiritual Adventures of Missional Leaders (Jossey-Bass Leadership Network Series) - Hardcover

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Earl Creps (Springfield, MO) is a popular speaker and leader who regularly connects with a wide variety of audiences in venues across the U.S.--postmodern/emergent groups, laypeople and leaders in Protestant denominations, college students and youth groups, and missionary organizations. He is also Director and Associate Professor of Leadership and Spiritual Renewal at the Assemblies of God Theological Seminary in Springfield, MO. He has been a pastor, ministries consultant, and seminary professor. In 2003 he received a grant from the Louisville Institute to study postmodern Pentacostals. He is the author of numerous articles, as well as a chapter in Mike Yaconelli's STORIES OF EMERGENCE.

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PRAISE FOR OFF-ROAD Disciplines

"This is one of the most exciting books I have read in years. It shifts our focus from doing church to being church and promises to be a standard reference in all future discussions of missional leadership."
Leonard Sweet, Drew University, George Fox University; author, Out of the Question . . . Into the Mystery: Getting Lost in the GodLife Relationship

"If you are trying to figure out what is going on in contemporary culture, you've got to read Off-Road Disciplines. Creps not only knows what is going on today, he teaches us how to engage today's people as well. The chapter on 'reverse mentoring' is worth the price of the book. No one can be effective in ministry today without the skills and attitudes associated with listening and conversation. Off-Road Disciplines gives us the map and points us in the right direction."
Todd Hunter, national director, Alpha USA, former national director, Vineyard USA

"No matter how hard the leadership industry tries to refine the key ingredient in effectiveness, a transformed leader is always the precursor to a transformed church or organization. Because Earl Creps actually listens to the hearts of emerging leaders, he has discovered spiritual pathways that are being more traveled these days. Here's a leadership book that actually believes substance trumps style!"
Byron D. Klaus, president, Assemblies of God Theological Seminary

"Earl Creps has written a deeply personal and challenging book one that caused me to think about my own spiritual journey. Too many of us have made spiritual formation a series of activities and programs; Earl takes us off the map of common practice and into the places where the Spirit is at work. It reminds us that true spiritual formation pervades our lives and the ministries we serve, providing a helpful balance of being and doing. It will be a great encouragement to all who read it."
Ed Stetzer, author, Breaking the Missional Code

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"As a well-traveled explorer of the Church over many years, Earl offers more than a description of the latest cool topics in leadership. . . . You hold something that is rich, cured, and aged to sink into your mind and heart in a way that couldn't happen without breadth of experience behind it. This isn't a book about a quick fix to break an attendance barrier, or bringing new music or a new design for a worship gathering. It isn't about how to give better sermons. Earl writes about the most important thing he has discovered in all his exploring of the Church: the life of the missional leader and its effect on a missional organization."
--from the Foreword by Dan Kimball

In Off-Road Disciplines, Earl Creps reveals that the on-road practices of prayer and Bible reading should be bolstered by the other kinds of encounters with God that occur unexpectedly--complete with the bumps and bruises that happen when you go "off-road." Becoming an off-road leader requires the cultivation of certain spiritual disciplines that allow the presence of the Holy Spirit to arrange your interior life. Earl Creps explores twelve central spiritual disciplines--six personal and six organizational--that Christian leaders of all ages and denominations need if they are to change themselves and their churches to reach out to the culture around them.

Earl Creps explores each of these off-road disciplines and shows how to make them part of normal daily life so that they can have a transformative effect. Creps provides a map of the cultural terrain leaders must navigate and offers insight on the ways in which the process of personal spiritual formation can lead to changes in organizations.

Visit the Leadership Network Website, www.leadnet.org, for more information.