Title: The Assimilation Advantage
Subtitle: How to Turn First-Time Guests into Fully Engaged Disciples
Summary: Stop Losing Visitors! The Pastor’s Proven Guide to Church Growth Through Discipleship Is your church’s back door wider than its front door? You work tirelessly on excellent sermons and church outreach, only to see 40-60% of first-time guests never return. This silent leak represents a failure in discipleship, lost volunteers, and diminished impact. It’s a core church administration problem that hinders church development and church expansion. What if you had a proven system for church revitalization? In The Assimilation Advantage, Dr. David Shepherd provides the exact blueprint for church growth, turning guests into engaged members through strategic church management and a transformative church culture.
- ✓ The Data-Backed Path to Church Growth: Discover the church strategies that help churches slash their no-return guest rate by half. This is your guide to church transformation and church multiplication, backed by real case studies.
- ✓ Master the First 10 Minutes, Days & Weeks: A practical framework for church leadership to guide a guest’s journey from the parking lot to full community integration. This is essential for church planting and church revitalization efforts.
- ✓ Build a Culture of Discipleship: Move beyond programs and learn how people grow in faith by mobilizing your entire congregation. Create a church culture of belonging that fuels spiritual growth.
- ✓ Leverage Tools for Church Management: Get step-by-step guidance on using technology for church administration, automating follow-up to free your team for genuine connection.
- ✓ Fulfill Your Church Vision & Mission: Align every greeting and follow-up with your church mission. This book provides the church resources to turn your church vision into a measurable assimilation pathway.
- Execute a flawless guest experience that supports your church branding.
- Craft a follow-up sequence that boosts second-time visitation by up to 70%.
- Create on-ramps to small groups and serving teams, answering how people grow in community.
- Equip every volunteer to make guests feel seen and valued, strengthening your church culture.
- Drive genuine church transformation by moving people from attendance to active church membership and leadership.

Title: The Church Planting Launchpad
Subtitle: Your Step-by-Step Guide to Starting a Thriving Gospel Community from the Ground Up
Summary: A Practical Field Manual for Pastors, Planters, and Launch Teams on Church Growth, Leadership, and Discipleship You feel a undeniable call to start a new church. You have the vision and the passion, but you’re haunted by the daunting practical questions: Where do I even start? How do I build a core team? How do we go from a small group to a thriving community? What about funding, outreach, and avoiding burnout? Many resources are either too theological without being practical, or all strategy without a spiritual foundation, leaving you feeling stuck and unprepared. Without a clear roadmap, that God-given vision can falter. The initial excitement can give way to overwhelm. You risk wasting precious time and resources, making preventable mistakes in church administration, failing to assimilate newcomers, or seeing early growth stall because of a lack of sustainable church strategies. The dream of a church transformation in your community feels further away every day. The Church Planting Launchpad is your answer. This is the comprehensive guide that bridges the gap between biblical calling and on-the-ground execution. It’s designed to be your mentor-in-a-book, providing a proven, step-by-step framework to translate your passion into a healthy, reproducing gospel community. This book provides a clear, phase-by-phase pathway to success:
- Phase 1: Foundational Steps: Solidify your calling, assemble your core team, build a robust spiritual foundation, and conduct essential community research.
- Phase 2: Launch Strategy: Articulate an inspiring vision, establish core values, design your first service, and implement effective early outreach and evangelism initiatives.
- Phase 3: Post-Launch Growth: Master the art of assimilating newcomers, develop your first-level leaders, and create operational systems for sustained engagement and discipleship.
- Phase 4: Sustaining Health: Learn critical strategies for avoiding planter burnout, establishing financial sustainability, and measuring true spiritual growth and health.
- Theological Depth with Practical “How-To“
- Leadership Principles with Management Systems
- Church Vision Casting with Day-to-Day Operations
- Internal Discipleship with External Church Outreach

