Community Is Messy: The Perils and Promise of Small Group Ministry

Community Is Messy offers a fresh perspective on the challenges all leaders face in building biblical community. Zempel draws on multiple disciplines to stretch our thinking on strategy, growth and discipleship. It is immediately in the top five on my must-read list for small group pastors and leaders!
-Greg Bowman,
author, Coaching Life-Changing Small Group Leaders

Honest, practical and rooted in experience, Heather's direction takes us to those earthy places that we face in day-to-day relational ministry. Her words go beyond platitudes and lead us down paths that point to wholeness in the midst of the reality of messy community. This book offers a fresh angle and creative hope to group leaders and pastors. Embracing this counsel will advance your community forward into deeper expressions and experiences of community. Buy it! Sit with it. Pray through it.
-M. Scott Boren,
consultant, trainer, and author of Missional Small Groups

If you could somehow blend equal parts Bonhoeffer, Mr. Wizard and 'Unsinkable' Molly Brown, you'd get something close to Heather Zempel. It would be a fascinating experiment, like those she describes in Community Is Messy. Stories of what worked (and what didn't) provide countless examples of how discipleship in community is usually nonlinear, often random and always messy. With deep insight and ample humor, Heather proves that 'mess' is actually a catalyst for spiritual growth.
-Dave Treat,
small groups leader, Asbury UMC, Madison, Alabama, and chief innovation officer, thinkingsmall.net

Zempel openly shares her experiences--both good and bad--as discipleship pastor at National Community Church in Washington, D.C., and invites small-group leaders to embrace the mess of community life.
-Amy Jackson, Christianity Today, September 2012

"Successfully overseeing many small groups in her multisite church setting gives Heather Zempel credibility in instructing leaders on the 'perils' and 'promises' of small group ministry. Community Is Messy is well worth the read."
"If you'd benefit from isnight to the failed experiments another church/pastor has encountered in developing small groups, though certainly not exclusively, there is plenty of that here. Despite all the mess and failures, there is a beauty to the portrait given here of a group of people who understand and accept the messiness of doing life together and want to learn to grow in and out of it."
"Zempel openly shares her experiences—both good and bad—as discipleship pastor at National Community Church in Washington, D.C., and invites small-group leaders to embrace the mess of community life."