The Publishing Story: RelationShift

The editorial team of Renew.org approached us because they wanted to release Jim Putnam’s book that focuses on the importance of relationships in disciple making. They wanted help with the editing, design, and cover, plus help thinking through how to position this book alongside the sister book, DiscipleShift.

Specific Services We Provided

We helped with:

• Project management
• Cover design
• Interior design and typesetting
• eBook formatting
• Developmental editing, copyediting, and proofreading
• Writing the back cover copy

Our project manager, together with our editorial and design team, worked closely with Renew.org and Zondervan to create a cover and a structure that aligned with the cover and structure of Discipleship.

RelationShift was published January 24, 2023, and it’s now available to readers around the world.

We enjoyed working with such receptive and easy-to-work-with team. We were honored to help put out a message on the importance of relationships in a world that is so focused on doing things that we often forget to relate to each other.

We appreciate Jim’s kind endorsement: “They are amazing partners if you are so blessed to have them as one.”

More About the Book

A PRACTICAL GUIDE TO RELATIONSHIPS THAT FUEL DISCIPLE MAKING

Many church leaders hear of the power of relational disciple making to transform churches, and they want in. The problem is they’re programmed to see everything as—well, a program. In the hurry to implement disciple making programs, many leave behind relationships. Jim Putman, in this follow-up to his book DiscipleShift: Five Steps That Help Your Church to Make Disciples Who Make Disciples (coauthored with Bobby Harrington [Zondervan, 2013]), walks through five shifts that help you cultivate real relationships with real people. Whereas DiscipleShift charted a path to becoming a disciple making church, RelationShift maps out how to become a true friend to those you disciple. The result is relationships that fuel disciple making—and refuel you.

Jim Putman has helped thousands of church leaders rediscover disciple making methodologies. Yet he’s burdened by seeing many church leaders hurry to implement programs, bypass relationships, and wind up lonely and burnt out. Putman has been a wrestler most of his life, and RelationShift is Putman taking to the mat the forces that deplete and discourage so many church leaders.

If I could recommend one book to pastors and other church leaders, RelationShift would be the book.

—Sean McDowell, Ph.D., professor of apologetics at Talbot School of Theology, author of So the Next Generation Will Know

Since disciple making churches start with disciple making pastors, this is a book I highly recommend.

—Larry Osborne, pastor and author, North Coast Church

This book is a must read by all pastors who are dedicated to growing a church.

—Douglas J. Crozier, President and Chief Executive Officer, The Solomon Foundation

JIM PUTMAN is the senior pastor of Real Life Ministries in Post Falls, Idaho. He holds degrees from Boise State University and Boise Bible College and is author or coauthor of various discipleship books, including Church Is a Team Sport, Real-Life Discipleship, and DiscipleShift.