This is the question I was recently asked. My first response was to wonder why these churches are declining, and perhaps it’s a different reason for each church. The reason for decline, if known, will influence which books would help. Leadership and vision are typically the biggest issue for churches facing decline. Churches need hope that God can use them to make a difference and guidance on how he might lead them to find a new future focused on a clear mission.
I don’t want to overlook the Bible as the foundational answer to understanding church growth and decline. Beyond that I couldn’t narrow to 2-3 books, as requested. Here’s my working list. What titles would you add? Which one would you say is the best or most helpful?
Ed Stetzer and Mike Dodson , Comeback Churches (2007)
Ed Stetzer is director of LifeWay Research and missiologist in residence at LifeWay Christian Resources in Nashville, Tennessee. He holds two masters and doctoral degrees and has written dozens of respected articles and books including Planting Missional Churches, Breaking the Missional Code, Compelled by Love, and Comeback Churches.
Mike Dodson has served as a pastor and church planter strategist in the Northeast for over 15 years. Mike co-authored Comeback Churches with Ed Stetzer and has also published or edited numerous other books and articles. Mike is the Associate Director of North American Church Planting and Assistant Professor of Church Planting and Evangelism at the Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina.
Mike Bonem, Leading Congregational Change (2000)
Mike Bonem is president of Kingdom Transformation Partners and author of Leading Congregational Change: A Practical Guide for the Transformational Journey and Leading from the Second Chair: Serving Your Church, Fulfilling Your Role, and Realizing Your Dreams. Mike’s work focuses primarily on the facilitation of healthy change, congregational assessment, vision discernment, and implementation planning. He has created and led seminars for The Purpose-Driven Church, Willow Creek Association, Leadership Network, Citireach International, and other organizations.
Gene Wood, Leading Turnaround Churches (2001)
Gene Wood has served as Senior Pastor at Grace Church of Glendora since January 1991. He is the author of a nine-week discipleship series Advancing Your Faith, and two ”turnaround books”: Leading Turnaround Churches and Leading Turnaround Teams . These books, along with Leading Turnaround Training Seminars, are being used to strengthen and mobilize churches throughout the United States and abroad.
Ron Crandall, Turnaround Strategies for the Small Church (1995)
Ron Crandall is the McCreless Professor of Evangelism in the E. Stanley Jones School of World Mission and Evangelism, Asbury Theological Seminary, Wilmore, Kentucky. Previously, he worked with small churches as evangelism director for the General Board of Discipleship, United Methodist Church. He sings in the Lexington, Kentucky, Community Chorus and was the president of the Academy for Evangelism in Theological Education. He is the author of WITNESS: Exploring and Sharing Your Christian Faith, a 25-week small group resource.
George Barna, Turnaround Churches (1993)
Born in New York City, George Barna worked in the Massachusetts state legislature and as a pollster and a campaign manager. Introduced to Jesus Christ during his grad school years, he moved to California, where he worked in media research and then as an executive in an advertising agency. In 2004, he re-engineered the for-profit corporation into The Barna Group, of which he is the Directing Leader. To date, Barna has written more than 35 books, predominantly in the areas of leadership, trends, spiritual development, and church health. Included among them are best sellers such as Revolution, Transforming Children into Spiritual Champions,The Frog in the Kettle, The Power of Vision, and User Friendly Churches.
Larry Osborne, Sticky Church (2008)
Larry Osborne has served as a Senior Pastor and Teaching Pastor at North Coast Church since 1980. He has helped oversee the growth of the church from a fledgling group of 128 meeting in a rented school, to a multi-site ministry that reaches nearly 7,000 in weekend attendance. Larry is also an author and a nationally recognized trainer of pastors. His books include 10 Dumb Things Smart Christians Believe, Spirituality for the Rest of Us and THE Unity Factor: Developing A Healthy Leadership Team. He travels extensively speaking at conferences and mentoring pastors and church planters across the country.
Brad Powell, Change your Church for Good:The Art of Sacred Cow Tipping (2007)
For the last nineteen years Brad has been the Senior Pastor here at NorthRidge Church in Plymouth, Michigan, previously known as Temple Baptist of Detroit. Brad is a frequent conference speaker; author of Change your Church for Good, Revised, regular columnist for Outreach Magazine; recently named contributing editor of the Leadership Journal; and host of and primary teacher for an annual conference called “Change Without Compromise.”
Dave Browning, Deliberate Simplicity (2009)
Dave Browning is a visionary minimalist and the founder of Christ the King Community Church, International (CTK). CTK is a non-denominational, multi-location church that has been noted as one of the “fastest growing” and “most innovative” churches in America by employing the K.I.S.S method: “keep it simple and scalable.”Prior to CTK, Dave pastored in traditional and mega-church contexts. His experiences led him to become a pastorpreneur and to break many of the rules of the established church, including “bigger is better.” A scion of simplicity, Dave coined the phrase “deliberate simplicity” to describe a new equation for church development, where less is more, and more is better.
Jim Collins, How the Mighty Fall (2009)
Jim Collins is a student of companies–great ones, good ones, weak ones, failed ones–from young start-ups to venerable sesquicentenarians. The author of the national bestseller Good to Great and coauthor of Built to Last, he serves as a teacher to leaders throughout the corporate and social sectors. His work has been featured in Fortune, BusinessWeek, The Economist, USA Today, and Harvard Business Review. Jim has served as a teacher to senior executives and CEOs at over a hundred corporations. He has also worked with social sector organizations, such as: Johns Hopkins Medical School, the Girl Scouts of the USA, the Leadership Network of Churches, the American Association of K-12 School Superintendents, and the United States Marine Corps. In 2005 he published a monograph: Good to Great and the Social Sectors.
Eric Geiger and Thom Rainer, Simple Church (2006)
Thom S. Rainer is president and CEO of LifeWay Christian Resources in Nashville, Tennessee. He was founding dean of the Billy Graham School of Missions, Evangelism and, Church Growth at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is also a best-selling author and leading expert in the field of church research. His many books include Surprising Insights from the Unchurched, The Unexpected Journey, and Breakout Churches.
Eric Geiger serves as executive pastor of Christ Fellowship, a large and growing multicultural church comprised of more than seventy nationalities near Miami, Florida. Eric frequently consults with and speaks to church leaders. He is the author/co-author of Simple Student Ministry. He received a doctorate in leadership and church ministry from Southern Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.
Warren Bird, Ph.D., is Research Director at Leadership Network, and co-author of 21 books on various aspects of church health and innovation. His recent “Leadership Network” books blogs include He Irritates Christians to Get Busy and Change the World, Becoming a Healthy Fruitful Multi-Ethnic Church, What Is Necessary for Church Planting to Go Viral?Mark Batterson’s Primal, Updated Publishing Updates, Beyond Christendom Says Migration Keeps Transforming the Church, Terrific Biography of Rick Warren, The Soviet Plot to Kill God, The Worst Moment in Most Church Services, Excellent Resources for Church-Based Grants, Multi-Site Church Roadtrip Released Today, Do White Churches Hold Others in Cultural Captivity?and Church Merger Phenomenon Continues to Expand.
Category: Church
God’s People
Bill Easum interviews Frank Viola about Jesus Manifesto (via books@ leadership network)
Bill Easum Interviews Frank Viola on the new book JESUS MANFIESTO
I had a chance to chat with Frank Viola recently. You may recall, Frank has published some cutting edge books lately. Then along came Jesus Manifesto coauthored with Len Sweet, a long time friend. When I asked Frank if he would talk with me about the book, he was gracious to talk to me. Here are the results of our conversation.
Frank, it’s good to have you do this interview. I know our readers are to benefit greatly. What motivated you both to write this book?
For years, Len and I both shared a burden and concern that Jesus has been getting short-changed in many quarters of His church. In our observation, scores of Christians are excited about and majoring in things that are about Jesus, while Christ Himself is getting left out in the cold.
It appears that there’s a segment of the Christian church that wants to be the hands and feet of Jesus, while detaching themselves from the Head. Others want to bring attention to the work of Christ in the past, but don’t care too much about seeking His face or living by His Risen life in the present.
So we felt to do a project together that would not only give Christ His rightful place . . . that would not only exalt Him beyond the exosphere . . . but that would also unveil His breathtaking Person in ways that would re-introduce Him in a powerfully fresh way to many of God’s people, leaving them staggering to hunger and thirst for Him and Him alone. Our book seeks to bring together the atoning work of Jesus, the teachings of Jesus, and the Person of Christ into one enormous whole in the context of knowing Christ as our indwelling Lord as Galatians 2:20, Colossians 2, and Romans 8 vividly describe.
Let me give you an example of how deep the problem runs. Take for instance the four Gospels. A question sometimes asked is “What are the main themes of the four Gospels?” And so people will begin counting words and underling terms. “The Kingdom of God” is a popular answer. “Eternal Life” is another. “Salvation” another. But the governing theme of all four Gospels is none of the above. In fact, it’s as plain as the nose on an Italian’s face, yet we routinely and frequently miss it. (I’m Italian by the way 😉
The theme is JESUS CHRIST.
What are the four Gospels? Among other things, they are the content of what Twelve men who lived with God in human form for a little over 3 years presented to a new group of Christians beginning on the day of Pentecost in the city of Jerusalem. They preached Christ to those new believers for about four years. They told the stories of what it was like to live with Him. What He said, did, taught, etc.
The first church on earth was built on a revelation of Jesus Christ. And that revelation is partly contained in the four Gospels. Yet we very rarely hear the four Gospels described in this way.
Let me go a little further. One of the things that has fascinated me as a Christian is the fact that Paul of Tarsus would spend several months with a new church plant in heathen soil, and then return after a year to find them still gathering under Christ and following Him. In fact, last year, I wrote an entire book about this very subject. The question before the house for me was: “What on earth did Paul preach to those people in the space of a few months to cause that kind of dynamic and sustaining effect?” Remember, that was a day in which there was no NT available, the OT scrolls were scarce and locked up in the synagogues, and 90% of those new Christians were illiterate.
Right or wrong, I believe that some of what we have presented in Jesus Manifesto gets close to what Paul preached. He called it “the unsearchable riches of Christ” in Ephesians – something we don’t hear too often today. We feel (and hope) that Jesus Manifesto gives readers a glimpse of some of those riches.
A longstanding colleague and friend pointed me to this article on the leadership required for church transformation.
A Time to Die: Church renewal depends on leadership, Baucom says
By Jim White Monday, March 01, 2010FALLS CHURCH, Va. (ABP) — Jim Baucom, pastor of Columbia Baptist Church in Falls Church, Va., has helped lead three established congregations to renewal and growth. He says doing the same thing in other churches, while not easy, is possible — with the combination of factors.
“I think it should be said that growing a church to relevance and vitality from near-death is an extremely rare incidence that requires a confluence of ‘favorable conditions,’” he said. What are those conditions?
Emphasizing that there is no magic formula, Baucom said he believes that certain transferable principles may guide a congregation in transition from hopelessness to new vision and new vitality. The transition begins with leadership.
A ‘change agent’
“A new leader is an absolute necessity, and that leader must be a change agent,” he said — noting that a change agent heightens the crisis in order to heal the system, much as chemotherapy temporarily sickens the patient but destroys the cancer. The pastoral change agent uses the crisis to implement necessary changes — small at first, then larger. These changes eventually create a cultural shift in the attitudes and expectations of the congregation.
“Once the church family becomes convinced that it can be effective again, and the first small waves of growth begin to generate excitement, something of a snowball effect is generated. Over time, the new growth overwhelms the old system as those who enter the ‘new church’ live out the new mission without the fear created by previous failures they never even knew. In other words, as new members are added, the church becomes the church they believe they joined.
Of course, he cautioned: “Inevitably, a few of the traditional members will leave the church.”
Inwardly secure
To move a congregation from self-absorption to having a missional focus and confidence in the future, the pastor must be “more committed to being relevant and effective than being universally liked,” Baucom said. “A portion of the traditional constituency of the declining church would rather see their church die than change (though they would never say so). Dramatically declining churches typically become unhealthy in ways most members cannot understand.” Churches that experience lengthy decline begin to panic about the future. They turn inward and develop a survival mentality that reduces the church’s ability to functional effectively, he said.
Decisions such churches make tend to meet the members’ needs but do little if anything to share the gospel with others. “Most leaders console and comfort such a system, engaging in hospice care that eases the suffering but limits the possibility of restored vigor,” Baucom contended.
Relational
Tremendous relational work is necessary to keep those who choose to remain on board. Although they may resist change initially, they are generally thrilled to see their church thrive and excited to be part of the journey when they witness successes.
“Some of those who remain may be unhappy with facets of the new church, but their voices are drowned out by the vast majority of people who are thrilled with the new direction, especially if they believe that the new thing is built on the foundation of the old,” Baucom advises. “For this to happen, the new leader must begin his or her work by helping the traditional church clearly define its core values and competencies. New ministries are created as extensions of old values, and in a very real sense the church simply does much better what it has done well in the past, casting itself into a new era to reach new generations.”
Patient
“In a real sense, the work of turning a church around is not one movement, but many smaller ‘shifts,’ each of which is ‘set’ by intentional periods of rest. The church moves forward, then rests; then moves again, then rests, again and again,” Baucom said.
At each stage of its growth, such a church pauses briefly to allow the change to gel. “To most, this feels like one constant and rapid push forward, but the leader instinctively freezes the system after each primary shift before prompting the congregation to initiate new changes. This is a careful balancing act,” Baucom cautioned. “If the leader moves too quickly, he or she will cut himself or herself away from the body. The most likely response to systemic change, by far, is to remove the change agent.
“If the leader pauses too long between change phases, the system becomes complacent and stuck, especially once the initial threat of congregational death has passed and the change platform has cooled,” he continued.
Baucom said many would-be change agents “become too patient or too exhausted and either leap from the change platform or lie down upon it. Either response short-circuits the change cycle and ends the turnaround.”
Confident
“I think it goes without saying that the change-agent must have a certain charisma and a degree of confidence tempered by humility and love for people,” Baucom said. “Over time, the congregation begins to trust the change agent implicitly IF the people believe that the leader has the church’s best interest at heart consistently, follows God unflinchingly, and loves the people unfailingly.”
Aware of own limitations
“Along the way, the leader must also draw around himself or herself gifted, selfless and spiritually mature leaders (or disciple such leaders himself or herself) who can implement the change he or she envisions. I say this, because the change agent is almost always a visionary communicator with limited ability to translate change into programs and ministries without the assistance of a platoon of gifted administrators and ministers. The leader must know his or her own limitations and interdependence with others in order to be effective long-term.”
Love for the church
“What made me uniquely qualified for turnaround was vision, energy, charisma, communication skills, and an intense love for people grounded in the traditional church. Because I loved the old thing and had a certain set of leadership skills, I could lead the turnaround,” he said. “I do not discount, even a little, what it means to be the son of a successful traditional-church pastor nurtured in the heart of great traditional churches any more than I do my enthusiasm for entrepreneurial creation of new things. In our context, the turnaround pastor must have both in equal measure.”
Another factor affecting the ability to turn around a declining church is the number of new, vibrant churches that have emerged in the area. The greater the number of exciting, effective, ministry-oriented churches in the area, the more difficult the turnaround will be.
“All that said,” Baucom concluded, “there is no joy like turnaround leadership, in my book. And there is no leader loved so much, trusted so thoroughly and embraced so quickly as the proven, successful change agent. Turnaround pastors become cemented into their church systems like no other leaders, save perhaps the founding pastors of new churches.”
The Barna Group offers a Year-in-Review Perspective
The Barna Group – Barna Studies the Research, Offers a Year-in-Review Perspective.
Four major themes are addressed in the above end of year review:
- Theme 1: Increasingly, Americans are more interested in faith and spirituality than in Christianity.
“One of those assumptions relates to how we develop our faith. These days,” he continued, “the faith arena is a marketplace from which we get ideas, beliefs, relationships, habits, rituals and traditions that make immediate sense to us, and with which we are comfortable. The notion of associating with a particular faith – whether it is Christianity, Judaism, Islam, or some other strain – still has appeal because that connection provides a discernible identity and facilitates the possibility of belonging to something meaningful. But the actual components of what we choose to belong to are driven by our momentary needs and perceptions.
- Theme 2: Faith in the American context is now individual and customized. Americans are comfortable with an altered spiritual experience as long as they can participate in the shaping of that faith experience.
“Now that we are comfortable with the idea of being spiritual as opposed to devoutly Christian,” Barna pointed out, “Americans typically draw from a broad treasury of moral, spiritual and ethical sources of thought to concoct a uniquely personal brand of faith. Feeling freed from the boundaries established by the Christian faith, and immersed in a postmodern society which revels in participation, personal expression, satisfying relationships, and authentic experiences, we become our own unchallenged spiritual authorities, defining truth and reality as we see fit.
- Theme 3: Biblical literacy is neither a current reality nor a goal in the U.S.
“Bible reading has become the religious equivalent of sound-bite journalism. When people read from the Bible they typically open it, read a brief passage without much regard for the context, and consider the primary thought or feeling that the passage provided. If they are comfortable with it, they accept it; otherwise, they deem it interesting but irrelevant to their life, and move on. There is shockingly little growth evident in people’s understanding of the fundamental themes of the scriptures and amazingly little interest in deepening their knowledge and application of biblical principles.
- Theme 4: Effective and periodic measurement of spirituality – conducted personally or through a church – is not common at this time and it is not likely to become common in the near future.
“It may well be that spiritual evaluation is so uncommon because people fear that the results might suggest the need for different growth strategies or for more aggressive engagement in the growth process. No matter what the underlying reason is, the bottom line among both the clergy and laity was indifference toward their acknowledged lack of evaluation. That suggests there is not likely to be much change in this dimension in the immediate future. In other words, as we examine the discipleship landscape, what we see is what we get – and what we will keep getting for some time.”
Join the quest for the lost soul of Christianity … Mark Batterson guides us on a PRIMAL Journey
Last summer I traveled to Washington, DC to visit my birthplace with my family and take my children to explore the sites that broadened my historical and scientific view of the world. Personally, I was looking forward to a Saturday evening stroll up to Union Station and then a few block jog over to Ebenezer’s Coffee House. I looked forward to worshiping with the folks at National Community Church and meeting their pastor Mark Batterson. What a powerful time I had as the oldest person in the room …
I had been introduced to Mark Batterson through the books In the Pit with Lion on a Snowy Day and Wild Goose Chase. Mark’s preaching that Saturday evening was just as powerful as his books and fleshed out in his experiences as Christian walking through the world. The opportunity came recently to participate in blog tour for Mark’s new book PRIMAL: A Quest for the Lost Soul of Christianity. I jumped at the chance!
Mark opens the book with a journey to Rome and a chance visit to the Church of San Clemente, named for the fourth bishop of Rome. This 12th century church was built on the ruins of its 4th century predecessor which covered the catacombs where first century Christians had gathered for worship, fellowship, and study. He then observed the following:
I’ll never forget my descent down that flight of stairs. The air became damp and we could hear underground springs. We carefully navigated each step as we lost some of our light. And our voices echoed off the low ceiling and narrow walkway. Almost like the wardrobe in The Chronicles of Narnia, that flight of stairs was like a portal to a different time, a different place. It was as if those stairs took us back two thousand years in time. With each step, a layer of history was stripped away until all that was left was Christianity in all of its primal glory.
…
As I tried to absorb the significance of where I was, I couldn’t help but wonder if our generation has conveniently forgotten how inconvenient it can be to follow in the footsteps of Christ. I couldn’t help but wonder if we have diluted the truths of Christianity and settled for superficialities. I couldn’t help but wonder if we have accepted a form of Christianity that is more educated but less powerful, more civilized but less compassionate, more acceptable but less authentic than that which our spiritual ancestors practiced.
Over the last two thousand years, Christianity has evolved in lots of ways. We’ve come out of the catacombs and built majestic cathedrals with all the bells and steeples. Theologians have given us creeds and canons. Churches have added pews and pulpits, hymnals and organs, committees and liturgies. And the IRS has given us 501(c)(3) status. And there is nothing inherently wrong with any of those things. But none of those things is primal. And almost like the Roman effect of building things on top of things, I wonder if the accumulated layers of Christian traditions and institutions have unintentionally obscured what lies beneath.
Each great reformation of God’s church began in part by rediscovering the passion of Jesus’ first followers. Mark invites us to reconsider our assumptions about what the church’s authentic role in history is to be. Along the way the reader rediscovers the primal heart, soul, mind, and strength of the Great Commandment for themselves. I can’t help but be committed to living with compassion, wonder, curiosity, and power among the band of sisters and brothers that are reforming the church for passionate service to God’s world. Make this book your Christmas present and make a commitment to living into it in the new year. May 2010 by God’s grace be a turn-around year for you, the community where you live, and the church.
Check out last week’s interview with Mark Batterson at the release of PRIMAL.
Watch live streaming video from waterbrookmultnomah at livestream.com
Click on the following links to purchase PRIMAL, In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day, or Wild Goose Chase:
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Primal: A Quest for the Lost Soul of Christianity By Mark Batterson / Random House, IncWhat would your faith look like if it were stripped down to the simplest elements possible? Storyteller and pastor Mark Batterson explores the four foundational principles of Great Commandment Christianity: compassion (heart), wonder (soul), curiosity (mind), and power (strength)—and supplies a new reformation beginning for your generation, your church, and your life! |
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In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day By Mark Batterson / MultnomahEver been in the wrong place at the wrong time…several times? These memories leave you with an ill taste in your mouth, and nothing good seems to come from them. But what if the seemingly messy pieces of your life were actually strategically positioned by God? What if you’ve actually been in the right place at the right time every time? In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day will help you make sense of your past. You’ll begin to connect the dots to see clearly how God has been preparing you for future opportunities. With a God’s-eye perspective, you’ll soon be thanking Him – even for lions, pits, and snowy days. |
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Wild Goose Chase By Mark Batterson / MultnomahDoes seeking to know God’s will with certainty sometimes seem like, well, a wild goose chase? Author of the bestseller In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day, Batterson unmasks our misconceptions concerning discipleship and decision-making and urges us to dare to take risks. Topics include: playing offense, surviving shipwrecks, pursuing passions, challenging giants, and more. |
Richard Stearns and Lamar Vest comment in “Christians losing their way” … let’s pay better attention to poverty and justice
Rick Warren, perhaps the nation’s best-known pastor, was stunned. “I went to Bible College, two seminaries and I got a doctorate. How did I miss this?” “This” is not some deep, hidden biblical code predicting the end of the world. It isn’t a cipher that further elucidates the truth of the Trinity. It isn’t even the formula for turning water into wine.
No, the thing that stunned Rick Warren was when he was struck for the first time by the sheer volume of verses in the Bible that express God’s compassion for the poor and oppressed. Unfortunately, Warren isn’t the only person of faith to be surprised by just how much God has to say about poverty and justice. Despite the fact that God’s heart for the poor is mentioned in some 2,100 verses of Scripture, many of us simply miss it. In a recent survey of adults in America conducted by Harris Interactive, although 80 percent of adults claimed to be familiar with the Bible — the best-selling book in history — 46 percent think the Bible offers the most teachings on heaven, hell, adultery, pride or jealousy. In fact, there are more teachings on poverty than on any of those topics.
That’s why when our organizations joined to create the new Poverty and Justice Bible, we made sure to select an unusual color — orange — for highlighting passages relating to poverty and justice. We wanted to stop people in their tracks. We wanted this simply highlighted Bible to act as God’s megaphone revealing a heart for the poor, concern for the marginalized and compassion for the oppressed.
Richard Stearns’ book, The Hole in Our Gospel: What does God expect of us … The answer that changed my life and might just change the world, is a challenge from a corporate CEO transformed by the opportunity to be transformed and in turn to transform the world. Take a read …
Loius Weeks asks “Should pastors know what members give?” Answer: YES!
Louis Weeks, retired president of Union Theological Seminary, answers the question should church leaders, lay and clergy, know what people give? His emphatic answer if YES!
“Only the church treasurer should know the giving of members here.”
“Our giving is one the best indications of our spiritual health. Of course the Session and the pastor should know what we give.”
These opposing claims came from two different leaders of a Presbyterian congregation in Alabama during a recent weekend retreat. As you might imagine, we had a good discussion about questions like these: Who should know what people give? Should the pastor know? Should lay leaders?
Ask in most churches, “Does the pastor know what you give?” and you will receive a double-take of horror and some response that amounts to “Heavens, no.” Most congregational cultures now severely restrict the knowledge of receipts. Many retain the same “Offering Counters” for years.
Let me state baldly here what I put in more measured terms in my recent book, “All For God’s Glory: Redeeming Church Scutwork” (Alban): Pastors and lay leaders should know what people in the congregation give.
You will want to read the rest of his post, but his conclusion is timeless: “This topic [is] complex. But I find that the proverb, ‘A little knowledge is a dangerous thing’ has a corollary: ‘No knowledge is even worse.'”
Ike Reighard talks about 4 friends every pastor needs. Can you put a name and face to these friends?
Ike Reighard, pastor of Northstar Church in Kennesaw, suggests that friendship for pastors is crucial to their leadership:
Pastors may be the most well-known, loneliest men on the face of the earth. Friendship is a vital part of New Testament ministry and leadership. Without quality, biblical friendships, we are modeling a flawed Christian lifestyle for our church members. Yet, for many, the difficulties of pastoral friendships outweigh the benefits.
Most pastors find themselves in an unhealthy relationship where their wife is their only friend and counselor. If a pastor continues to project his problems onto his wife, she will grow disillusioned and desperate to leave the ministry. I believe a pastor’s wife should be his best friend, but she should not be his only friend.
In my 30 years of ministry, I have learned that every pastor needs at least four types of friends.
via 4 Friends Every Pastor Needs Leadership Care | LifeWay.
The following are Reighard’s suggestions for our friendships:
- A developer who knows how to bring out the best in you.
- A designer who would mentor us in marriage, parenting, ministry, etc.
- A disturber who asks difficult questions and shakes up the status quo.
- A discerner who has spiritual insight into our lives and is willing to speak the truth in love.
Jason Byassee reminds us that people are asking us to “tell me a story”
Jayson Byassee suggests that a primary task of the leader is to tell a compelling story of a preferred future. He closes his post with the following story, beginning with the quote that centers my ministry:
Reinhold Niebuhr said “Nothing worth doing can be accomplished in a single lifetime. Therefore we are saved by hope.”
I remember a story from the falsely titled book “Everything I Ever Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.” Though I learned of the story in college, I’m only now seeing the wisdom of it. It is about the building of Chartres Cathedral in France during the Middle Ages. Though it is hard for us to conceive, the people of Chartres built the magnificent structure knowing that, for most, it would not be completed in their lifetimes. One day a man approached Chartres to see how it was coming. He passed one man covered in dust and asked what he was doing. “I’m cutting stone,” the man said. He passed another covered in sweat and dirt and asked him the same. “I’m laying stone,” he said. Finally he arrived at the cathedral and saw a woman sweeping the floor. He asked what she was doing, though he could see it plainly enough. “I’m building a cathedral for the glory of God,” she said, answering truer than the others.
Leadership is about telling a story of who we are, what we are doing and where we are going. In Christian terms, it’s about describing how what we’re up to is part of God’s coming kingdom, and how we’re invited to join in it building now. So if you want to lead me, tell me a story, and if you want to lead me as a Christian, remind me how this all fits into the glory of God.
So what story is driving your work?
via Duke Divinity Call & Response Blog | Faith & Leadership | Jason Byassee: Tell me a story.
Susan Beaumont thinks beyond the corporate model of church. First learn to deal with complexity …
Susan Beaumont at the Alban Institute is paying attention to the larger entity in their pastoral-program-corporate church typology and offers the the following:
It’s All About Complexity
Once a congregation passes into the size zone that has traditionally been labeled “corporate,” it is already a fairly complex organizational system. In his book One Size Doesn’t Fit All (Baker Books, 1999), Gary McIntosh talks about the large church as a multiple-cell organism where:
• There are too many people to know everyone.
• There are numerous groups, classes, and cells where people can become involved. In other words, the church is a congregation of congregations.
• Church leadership is representative of several groups, classes, and cells.
It is reasonable that congregations growing beyond this attendance level will experience continued growth in the number of groups, classes, and cells that make up its ministry. It is also reasonable to expect that organizational and leadership structures will adapt themselves in predictable ways to this ever-increasing complexity.
In my work as a consultant, I’ve found that five parts of a congregational system are affected by increasing complexity and must be adapted as medium-sized and large congregations grow larger. These are:
• the organizing principle that governs adaptation and decision making
• the foundational way in which growth and assimilation are managed
• the style of pastoral leadership that works effectively
• the way in which the staff team functions
• the identity and focus of the governing board
Additionally, she identifies how the above systems flow in the multi-celled church (250-400 in worship), the professional church (400-800 in worship), and the strategic church (800-1200 in worship).
Front Porch Reflections 
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