Musings on Spiritual Matters

Paul Borden has another book on the market.  I first became aware of him during a class at Denver Seminary for the Doctorate of Ministry program.  I took one class there while I was getting my degree at Harding School of Theology.  It was an interesting experience, and looking back, it was not what I thought.  I guess I had this opinion that this school would provide some awesome insights into church leadership and effectiveness, but what I learned was that Harding School of Theology was the best place.  At the Seminary, everyone came from different backgrounds, so some of the principles worked well while others did not apply to me.  And the information that was being shared, well, we in the church are not 20 years behind, or ineffective, the majority of the people in class were worst off then we are.  We really have talented people in the church, and sometimes we can get so down on the church that we forget this.  The reality is, we are truly blessed with some of the best.  On to the book review, this book is excellent.  As a minister, you wonder what do you do each day to help the congregation grow and be healthy.  You are given principles and values for leadership, but what do these principles look like each day?  How do you act on these principles?  Borden takes best practices for a preacher and builds a timetable for one each week.  This is what you do, down to the hours that you do it, each day.  It is really awesome stuff.  It is most helpful for when you enter into a new work to get the congregation up and growing again.  He talks about your breakfast and lunch timetable.  Who to be eating with.  You are given advice on preaching, how to prepare sermons, and and best practices for a preacher, like review each worship service, and making improvements.  This is probably the best and most practice book on leading growth in a congregation.  The one down fall is that he assumes a pastor system, in which the pastor has more authority than a minister in the church, so sometimes the lessons would not work in the church.  But looking past this, I highly recommend this book to preacher looking to understand the everyday picture of a leader in the church.

Related posts:

1. How to Make Friends at Church
2. Busy Days Ahead
3. Christmas Blog Break Over
4. Days Off For Ministers
5. Review of “Missional Church”

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This entry was posted by Matthew on Wednesday, May 23rd, 2012 at 11:18 am and is filed under Church News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.