Musings on Spiritual Matters

Main Idea of the Text:

The book deals with focusing on the dysfunction in the structure of congregations by providing a model to develop that will allow the congregation to get everyone on the team working in the same direction.

The Three Top Ideas of Greatest Benefit:

1. The best idea is truly defining the reason to exist. Too many congregations go through the motions, but have little understanding of what the outcome should be. Congregations are constantly in a mode of practice but never go to the game. We practice with more teaching, more events, but game day never arrives. This is because congregations do not know what the goal is.

2. The second best idea, which is a transformational idea in most congregations, is concerning boundaries. This was one of the best sections in the book because I have seen the two types of leadership, which are permission based, and empowering based, and both of these methods do not work. The boundary method seems to be a breakthrough for congregational leadership.

3. The third best idea is changing the perception that staff is a liability on a congregation. Congregations are hesitant on paying a minister a top salary because of the feeling of this being a waste of money. But a top minister is worth the money because he can pay for himself. Congregations do not realize that a bad minister will cost them more money than the cost of a good one.

The Three Ideas of Major disagreement:

1. First of all, I wish the author did a section on the churches of Christ. Much of the organization that the book gives goes directly against the organizational structure of churches of Christ.

2. Second of all, in an established congregation, a lot of those in a leadership position would be opposed to any discussion or revisit to the by-laws of a congregation. It would seem to take years before an in-coming minister would gain the trust and authority to go into a review of the by-laws of a church. The book assumes too much control on the pastor’s part.

3. The dynamic of the board and the senior pastor is very different than it is in the churches of Christ. Usually the elders of the congregation do not function as protectors of the minister, but instead are his bosses. Members always feel free in complaining to the elders and the elders discipline the preacher. It would be nice for more protection from more elderships within the church. Often these guys do not provide protection because sometimes elders are still debating if they like the minister or not.

The Recommendation of the Book:

This book was not as good as the others so far because of the complicated nature of the last part in dealing with denominational structures, but the information on establishing boundaries in congregations was worth the price of the book.

Related posts:

1. People Want to be Part of a Winning Work
2. Review of “Prophet of Purpose”
3. The Purpose Behind the Action
4. Read “Winning Chess Openings”
5. The Purpose of Lectureships

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This entry was posted by Matthew on Tuesday, April 21st, 2009 at 10:37 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.