Go Big!

One of the things I've done during this time of visioning and long range planning is to read the book Go Big by Bill Easum and Bil Cornelius. If you are a pastor or otherwise involved in church leadership, I highly recommend this book. It's an easy read, almost stupid easy, but I believe it's exactly what is needed for so many churches today.

I vividly remember hearing Pat Kiefert in the early 1990's talking about church leadership. He made a couple very memorable points that I have carried with me ever since:

1. It's not complicated to create a growing church. It's not rocket science. We know exactly how to do it.
2. The tricky part of creating a growing church is finding a leader who will have the moral courage to make the hard decisions required.

Like I said, I've never forgotten that little talk Pat gave. (In fact I still remember a great deal more of it, but that's for another time.) This book by Bill and Bil takes those two points and expounds on them at great length and with great practicality.  Wondering about church government? Here it is. Wondering about finances? All there in black and white. Wondering about how to deal with difficult people? There as well.  Wondering about the role of church staff, or how to manage a church staff, or what the relationships between staff and lead pastor and staff and congregation should look like? Bingo.

But by far the biggest points in this book are a clear and unflinching look at the critical role played by the lead pastor. You just can't get away from that one.

And the most important thing the lead pastor has to have is a clear, massive, God-sized vision for the church to be doing what the church is absolutely supposed to do: reach people who are far from God with the good news of Jesus, and help them become followers of Jesus. If the lead pastor doesn't have that kind of vision tailored specifically for the local church, what's the point?

So I recommend this book.  BTW, many thanks to Pastor Paul Johansson, who has been a great role model for me for the last decade plus. He turned me on to this book at exactly the right time.