As I mentioned last week, this book by three of the North Point team down in Atlanta is a fundamental book for church leadership. I told you that my friend and boss, Tim Stevens, handed me the book and asked me to read it. What I didn't tell you was that our Senior Pastor, Mark Beeson, our Pastor of Administration, Tony Morgan and Tim had already read it. Our entire senior team was asked to read it (or read it again), so that we could apply its principles to our ministry at Granger Community Church.
After reading through the first two practices I knew my connections staff team would benefit from reading it as well.
Here's the first step in reading and applying the practices of this book:
Senior leadership should read, process, talk through and appropriately apply these practices - first.
Because these practices have everything to do with your church's DNA, core mission, vision and philosophy of ministry, senior leadership should lead the way in answering these base questions:
- What is a "win" for our church? For our people? For our leadership team?
- How will we narrow the focus so we most effectively accomplish our "win(s)"?
Our senior team began conversations around the book before the Christmas holiday and then took four days away in January to commit hours to reading, unpacking principles, looking at our sacred cows (no, we weren't in India), praying and getting downright ruthless with what a "win" looks like for our church over the next year.
I'll unpack more related to these questions, but first things first: your senior team needs to lead the way. The children's team can't begin to talk about their "win" if they don't know the "win" for the church at large. The small groups team can't intelligently identify how they'll narrow their focus if they don't understand what the church is saying, "yes" or "no" to in order to narrow the focus.
Anyone else reading this book? Who's reading it? Is your senior team leading the way?
