Almost done with "The Starfish and the Spider" by Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom. If you're into business stuff and (especially) organizational leadership, it's a great book. It's about the power of decentralized leadership. Full of interesting/fun examples like the Apache Indians, Napster, eMule, the women's suffrage movement, etc.
A lot of it makes sense, and I want to be able to totally say, "Yeah, that's how the church should be!" except that I've never personally seen a healthy church without a single healthy leader who is receiving the vision (from God), and proclaiming it (to the people).
Someone told me once, "Everything God creates has one head, and anything with two heads is a monster." When it comes to the idea of co-Senior-Sastors, I totally agree.
But the authors of this book probably wouldn't suggest having two co-Senior Pastors (instead of one), but instead having none.
Anyway, if you're looking for something to read and like this kind of stuff, it's good.
Or, if you're looking for something to read - my book comes out in two freaking weeks. Holy crap. That is really weird...
- featured on newchurches.com
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
What I'm Reading...
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8 comments:
I actually loved "the Starfish and the Spider" - where I thought the similarities should come in is as the body of Christ, we are empowered to love God and love people. It kind of goes along with your "being fed" series . . . the church (meaning, the people who make up the body of Christ) should display some similar qualities to the starfish organizations. Imagine if the people in our congregations stopped waiting for someone else to write the app/clean the entry/help the angry guy find his camp and instead, started taking the initiative to carry out the Great Commandment . . .
I don't think they'd suggest having no Senior Pastor (of course, they go to burning man, so who knows :-)) - I think, as you finish the book, my take is that the church should fall along the lines of some of the hybridizational models.
Wow - that's the longest comment I've ever written!
i like the way you think travis! (we should go hang out at burning man sometime...)
I haven't read this book and I haven't been to burning man - bummer - however I am part of a co-lead team. We are 4 years in and it works for us. You have to check pride at the door and work as a team. I think it has been a good model of relationships (that sounds gay) - it has really helps to cover areas to take next steps and get things off the ground. It helps us not get a big head and we really pool ideas. It can work. Well, if you ask the other guy - he might say I am a jerk or something.
yeah, he'd probably say you're a jerk...
I enjoy your blog man. The church I'm at (www.westwinds.org) is a healthy, growing church that operates with a shared leadership model. Three guys lead together as the senior leadership with equal pay and seniority.
I'm sure that you're probably right 90 percent of the time...but there are some exceptions.
Thanks again for your writing...I really enjoy it.
Oh man I'm loving that I'm comment number 6 and the first one to point out senior sasters, like sastor is such a great misspelled word when you actually say it, like a sassy pastor. You just make it into one word, Vince is a husky sastor with an urgent air. haha oh man I make myself weak. I had to be the obligatory shallow comment with no real substance, just only focusing on your misspelling. Now I feel like all your serious pastor friends who read your blog will be like "who's that loser who doesn't focus on the important spiritualness of your post?" I could delete all this and keep this whole situation to myself, but I've spent too much time already typing this up.
Great post, can't wait for the book.
I know you have Hirsch's book The Forgotten Ways on your recommended list. Doesn't his book tend toward the same shared leadership, house church type of model. I really like a lot of the things Hirsch says but unlike the early church and the Chinese church, I haven't seen many western churches with this model who experience substantial conversion growth. It seems that maybe the shared leader/ house church models work best under persecution. What do you think?
For those in shared leadership with substantial conversion growth, notice I said, "many".
I just finished reading it! I think, like Travis, the church should be more like the hybrid styles.
The framework is set, the vision is believed and followed, and each Christian is empowered to contribute and take ownership in growing the church (as the body). Definitely goes along with the being fed, but it also takes sharing and sharing and sharing the vision and meaning of being a Christian for everyone to understand and 'be on the same, right page'.
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