Dr. John Jackson has used this format with his church and he has shared these ideas with us in this book.
There has been much debate about how a church should be led and how the structure should be formatted. Bill Hybels has been successful at treating his church brand as a business with Willowcreek. Arguments for this format and against it are filled with passion.
This book is divided into three parts. The first part is contains four chapters detailing vision: the call of the vision, how to dream the vision, planting it and then growing your vision for the church.
Part two is the meat and potatoes of the book: Five strategies to birth spiritual life in the community. #1 is grab the attention of the community. Jackson goes into very general ideas as to how a church can grab your local areas attention. #2 is all about strategic partnerships (in other words, networking). I think at this point everyone understands that to grow a successful business-like church, you need to have strong business ties with Type A personalities who have lots of money and influence. #3 is what Jackson calls Big Faith-Building Events. Again this is soaked with churchy-lingo but boils down to bigger is better with high quality details. Is this a wrong attitude to have? It's up to you and the rest of the debate. #4 is about finding your niche in ministry. Age-appropriate, hobbies, or any other areas for connection. #5 is about mentoring and spreading the influence.
Part three highlights keeping the vision fresh and putting it into practical action. Pretty quick and easy as the bookend.
I think there are some values to glean from this type of style and structure, I'm just not sure how comfortable I am with it.
This book was provided for review, at no cost, by IVP Books.
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