Evidently I like the books that are part of the Leadership Network Innovation Series. Dave & Jon Ferguson’s The Big Idea ¹ which I reviewed here and Larry Osborne’s Sticky Church ² reviewed here were both significant reads for me, and now Geoff Surratt, Greg Ligon & Warren Bird’s A Multi-Site Church Roadtrip: Exploring the New Normal (Leadership Network Innovation Series) ³ dropped in wanting to be read and I’ve dog-eared many of the pages, just as I did their previous book, The Multi-Site Church Revolution ⁴.

The authors seem to enjoy drifting around the country visiting other multi-site churches – and they must have done it a lot in preparing this book. It’s a great scam! I only wish I’d thought of it first – but it’s always such a big deal for me to get organized for travel. However, I think they should take me with them for the next book.

‘Roadtrip’ is not an obvious book. Obvious would have been to write a chapter on each church visited, list the goods and bads of their implementation, then perhaps the history of the transition and a bunch of facts. And they do that, to a certain extent. But they also use each chapter to open up a sort of discussion on other areas of the multi-site challenges: technology, for instance (chapters 6 & 7) or international campuses in chapter 9. The end result is that they cover different approaches to multi-site – Do we want to open a new campus locally, in another state, in another country, on another continent, even on another world (the internet (not Mars (yet)))? Does the preaching happen live because the other campus has its own teacher? Or does the preacher drive from one campus to the next to preach? Or is a message transmitted by satellite or the internet or mailed or driven around? All these have their discussions. Then again, what triggers the church to open the new site? Is it a deliberate spin-off, or did the second site start as a church in its own right and merge in (and why)? How do you go about doing this? What are the hard-and-fast rules, and what are the guidelines? (See IPOD for instance, chapter 1.)

(As an aside: Not so sure about the (somewhat difficult to read) infographic on p. 17 that has 6 milestones of multi-site history; number 1 is the birth of the Church and number 5 is the publication of their previous book. Seems like the relative importance of things went adrift somewhere there – not sure I’d put my book on quite the same level as the birth of the Church!)

Their definition of ‘Multi-site’ is “one church meeting in multiple locations, sharing a common vision, budget, leadership and board” (p. 10).

• You don’t have to be a mega-church to go multi-site.
• 10% of all Protestant Christians in the US and Canada worship in a multi-site church. (This seems high to me, but I’m convinced that multi-site is a trend that God is using – read ‘Is God Dismantling Denominations?’ for more on that.)

I appreciated the summary facts about each church at the front of the chapter. As it happens, many of the churches they visited are the same ones that get me excited about church innovation, and so I get this extra low-down on them. Cool.

Other points of interest:

• What kind of madman launches multiple new campuses at the same time? I mean, why would it even cross your mind? (See chapter 12 for how well it worked.)
• What’s the difference between being a church with multiple sites and a church of multi-sites (See chapter 3.)
• Think a long-established liturgical church made up of parents and grandparents can’t go multi-site? Wrong. (See chapter 3.)
• Do not overlook the appendices. They’ve got some great summary information – resources, job descriptions and pitfalls to avoid.

There is one page in the book that I think is very wrong (sorry guys!), and I realize that the authors may have been more carried away with the idea than considering the ramifications: Chapter 6 has the story of the woman who lives in Texas but every Sunday turns to her old church (in Florida) on the internet for her time of worship. True, some weeks she invites friends and family over to watch with her. But we’re specifically told that she is not connecting to a local church. Usually when you move to a new town you put down new roots; you find a new church; you make new friends and enjoy and grow from their fellowship. It’s not all perfect, but it’s important. Sad to say, at this point the book lionizes the fact that this woman ‘and a growing community of people’ have used the internet to remove themselves from fellowship. This self-isolation – or clinging to the past – is emphatically NOT what we are called to do as Christians.

OK, flame off – I’ve just written about the only bit I disagree with. Not bad for 3 paragraphs of an entire book.

In summary and in the main, I found it a tremendously helpful book. Questions that have been surfacing as my church plays with the ideas involved in expansion – such as planting, moving to a second service or going multi-site – are finding answers here. And between it and its predecessor, The Multi-site Church Revolution, a good ‘roadmap’ of options and their costs has been laid out.

Give it a read – it’s a tremendous resource and documents the early days of what I am convinced is one of God’s next steps for His Church.

• Andrew Murray. With Christ in the School of Prayer: A 31-Day Course in Christian Prayer, with Note on George Muller. Spire Books. Paperback, 1972 – with my small group.
• Various commentaries on the book of Revelation for adult Bible fellowship at church
• Mark L. Waltz. Lasting Impressions: From Visiting to Belonging. Paperback. Group, Dec. 8, 2008
• Dan B. Allender. To Be Told: God Invites You to Coauthor Your Future. Paperback. WalterBrook Press, Nov. 7, 2006
• Bob Kauflin. Worship Matters: Leading Others to Encounter the Greatness of God. Paperback. Crossway, Mar. 31, 2008
• Dan Kimball. They Like Jesus but Not the Church: Insights from Emerging Generations. Paperback. Zondervan, Mar. 1, 2007
• Jack Stack. A Stake in the Outcome: Building a Culture of Ownership for the Long-Term Success of Your Business. Hardcover. Currency/Doubleday, Mar. 19, 2002
• Francis Chan. Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God. Paperback. David C Cook, May 1, 2008
• Ronald Rolheiser. The Shattered Lantern: Rediscovering a Felt Presence of God. Paperback. Crossroad, Feb. 1, 2005
• Terry Nance. God’s Armor Bearer Volumes 1 & 2: Serving God’s Leaders. Paperback. Focus on the Harvest, Dec. 2003
• Tony Morgan. Killing Cockroaches: And Other Scattered Musings on Leadership. Paperback. B&H Books, Mar. 1, 2009
• Geoff Surratt. A Multi-Site Church Roadtrip: Exploring the New Normal (Leadership Network Innovation Series). Paperback. Zondervan, Oct. 1, 2009

I’m just finishing off the last one, Multi-site Roadtrip, and will be writing a review in a couple of days.

It might be a simple thing, but it’s also profound yet counter-intuitive in today’s church – just say one thing at a time. Say it to everyone. Say it clearly and loudly. Strip away all the competition to it. Get everybody on board. Drop the busy-ness of multiple programs whose schedules and resource requirements conflict and simplify everything into a more-easily-led approach.

The Big Idea reminds me of a business book I read some 10 years ago – Jack Stack’s brilliant The Great Game of Business – a brief set of profound truths backed up by the mechanics of how to build them into the daily business structure. That was one of the most exciting business books I’ve ever read (and I’ve read a bunch) – head and shoulders above trivial feel-goods like ‘The Apple/HP/IBM/Microsoft/Starbucks Way’.

What Stack did, and what Ferguson has also done, is to flesh out the mechanics of the process in subsequent sections. This is a good approach – techies (like me) connect to a structure through the blueprint; those who need help understanding (also like me) appreciate the explanation of the details that make an example of it work.

Unfortunately, churches with a more traditional and committee-driven structure will not be fully free to indulge in this approach. But I’ve talked about this concept to several pastors, and those who were positioned to take advantage of the concept got very excited. The idea of replicating a single idea throughout the entire congregation has a dynamism that can be both exhilarating and freeing – a permission to follow the vision of their heart.

An excellent book – worth a re-read once in a while.

As I continued reading, however, I have to say that the points he made resonated:

• Page 91 – the need for the church to take real life into account – people are busy; today’s world demands it; the new (& reversed) Christian pop analysis along the lines of ‘Busy hands are the devil’s playthings’ is not universally true;
• Page 94 – the need to control how much ‘stuff’ the church makes available for people to do. When the opportunities for events are moved onto the calendar, is the church leadership protecting its highest priority – or is it the church’s highest priority to be the busiest place in town?;
• Page 110 – small groups don’t run continually – they last for 10 weeks – and they have an easy exit strategy. However, once you have the relationships built, you may be with those people for many years (he calls this Mayberry, USA);
• Page 111 – small group leaders act as pastors to the group – when life throws a crisis, they’re in there for their small group members who need them.

Somewhere between chapters 5 and 12 I came to realize that he was talking about a rather different type of small group to the ones most churches have – these are mini-churches, people deeply committed to looking after one another, to the point that they do their own baptisms, even the hospital visitations. I also came to recognise the rationale behind the approach. Would it work across the board? Of course not, any more than the Chu method would (and indeed, Osborne is quick to point this out himself – every church is made up of a unique blend of people, cultures, economies, ages, and so on). But it has clearly worked for his church, and I’d love the opportunity to spend a few weeks there.

One thing I would have a real problem with, if I were at this church – the idea of  deliberately ‘hamstringing’ personal growth opportunities in the event that they get in the way of the small groups. The North Coast U. is crippled down to courses that consist of a maximum of 4 evenings.  The author makes the point that the average person can’t afford more than two meetings for church per week, therefore the church intentionally puts North Coast U on as a third meeting in the week! That’s just wrong. Now based on what I’ve read in the book, there are three alternatives they could use to support those people who wanted to know more – (1) they could run the school during the summer; (2) they could divert a group that was interested into the school for a 10-week session – this would also give the leader and the host an apparently much-needed break – or (3) the small groups are running for 10 weeks at a time – there would certainly be room to fit the course in between them. (Clearly this hit a chord in me!) This deeper education is something I think should be available in a church, and I think is denied to its members’ detriment. Too many of us do not know the Bible on anything but a superficial level. We therefore remain ill-equiped for either personal understanding or apologetics – and we’re missing a vital pillar of support during times of crisis, where we’re questioning rather than moving forward. However, the school is not the point of the book; I expect they redeemed it somewhere along the line.

I have to say I’m glad the author spent some time debunking some myths, including ‘divide to multiply’ – tried it and seen it fail – and challenged the standard views in a few other areas.

All in all, a great book with a great message. Interestingly enough I moved straight on to Mark Waltz’s book Lasting Impressions: From Visiting to Belonging, which notes that Granger Community Church takes almost the exact opposite view of small groups. The mindset is the same however, and as noted above, Osborne makes the point that no one way is correct for every church.

Finished 2009

• All My Friends Are Superheroes, by Kaufman, Andrew

That’s an hour of my life I’d like to have back – confusing, pointless and with a very unsatisfying ending.

• Messy Spirituality, by Yaconelli, Mike

Wonderful, warm, worthwhile. I’ll happily invest another couple of hours sometime to re-read it – lots to think about. It’s a bit messy itself, but that may be because the author has thoughts flying around at top speed. Great nuggets in here. Mike’s passing was a deep loss.

Now Reading

• The Ascent of a Leader: How Ordinary Relationships Develop Extraordinary Character and Influence, by Bill Thrall, Bruce McNicol, Ken McElrath
• Experiencing God: Knowing and Doing the Will of God, Revised and Expanded, by Henry Blackaby, Richard Blackaby, and Claude King
• The Purpose-Driven Church: Growth Without Compromising Your Message & Mission, by Rick Warren
• Wild at Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man’s Soul, by John Eldredge
• Wild Goose Chase: Reclaim the Adventure of Pursuing God, by Mark Batterson

Ordered

• The Big Idea: Focus the MessageMultiply the Impact (Leadership Network Innovation Series), by Dave Ferguson
• Simply Strategic Growth: Attracting a Crowd to Your Church, by Tim Stevens & Tony Morgan

In the Queue

• Axiom: Powerful Leadership Proverbs, by Bill Hybels
• Branding Faith: Why Some Churches and Nonprofits Impact Culture and Others Don’t, by Phil Cooke
• Communicating for a Change: Seven Keys to Irresistible Communication, by Andy Stanley & Lane Jones
• Community of Kindness, by Steve Sjogren & Rob Lewin
• Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t, by Jim Collins
• ID: The True You, by Mark Batterson
• It: How Churches and Leaders Can Get It and Keep It, by Craig Groesche
• Killing Cockroaches: And Other Scattered Musings on Leadership, by Tony Morgan
• Lasting Impressions: From Visiting to Belonging, by Mark L. Waltz
• Leaders at All Levels: Deepening Your Talent Pool to Solve the Succession Crisis, by Ram Charan
• Outliers: The Story of Success, by Malcolm Gladwell
• Selling Out the Church The Dangers of Church Marketing, by Philip D. Kenneson & James L. Street
• Sticky Church (Leadership Network Innovation Series), by Larry Osborne
• Sticky Faith: 52 Family Messages for Big Church, by Group Publishing
• The Fine Line: Re-envisioning the Gap between Christ and Culture, by Kary Oberbrunne
• The Living Church: Convictions of a Lifelong Pastor, by John R. W. Stott
• The Missional Leader: Equipping Your Church to Reach a Changing World (J-B Leadership Network Series), by Alan Roxburgh
• The Way We’ll Be: The Zogby Report on the Transformation of the American Dream, by John Zogby
• They Like Jesus but Not the Church: Insights from Emerging Generations, by Dan Kimball
• To Be Told: God Invites You to Coauthor Your Future, by Dan B. Allender
• Total Church: A Radical Reshaping around Gospel and Community (Re:Lit), by Tim Chester & Steve Timmis
• Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us, by Seth Godin
• unChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks about Christianity… and Why It Matters, by David Kinnaman & Gabe Lyon
• Wide Awake: The Future Is Waiting Within You, by Erwin Raphael McManus
• Worship Matters: Leading Others to Encounter the Greatness of God, by Bob Kauflin

In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day: How to Survive and Thrive When Opportunity Roars, by Mark Batterson
 

Readability: 8

Insight: 7

Practicality: 8

As it happens, the Bible Study I was leading had just covered this piece of Scripture (2 Sam 23:20) the previous week when I bumped into this book. Great insights by Mark Batterson (follow him on the web or Twitter @MarkBatterson) to encourage the reader to grab life by the throat – don’t wind up your life piled up with regrets. Take courage, and be willing to tackle the lion in the pit.

I’ve lent the book out, so no quote, sorry.

Excellent book about starting/planting churches. Not money but faithful obedience; not by doing the traditional but by branching out; not by calling people to the church, but by taking the church to the people in a far more gospel-centric approach to service than is typical.

Again, I’ve lent the book out, so no quote, sorry.

I follow Tim on his blog (Leading Smart and Twitter @TimAStevens). He’s worth following – he has good insights, and is generous in sharing them. This book is no different. It’s all about the need to connect to the current (‘pop’) culture if we’re to connect to the people that need Christ. Lots of examples, and a web site devoted to the book to boot – these things put into practice the things laid out in the book. Good enough, deep enough and simple enough that I’ve got his other books in the queue now.

Yep, lent it out.

A rather confusing story – possibly confusing only to me because I’m trying to read too much into it. Nice, though, and easy to read.

More on the book in my review here.

An intriguing book, very well written, and keeps the reader moving forward. It came across as a pop research book. There are some interesting facts presented (Paul Revere’s ride, the Hush Puppy phenomenon, Georgia Sadler’s viral campaign in San Diego). And there is a dissection of these activities, and an explanation of the result. And the implication is that if you have these things (connector, maven, salesman), you’ll increase your chances of a successful grassroots marketing campaign. And I suppose that’s true; and I believe there is deep insight here as well. However, I’m not that comfortable with the sense of a ‘boxed solution’ – make sure you’ve got these three components and you’ve done all you can.

But it is an intriguing book. My issue isn’t with the insights but with the completeness of their presentation.

It’s fairly rare to find an academically sound book that holds the interest of a casual reader like me. I stole this one from my father. (Hey, he’d finished it already.) It is organized into three sections – the ministry of Jesus, what works and what doesn’t, and a gospel for our times. The first section adjusted and deepened my understanding of what Jesus was doing in his incarnate ministry – why He was at such pains to break down the Pharisaic way of thinking. I found the metaphor of the bricks and mortar wall extremely helpful (and now use it in the Bible in a Day course); there are many other similar insights. The book speaks of her own faith journey, including her travel into Africa and her times at home. It is personal and it is instructive. I bought several more and gave them to friends. (But I still have my father’s copy!)

“… Jesus’ challenge ringing in my ears: the challenge to look at the world … through the spectacles worn by God Himself.” (p. 162)

In one way it’s a sad little tale about a gifted boy who loses his grandfather (he dies), grows up to be a young man who loses his wife and son (she leaves him), then loses his dream – and at the end of his working life is still trying to find the point of it all – to make his mark on life and apply his gift. Or the story could be about the idea that, if you’re an otherwise ordinary person who has been given an incredibly huge gift, it might be a talent just too big for you to exercise.

But I don’t think either of those points are the central theme here – nor, for that matter, is the conflict between the creation and evolution parties in all its stupid, pointless anger, stubbornness, reactionary-ism and iconoclasty-ness.

First of all, Kotre is simply trying to point out that, contrary to popular thought, belief does not necessarily change as our understanding changes. Passionate flat-world thinking gave way to the round earth as we learnt more; an Earth-centric perspective eventually gave way to an understanding of planets in orbit. And in both cases, the church held the former view and fought the latter vigorously. Also in both cases, the change in understanding in no whit lessened humanity’s belief in God.

Secondly, even if belief did change our perception of God and His Purpose and Creation, it doesn’t change the reality of what God, His Purpose and His Creation are all about. In the same way, he says, it may be inevitable that creationist thinking will eventually give way to evolutionary thinking. And if so, then the church, like the rest of the world, will move past this issue and get on with life.

Although it’s clear that the entity called Story is sentient (it has a house and can purchase books and software), it’s difficult to reconcile just exactly what story we’re talking about. When we first meet it, we’re told very clearly that the Story is the Bible. It looks at a very old book it owns and remembers being printed onto the book’s pages. As time goes on, however, it remembers earlier versions of itself, back to papyrus and clay (so it clearly isn’t the Bible, which was never stored in cuneiform on clay), and eventually even to oral traditions. This leads us to the possibility that this could be the story of ‘Everything since the Beginning of Existence’, and the Story simply forgot about the earlier bits; just as for a long time people believed the Bible was the story of everything, so Story went along with them and believed that about itself too. Finally, near the end of the book, we come to find out that Story is really Adam’s – what – imagination? World understanding? The key to making sense of the talent he was given? Something along those lines.

Thirdly, Kotre is saying that this new perspective will change as well; that there will be other passionately-held beliefs that will be eroded and will eventually change the landscape. It’s clear from the central character’s words at the end that this is wisdom he is passing on.

I found the book to be easy to read, well-written from the story-telling perspective. It’s evident that the writer is as fed up with the Creation vs Evolution debate as I am, and he’s trying to put it into perspective with this tale. A parable over-simplifies the reality in order to reveal the core components to explain their true relationship. I think that this parable certainly glosses over much of the complexity to achieve that end. But unlike most parables, it also muddles things up a bit. If Story truly is the Bible then it’s difficult to see why it is saying it was wrong – the Bible, whatever humans believe, claims to be inerrant. Or was Story itself supposed to be evolving here? From the Bible to the story of all Creation? In which case it’s hardly a positive move to go from everybody’s story of Everything to just one person’s understanding of ‘How It All Fits Together’.

I’m also uncomfortable comparing the ‘flat Earth’ belief (which had already been disproven by Aristarchus and is not found in the Bible) to the account of creation (which clearly is in the Bible). I’m even less comfortable with the logic that, since conquering the flat-Earth and Earth-centric views didn’t result in sudden widespread disbelief, then conquering the creationist view won’t either. We’re in a different era from the flat-Earth, and peoples’ irritation over church issues are being inflamed by their personal beliefs over the issue – creation/evolution is not only a divisive issue, it has become a catalyst to division, in a way that the other ideas never did.

However: I thought the first ending (on the plane) was quite interesting – resequencing perception can often lead to deep insights. And the second ending (at home afterward) was good too. I do like a good redemption to a story! All in all, a pretty good read.

I know I would if I were me.

I’m afraid I never made it to the bits about Liminality, Communitas, the liquid church or “adaptive vs. Operational leadership” – the dense text, strange pictures and complicated tables killed it for me.

On a broader scale, I’ve come to realize that trying to proselytize with theories instead of witness rings the death-knell for the persuader, be he evangelist or teacher. Witness, on the other hand, is an immensely powerful tool. If I, as a Christian, were actually to use the tool instead of talking about what a good tool it is…

We used to stay at a place called Olchen Court in Longtown, an old 13th Century watchtower-cum-farmhouse-cum-home and B&B. Way out in the boonies, with ancient timbers and incredible views down the valley.

Get there via a sunken, two-way one-lane road with a canopy of tree branches turning it into a tunnel in places. Jean’s a gourmet cook, and plenty of people arrange to have dinner there the previous night – I believe locals book for dinner there too.

We wanted to catch the ambiance of a local pub, so we always used to eat at the Bull’s Head in Craswell on the way over. Marvelous cooking there too.