Ministry Book Review

I read through Andy Stanley’s Next Generation Leader this past week and was very impressed. Andy, Pastor of North Point Ministries in Atlanta, GA, wrote this book to help the upcoming generation of young ministry leaders. Leading a young and vibrant group of churches has provided Andy with a wealth of experience and knowledge that he seeks to pass on through this book. In the book, Stanley suggests that you focus on 5 essentials for leaders: competence, courage, clarity, coaching, and character.

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Collapse of Distinction by Scott McKain is a helpful business strategy book with practical applications to ministry. McKain cites the recent trend in the business world to duplicate products between competitors, with only minor tweaks or price being the only difference between products. This “collapse of distinction” between products makes the consumer focus on only one difference: price.

McKain challenges the reader to revive the art of distinction between competing products. Distinction is the only way to get noticed these days, and true distinction helps promote innovation. Creating distinction is done by focusing on the four main qualities of distinction: Clarity, Creativity, Communication, and Customer-Experience Focus. Throughout the book, McKain challenges his audience to embrace these four qualities in order to create a truly innovative and distinct product. (more…)

Killing Cockroaches, by Tony Morgan, is the definitive advice book on killing cockroaches in your ministry. And by “killing cockroaches,” I mean solving unimportant but urgent issues that distract you from the important stuff in ministry: making God-sized plans, studying the Word, and communicating with God. Throughout the book, Tony seeks to push the reader from focusing on the “cockroaches” in our ministry (i.e. the menial/unimportant things) to focusing on the big, God-sized parts of our ministry.

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In It: How Churches and Leaders can Get It and Keep It, author Craig Groeschel (pastor at LifeChurch.tv) attempts to define and describe the indescribable contrast between churches. Some churches are vibrant, alive, and impacting many lives for the Kingdom of God. Yet at other churches the mood is depressing, the members are stagnant, and the church is spiritually dead. Even if these churches are next to one another, sharing the same geography, community, and culture, they will look vastly different inside. The reason for this innate difference (why churches are alive or dead) is what Groeschel tries to define. (more…)