The sub-tile of this book is provocative... "Letting Go of Leadership Heresies."
In Experiencing Leadershift Don Cousins looks at how the church has departed from the truth and he identifies consequences such as: The Success Heresy, The Credit Heresy, The Organizational Heresy, and others.
He then invites us to return to the truth as we: Let go of leadership heresies, learn to bless, live in the "Zone of God's blessing," and call consumers to become contributors.
I spent five years studying the biblical call to build the local church around the gifts and ministry of God's people, not the charisma and strength of a pastor. This book gives an amazing, practical, and biblical road map of exactly how we can do this. Leaders are not called to do all the work of the church. They are to recruit, train, bless, support, and release God's people for ministry. This has always been God's plan and design.
Along the way, this vision has been lost.
Greg Ogden, in his book, The New Reformation, did an amazing job of investigating the biblical underpinnings of this idea. Don Cousins, along with Bruce Bugbee (authors of the Networking Curriculum used by so many churches), have offered more than just a book on this topic. They have created all the resources a church needs to train staff, leaders, and a whole congregation to make a LeaderShift and regain a biblical pattern of church life.
Recently I consulted a church that was struggling because they had to let almost half of their staff go due to new financial realities. They were mourning the shift they were "forced to make." I was rejoicing! They were being pressed to recapture the God-ordained way of doing leadership and church. I came in to train them on how to build a church around the gifts of God's people (volunteers) and not on the paid labor of a staff team. After our time of training I said, "If the economy recovers and you can afford to hire people for everything that needs to be done in the church, DON'T DO IT."
I invited them to see this as a divine moment when God was leading them back to a biblical model of leadership and church-strengthening time.
If you desire to lead your church toward a biblical model of ministry that calls every believer to engage in ministry and serve according to God's call, check out this ministry resource. If you feel a call to rediscover God's plan for leaders to mobilize an army of servants rather than grow weary doing everything for the consumers who come to church, this book (and the related resources) are a great starting place!
Kevin G. Harney
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