Working towards a whole church

The Monday Morning Insight posted a summary of Mel Lawrenz new book called “Whole Church: Leading from Fragmentation to Engagement”. The article offers some good fodder for chewing. MMI notes how Mel talks about the need for the leader to engage the people of his/her church. How effective healthy churches give attention to relationship, relationship, relationship at every level of the organization. They also cite a few of Mel's practical ways that any leader can begin to engage with the people they serve. Mel serves up 25 ideas. MMI lists what they believe are the "top ten." These are all things that we can try today.

1. Have a cup of coffee with another leader in the church who tends to pull in a different direction from you. Insofar as possible, make a personal connection.

2. Apologize to someone you hurt in some way that created a fracture.

3. Talk with your family members about whether you bring frustration from ministry work into your family, and decide together on what standards you will hold.

4. Find five things your church should stop doing because they are ineffective, drain energy and resources, and probably take away from the church more than they give.

5. Develop confidential friendships with leaders from other churches who can be a sounding board for you.

6. Take a prayer and meditation day to give yourself some time to assess your personal ministry right now.

7. Give up any desire to please everybody. Recommit to the role of the shepherd (who feeds, protects, and leads).

8. Think of some way in which you can “see to it that no one misses the grace of God,” by telling a story of grace sometime in the next week.

9. Discuss with two or three longtime, very mature members of the church what the long-standing history of the church is. Where are there deep-running fractures? Where is there unity?

10. Confess with God the ways in which you have been the cause of fragmentation in someone else’s life.

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Adrian