A while back I ordered the book, "Organic Leadership" by Neil Cole. I really love to read, especially books about church planting and the Christian life. When discussing with our mission team a while back about roles that each of us play on the team, I decided that one of my roles would be to share the information that I gain from reading these types of books. Up to this point, I haven't done very well at this. My goal is to change that, and one way that will help me is to post my notes on this blog.
Since I am sharing my notes in a public fashion like this, I have to make a few disclaimers:
1. I am just sharing my notes on the book, not my personal thoughts. Just because I write it does not mean that I agree with it.
2. My goal is not to write a paper for an English class. This means that I will not accurately make notations all the time.
3. I will not cover everything in each chapter for the sake of keeping it short.
My goal is to just post short bits as I read, so that some of you will actually read the notes. I know that if the notes are too long then people won't read them. I hope you enjoy. If it seems like nobody is reading, then I will probably stop posting my notes on the blog and just share them with our team through email.
Cole,Neil. Organic Leadership: Leading Naturally Right Where You Are. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2009.
Introduction:
- Pastors are often the bottleneck in the ministry of the church.
- Spiritually Plateaued Leadership
- A spiritually plateaued leader avoids relationships of personal accountability.
- A spiritually plateaued leader rarely applies the truths of God's Word to him- or herself personally.
- A spiritually plateaued leader has replaced his or her joy, peace, and love with envy and resentment.
- A spiritually plateaued leader frequently looks for greener pastures in other places. This is talking about the person who blames their situation for lack of fruitfulness in their ministry, rather than themselves. This person thinks that if they just go somewhere else, then they can be more fruitful.
- A spiritually plateaued leader finds faults in others more often than in self.
- A spiritually plateaued leader is burned-out from lots of busyness that has been substituted for simple intimacy with Christ.
- A spiritually plateaued leader compromises on ethical principles once held dear. This is talking about using grace and liberty as a license to sin.
- A spiritually plateaued leader stays within safe areas of expertise rather than branching out into new learning endeavors.
- A spiritually plateaued leader is unable to acknowledge the wisdom of others.
- A spiritually plateaued leader has reduced the Christian life to a routine.
- The Impact of Spiritually Plateaued Leadership
- Poor leadership needs to control all ministry.
- Poor leadership needs to filter God's voice. This is talking about the idea that people can't understand God's word without us telling them what God meant.
- Poor leadership promotes upper-class Christianity. This is talking about the distinction between "normal" Christians and those in the ministry. Clergy & Laity
- Poor leadership emphasizes knowledge at the expense of obedience
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- Poor leadership sees church as a worship service more than a service of worship. I'll just write what Cole wrote to explain what he meant.
- For many people church has become nothing more than a Sunday morning religious event, and church growth means having more and more people attending the service. This is far removed from what the Bible teaches. The words church and pastor in the New Testament had completely different meanings than they do for us today, but we are unaware of this because we read the Bible with the understanding we have gained from our own experience. This has led us to some strange practices that we do not question because our baseline of truth about the church is so far removed from biblical truth. For example, we see church as a standard order of service. We stick to it so religiously that we assume it must be prescribed somewhere in the Bible, since we all adhere to it so firmly -- an upbeat song, followed by short announcements, followed by three more songs, an offering, and a skit. Then we have a sermon and a final song and closing benediction or prayer.
- You may be thinking, What's wrong with that? Well, nothing really, except that we have done it every single week for centuries, so that in the conscience of people this defines church. It is so common today that we do not even see the "strangeness" of our practices. We assume they are right, without questions, even though no such practice is found in the New Testament. Frankly, church services share more in common with The Tonight Show than they do with the New Testament. (pg. 26-27)
- Poor leadership is lured by fame and fortune. This is talking about the preacher who wants popularity, wants to speak at all the big conferences, write best selling books, etc.
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