theology and religion

Both students and newly ordained clergy must read Tod Boslinger's book Canoeing the Mountains: Christian Leadership Uncharted Territory, which was released in 2015 by IVP Press in Downers Grove, Illinois. Tod teaches theology and serves as the vice leader for vocation and formation at Fuller Theological Seminary. He holds a prominent position as a pastor at the San Clemente Presbyterian Church and is also an ordained minister there. He also serves as the First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood's assistant pastor for discipline and spiritual development. The experiences that Tod has in Christianity field, makes him the best person to write the book, “Canoeing the Mountain.”

Boslinger employs the experience of Clark and Lewis, to explain how religious leaders must move forward in a culture that is different from what they were learning in the seminaries or any other theology school. In the book, Lewis and Clark were expecting to get a rout and could take them to the Pacific Coast of North America trough Missouri River. But after traversing the distance of River Missouri, they were shocked for what they saw after exploring the top of Lemhi Pass because Lewis and Clark were utterly unprepared for what they saw. There were the Rocky Mountains that extended too far for them to see before them, instead of a gently sloping land towards the Pacific. Lewis and Clark were shocked because they were not skilled nor prepared for mountain climbing journey. Lewis and Clark had to change plans and tactics to the mission ahead immediately; they had to exchange canoes and paddles for horses to help the ride through the mountains. Lewis and his crew was about miss the map into the uncharted territory. They would have framed the entire mission to meet all challenges.1



Tod, E Bolsinger. Canoeing the Mountains: Christian Leadership in Uncharted Territory. 2016. .

Tod suggests that church leaders have to change the plans to canoe over the mountain.2 The experiences of Lewis and Clark show that Christian leaders of the 21st century should equip themselves with a lot of plans when undertaking missionary work. The leaders should also know that what is before them is entirely different from what is behind them and hence a radical shift in how pastors conceive Christian churches today is needed. Tod in his book remind ministers that they were trained to teach those who come on their own. He also tells pastors to guide those who agree, to provide help for those who need help and to minister to the passing parade of people who treat us like we are. To accomplish all the teachings, Tod tells leaders to take an essential shift in thinking critically about pastoral leadership.3

Bolsinger provides his explanation of leadership in the book. Therefore, on his definition, management is invigorating a community of persons toward their revolution to accomplish a shared mission in the face of a shifting world143. Tod also elaborates how the concentration of leadership has transformed from communicating in the Christendom world to a multi-dimensional methodology that is relational, apostolic and adaptive. 5 37 He advises leaders that, for them to flourish in the post-Christendom world, they should learn to let go, keep going as no matter the challenges and also learn they continue with the journey of life. Since they are in uncharted territory, and nobody knows what will come in the future. To achieve this, Tod recommends five teachings for the frontrunners of churches and other Christian organizations. The lessons include one; the future is not in the past. Therefore, past training and experience do not give success going forward. Two, no one can follow a leader away from the map unless he/she is trustworthy on the plan, so to instill sureness on the gathering, leaders must be operational in the flock before introducing the transformation process.

2. Ibid., 34-35

3. Ibid., 28

Three, in uncharted territory, leaders should have adoptive skills to help them adapt to any stress. Systems thinking, adaptive leadership, important leadership exercise for uncharted territory and the priority of mission- starts with staying calm, conviction, concentration, and staying on the course for success to be seen. Four, Tod tell leaders that they cannot go alone and that they must experience sabotage and survive it for them to succeed. Boslinger explains that team leadership is vital and a leader must prepare depression he/she will experience form partners when the losses have occurred. He/she must stay calm as the church suffers damage and help the gathering to mourn their losses while sojourning calm. Five, Tod argues that lifetime learning and development must be part of a leader’s ongoing know-how because everybody must be changed most especially the leader.

Tod develops a model which summaries the three main constituents of transformational governance to support his points. The components include adaptive capacity, technical competency, and relational congruence. The model also talks about integrity as the leadership ability to be the same in every relationship, setting, and every task. The model is intended to guide the head of a church or any other Christian organization and emphasis on his/her leadership exercise to be operational in a new reality.

Tod has drawn most of his ideas from Marty Linsky, Ronald Heifetz, John Kotter, Partick Lencioni, Ed Friedman, and Jim Collins has he acknowledge them in his book. He builds up a synthesis of numerous concepts into a consistent tactic for leadership exercise in a church setting. Canoeing the mountains is a significant book that has combined the thoughts of various authors to form a model of leadership that can be used to guide Christian leaders. The book comprises short pieces from the newsletters and letters of Lewis and Clark joined with other individual’s material of multiple incidents. He also brings forward the leadership qualities needed in the 21st century Church.

Bolsinger uses Lewis and to compare with the pastors of today’s churches. Today churches are ever changing. Revolution is fierce; it can be overwhelming or daunting. Churches now see significant declines among the younger members and middle age, a drop in income, and people are not attending churches regularly. Hence leaders need to go with changes and adopt them faster. When a leader faces a challenge, he/she falls back to learning and training. The expeditions of Lewis and Clark indicate that people cannot do the same too many times, and expect the same results. Transformation requires humility and creativity to learn new ideas which help the task at hand. Christian Church is moving forward in a completely dissimilar and continuously transforming social and cultural environment. Boslinger has made a tangible impact on alluring leadership theory and explaining it for use in real life situations. Hence many leaders have known how to go with changes in their churches.

Leaders who want to understand the precarious religious landscape of the world today- they should read Canoeing the Mountains by Tod Bolsinger. Tod uses his experience in the Christianity and contemporary theory of leadership to address the most demanding issues in the ministry governance today. He uses the knowledge of Lewis and Clark as a driving metaphor to represent the management that is needed in churches today, and the challenges the today’s pastors to learn how to lead in a changing world.





























The Unstuck Church

Celebrated church leader, founder of the Unstuck Group and blogger Tony Morgan in his book “The Unstuck Church: Equipping Churches to undergo sustained health” published by Thomas Nelson on May 16th, 2017, Tony analyses seven stages in the lifecycle of a distinctive church.4 The book is significant to leaders who want to see their churches grow because it recognizes the characteristics of every stage, and offers next concrete steps churches can take to move headfirst towards sustained health. The stages Tony has talked about in the book range from hopeful, optimistic days of launching the church to last stages of life support that are stagnant. With everlasting life at stake, churches should be doing their best to ensure that the lives of congregation change forever.5 The priestly should strive for the highpoint of the lifecycle, where they are recurrently producing new disciples and experience what Tony refers to as “sustained health.”

Seven stages that Tony talks about in his book are one; launch- Tony explains that "launch" is the first phase a new and upcoming church. There is a leader with wholesome purpose and a great dream. Therefore launch stage is a hopeful stage that helps such leaders to achieve new goals and reach new people. Launch stage is an optimistic stage that individuals are fascinated over and in the phase, the undertaking is about reaching new people. The launch is the stage where priestly plants live, new strategies or new leadership. It is the first stage to sustainable health has Tony Morgan illustrates in his book. Two, momentum growth, it is a current phase where individuals are willing to try new things so that they can reach new people. Every church leader has anticipations that every Sunday will be energetic, and the leaders find it hard explain to the feeling of growth they are anticipating for their churches.

4. Tony, Morgan. The Unstuck Church: Equipping Churches to Experience Sustained Health. 2017.

5. Ibid., 28

In the stage of momentum, growth leaders are supposed to make room for new people in the churches or any other Christian organization. Three, strategic growth- Tony explains that when momentum growth slows, a leader should move to another stage, that is "strategic growth." In strategic growth stage, Christian organization or church leaders should establish healthy and excellent strategies and systems to help them maintain growth. In this stage “strategic growth” Tony Morgan Explains that pastors and other church leaders have to make a change and start thinking of the ways to build teams, strategies, and systems that will allow growth in the organization or church. According to Tony, if leaders are not willing or prepared to change, their churches will get stuck between strategic and momentum growth.

Four, sustain health, Tony says that the stage is now the peak of the lifecycle. If the leaders work extremely hard to make the strategic plane a success, they will set up and be ready to reproduce the success throughout all capacities in the church, and it will also make it easy for them to enter the stage of "sustained health." Even if the church is growing and healthy, the goal is not size. It is the moment where the priestly is growing. A sanctuary in sustained health produces multiple campuses and groups and knows how to calculate the risks. It also tries new things always.

Five, maintenance stage, this stage Tony Morgan describes it as the first step to the downside of a lifecycle. It is a stage where Morgan says that leaders usually regret taking a development step or mission. It is where church leaders just want to keep congregation in the church happy, therefore, losing focus on people outside the church. Maintenance phase and strategic growth face are similar in a way that they both put more emphasis on systems and processes of development. However, the higher priority in "strategic growth" phase is vision and mission while maintenance stage focuses a lot on systems and process. At maintenance stage, entrepreneurs and visionaries run because it needs a lot of dedication and sacrifice.

The sixth stage is preservation, and Tony states that it is the stage where the focus is survival. Here a leader should do everything in his power to prevent people from leaving his organization. The manager’s attention in the period “preservation” is internal. Therefore, the leader should not be bothered to reach new members outside the church walls into the church. The final stage according to Tony in his book is life support, and he states in this stage that the church is dying because the leaders try to reach new people using old methods that are not working. He says that in the period, the church can no longer support itself. However, it does not mean that the church has to die. If the organizations and churches want to install new development so that they can bring the life back again, the leaders of that church can move back into the launch phase.

Tony explains that the curve in the book represents the typical life cycle and he says that not all churches experience every life cycle. However, most churches start by growing, thriving and then decline at the end. In the book, Tony explains the two main places where churches get stuck. One, the strategic growth stage -here the churches do have problems with their systems and structures after they have outgrown. Therefore the churches need to have clear strategies in place so that they can move forward.

Two, maintenance stage – it is where the leaders tend to focus more on members of the church. At maintenance stage, the leaders should also focus on the people outside the church to prevent the church from declining. He also tells leaders that, for a church to grow and return to a sustained health, they should realize that the church is not just about them. Therefore, everybody must be engaged in the development strategies of the church. Leaders should treat every person in the church equally without looking at the political, economic or social status because all people are equal in the eyes of God and they are all uniformly needed to make up a congregation and in the development of the church.

Somebody who wants to lead the people of God and also make developments in the church should read Tony Morgan’s book “The Unstuck Church: Equipping Churches to experience sustained health” from the first page to the last because Tony has brought out excellent leadership skills leaders can use to develop churches in the book. Tony has combined his practical application in Christianity with the leadership experience he has in leadership in the church to teach about stages churches undergo during their service to God. Tony writes about churches that are shaping their vision and missions of their priestly. He also suggests that churches should move from leadership oriented mind to strategy-oriented mind so that they can reach the stage of "sustained health."

He talks about churches that are facing the downside of the lifecycle (no faith would like to be on the downside part of Tony’s stages) hence Tony provides steps to follow by the churches that are declining, to help the churches rise again. He writes about having strategic plans, investigating the community the church is located in and reaching out to people both inside and outside the church walls as measures the declining churches should take to get back on their foot again. Tony has also talked about prayer. He acknowledges that even if a church has one thousand strategies and God is not with the church, then the church is doomed and will eventually fall. Tony encourages pastors to pray every time for God to remember them and their communities. He also urges leaders to work as a team because many heads when brought together, a lot can be achieved.







.

Breakout Churches

Tom Rainer, the author of the book Breakout Churches: Discover How to Make the Leap published in 2005 by MI: Zondervan is now the current CEO and the president of LifeWay Christian Resources. Dr. Rainer was a professor at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary for twelve years before coming to LifeWay. Breakout Churches is a result of research carried out by Rainer’s consulting firm at Rainer Group. The company examined more than 50,000 churches to find what Rainer calls “breakout churches.” Rainer with his thirteen team members went through tremendous and significant steps to look for churches that broke out of decline to become great again. The research started with 52,333 churches, and after more screening, Rainer concentrated to 1936 churches. From Rainer’s study, only 831 out of 2000 churches cooperated, 211 churches met the criteria of decline and then breakout followed by a period of growth and particularly 17 churches out of the churches that broke out were under the same pastor. The churches that did not meet the criteria were four and Rainer eliminated them.6 From Rainer’s research leaders of churches can learn a lot.

Rainer opens the book with an eye-opening quotation “It is a transgression to be good if God has pronounced us to be excellent” the sentence summaries what the next 35 pages will be discussing. Rainer provides the standards he used to unearth the thirteen breakout churches which had an understanding that “the enemy of great is good.” The standards include the church must have not less than twenty-six revolutions annually. Two, the conversion ration must be 20:1. Three, the church must have undergone deterioration for several years before a breakout. Four, the chapel must have sustained the breakout for several years, and lastly, the church under the same management must have undergone decline and breakout. He then discusses the Chrysalis Factors that steered the conversion in churches.

6. Thom S, Rainer. Breakout Churches: Discover How to Make the Leap. Grand Rapids, Mich: Zondervan, 2009. http://rbdigital.oneclickdigital.com

The factors helped him to identify possible patterns, events, plans, crises, strategies clearly when the churches were changing to greatness. He further discusses the six critical constituents of Chrysalis factor which are the basis of the book.

Rainer discusses the leadership features that were amid all the thirteen churches that broke out in the next two chapters. The leaders of the breakout churches understood their roles, taught their congregation to think beyond themselves. They were also passionate, confident, bold, and ready to give the leadership to others, accepted responsibility, and expressed love for their flock.7 Rainer explains the central events that led to the journey of churches from decline to greatness and call it ABC moment in chapter four. Rainer says that churches must be alert that the ministry has a problem and have faith that God is in charge of every happening. However, churches must be ready to endure pain during the beginning of changes in the ministry. Rainer indicates that the breakout churches do not strive to realize their vision, they instead, they focus on their, passions, spiritual gifts and the needs of their community. Hence, allowing their perception to notice them.

Rainer talks about Culture of Excellence, breakout churches focused only on few things and accomplished them well. The chapels believe that they must do anything concerning God with excellence. Breakout churches’ desire for excellence was driven theologically and biblically. They wanted to do their best to the Lord they serve. Rainer discusses “Innovation Accelerators” and identifies it as the last characteristic of the breakout churches. He writes that the churches embraced invention slowly after in-depth scrutiny and they were not afraid to transform as long as the vision of the ministry was maintained. They made sure that the innovation would improve their perception.

Rainer talks about the “Big Mo” in chapter nine. The Big Mo is the consequences of all the six constituents of the breakout churches. The churches experienced a moment of greatness which only omnipotent and sovereign God is given credit after applying the six features.



7. Ibid., 62

The leaders saw great things because God’s power is excellent 8and because the breakout churches employed the six elements faithfully. The Big Mo is a period when the church sees success after another, and the church considers a great moment. Rainer talks about To Become a Breakout Church in the last chapter of the book. He goes through many prominent features and insights he has discussed in the previous sections. He urges his readers to lead according to the will of God and follow the footsteps of Christ. Rainer says that the long-term leadership where the church does not change a leader was one of the reasons why the breakout churches achieved the Big Mo.

According Rainer’s research is that most leaders lack vision, they are not aware of the challenges in the church, and many pastors use wrong strategies to curb the problems. Rainer reveals that more than 99% of pastors don’t want to measure their standards because Rainer was conducting a massive research based on negative sides which pastors do not want to hear. If pastors want to break out of decline, they need to acknowledge and accept their weakness, evaluate them and find an excellent strategy to deal with the problem.

The book has achieved the goal Dr. Reiner wanted it to accomplish by offering specific principles and examples to help Christian organization and churches become more efficient hence leaders should read it to get the concepts of leadership. It also explains the procedure of becoming a breakout church and the factors pastors should follow to accomplish the breakout. Looking at the state of today’s churches and crisis they undergo, Rainer’s book is needed to help these churches breakout of decline to greatness. In writing the book, Rainer has done a lot of research. Hence, he has given the readers and the leaders whose churches are dying accurate and precise information about churches that are doing good so that the affected leaders should emulate these churches.

8. Ibid., 144

Rainer has also reminded the readers and leaders that there is hope for the dying churches to come back to life again provided they believe in Christ and have strategies that can help them in place. The work Rainer has put in the book shows the love he has for the church and how he wants churches to grow.

Rainer has portrayed honesty while writing the book. He has outlined the challenges he faced while doing research and also a state where the analysis did not succeed. The honesty adds credit to both Rainer and the book itself. The author explains how he had problems finding enough data and result on page sixteen of his book. At the start of the book, Tom addresses twenty questions of the reader’s interest and gives detailed answers to the questions hence satisfying the reader’s heart. He has written a short synopsis of each church thus leaders can take note of churches that broke out and look at the methods these churches used to succeed. Rainer has taken thirteen great churches to guide the readers on a breakout journey of success from the lowest point of faith to a high spiritual point. Readers can learn more about the downside and greatness of churches in a mission to eternal life through the thirteen churches. Rainer teaches, readers that besides God’s support, pastors should strive to help themselves by coming up with solutions to problems and they should also live under the will of the Lord.













Lasting impact

World leaders of the churches continuously rally around and try to do more about the word “growth.” Lasting Impact: Seven Powerful Conversations that will make Your Church Grow a book written by Carey Nieuwhof, talks a lot about the growth of churches. Carey is one of the strategic leaders. His writing has research that when any church leader looks at the book, the leader will know how to identify problems and solve them. Carey Nieuwhof has a lot of experience in the leadership of Christian churches and other organizations. He is the chief pastor of Connexus Church which is multi-campus and is located in North Toronto. He is also a strategic partner at North Point Community Church. Carey served in the mainline church for twelve years where he changed three minor gatherings into a rapidly growing church that is single before he moved to Connexus Church. His practice in the field of Christianity made him write the book Lasting Impact that has inspired a lot of church leaders. The book brings up some questions and the possible answers to the problem. Hence, leaving leaders and their team to come up with a procedure of how they can bring growth to the church.

Carey has raised seven questions and turned them into the conversations. In conversation one, Carey asks why are churches not growing faster? 9 Carey says that the theme of growth is a sensitive issue and it can be dangerous whether the church is growing or not. The question may be difficult or painful and hard to address, but it is significant because it is discussing the mission and vision.10 In the world today as Carey writes, some churches grow, and others decline. He outlines the reasons why some churches do no grow.

9. Nieuwhof, Carey. Lasting Impact: 7 Powerful Conversations That Will Help Your Church Grow. 2015.

10. Ibid., 4



The reasons include focusing on growth, not God, leaders of the church reasoning that culture is the enemy, leaders concentrate on themselves, engaging in conflicts, and leaders instead of preparing for the future, they think of the past.

In the conversation, Carey also says that the churches do not grow because they behave, organize, lead, and structure themselves like minor organization. For churches to develop higher, they must structure themselves like prominent organizations.11So Carey says that the church leaders need to think big and stop micromanaging the church. They should also be flexible, open, honest and straightforward. In the conversation Carey suggest that leaders should first solve their internal feuds before addressing the problems outside the church.12

The second talk is about where the leaders respond to when people attend the church services less often. He outlines the reasons why people do not attend church frequently. The reasons are family matters, work, traveling opportunities, some want to stay online, and others do not just feel like going to church because they do not have a reason attend church services anymore. Another reason why congregation can turn away from the church is if the leader is judging them and forcing them to see things his way, especially young adults and youth. A leader should be able to separate his/her methods of doing things from his mission so that he/she can be flexible and open to accept the new means of tackling the task. Another way that Carey talks about is the act of celebrating the congregation is that leaders should honor every member of the church when the members have done what they rarely do.



11. Ibid., 11-12

12. Ibid., 20

The activities include one, when they attend any church service, when an individual reads the bible once in a week, when a person drops offering what he/she has never done, or when a person comes twice a week. They should be celebrated every time so that they can be encouraged to attend the church services. Carey writes that a leader should also love every culture of his/her congregation, trust them and give them the priority.

The third conversation comes from the question as to whether the leaders are healthy or not. Carey says that strong leaders produce healthy churches. If the leadership of a church is clean and healthy, the congregation will also be cleansed and healthy. But if the top persons in the church are unclean, then the gathering is also filthy. Nieuwhof provides five symptoms to show the today’s leaders if they are healthy or unhealthy. The symptoms include fading motivation, the leader’s primary emotion is numbness, getting drained easily, not producing, too emotional, and becoming cynical. Unfortunately, in the churches, today workaholic leaders are celebrated. Carey provides ten ways for leaders to recover from unhealthy situations. They include frequent communication with God through prayers, healthy diets, exercise, proper and enough sleeping habits, and resting. To get a church that is healthy and growing, it starts with the leader himself.

Conversation four is about the reasons that keep church leaders from engaging in church missions. Carey states that church leaders do not appreciate the individuals in the church who volunteer to participate in church mission. Since they are sure that volunteers will always serve, they flop to be deliberate about their involvement with the helpers. The result is probably suboptimal culture where volunteers do not feel encouraged, supported, and nourished instead. They believe that they are under-supported, undervalued, and overworked even if they love their leaders and the church. Carey opens the chapter by slapping the leaders who do not appreciate the volunteers, and he also says that the leaders, who do not take part in the church mission, will carry the load when the mission fails. The when ahead and gave questions volunteer always ask. The issues include if the relationships in the church are healthy, if serving in the church will make him grow spiritually, and if the volunteer is signing up for eternity. Carey advice leaders to treat volunteers the way they would like to be treated because even Jesus Christ had twelve disciples whom he separated from the crowd.

Carey concentrates on the reasons why youth and young people walk away from the church in conversation five. The dialogue, says Carey, it is about congregation who were part of the church and left not about persons that the church has not yet attracted. Carey gives the reasons why people can walk out of the church. They include hypocritical leaders, who make the church to experience moral failure hence making the church inappropriate. Two, when there is no God in the sanctuary- God has disappeared from the priestly. Three, when leaders are not answering legitimate questions, instead they bury the problems. Christians should not be afraid during a war because when Jesus is with them, they are well protected. Four, when the church is not teaching about God anymore. Five, the congregation is not finding community in the church- there is no unity in the faith. Six, when the church leaders have let imitation kill innovation in the church. Leaders should know that gospel needs a relationship for it to grow. Hence, leaders should always use culture to reach and communicate with another culture.

Conversation six is about the cultural trends the church is missing Carey says that leaders, who are ready to study and sift through emerging culture, can connect easily with the current generation. Leaders should pass the same message using different and current approach; they should use the new technology like smartphones and WiFi to improve the church mission. Leaders should not condemn all emerging cultures. Hence, they should be ready to learn and use them to praise the name of the Lord.

Seventh and the last conversation in Carey Nieuwhof’s book is about things that leaders are willing to change so that the church mission can be fulfilled. Carey says that when that people transform when agony related to the majority is higher than the pain associated with transformation. In the chapter, Carey narrates the stories of two pastors. One tried to raise a church that was down and another pastor who attempted to transform an outdated church.

The book is exceptionally significant to churches that want to transform. The leadership should come together and read the book for better interpretation and understanding because the questions asked are annoying and technical. The problems need leaders to look into their soul and also look and the culture outside for better understanding. Lasting Impact will help the leadership that wants to change their church by giving them methods to follow.

































We Refused to Lead a Dying Church

God, the father, has called every leader to lead growing, healthy divine churches. Therefore, Paul Nixon refused to become a leader of a dying church, and he invites any leader not to head a church that is declining. Paul has given six choices that will help leaders in the commitment to refusing to be the head of a dying church. The options written in the chapters in his book We Refused to Lead a Dying Church published by Pilgrim Press in 2012. The book can help leaders and inspire them to create a healthy and robust congregation because it has stories of churches across America that are strong and healthy and have also refused to go down and have chosen to live.

Paul Nixon is a destined reverend in The United Methodist Church; he also works with various Christian organizations in America. His leadership experience enabled him to write a spiritual boo...