I read all sorts of books, they come, they’re pushed on me, sent to me, given to me and occasionally I even choose some. This is one that has been on my shelves for a long time. I’d even started it once and not finished it, thought it too American and had no idea of who the author was. When you lead a very small church, books written by the mega-church pastor are not always that helpful. Then I was given a talk from the Willow Creek Leadership Summit with Wayne Cordeiro as one of the speakers and I was challenged by his talk, which was motivational rather than exposition. So I dug this book out and set off.

For the most part I thought Doing Church as a Team was ok without saying too much new. If you’ve read Purpose Driven Life or the Volunteer Revolution this is more of the same but the last few chapters were full of little leadership nuggets of gold. ‘You can teach what you know but you’ll reproduce what you are’ is a reminder of the importance of building godly character ahead of giftedness, and growth occurs downward is an interesting idea that sparked off some creative ideas to name just a few.

I appreciated the book and it’s not a tough read. It’s motivational and inspirational rather than teaching, or exposition in any way but that’s OK. If you’re thinking about teamwork and church then this could be a useful read.