What do you think?
Rate this book
The Unity Factor: Getting Your Church Leaders Working Together
Book by Osborne, Larry W.
- GenresLeadership
156 pages, Hardcover
First published October 1, 1989
1 person is currently reading
13 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
April 21, 2010
Enjoyed this look at improving church leadership relationships. Some of my favorite quotes include:
"When I arrived at church, I was armed with books and ideas on growth, evangelism, and reaching the community. Unity was the last thing I was worried about. If you'd told me to slow down and focus on camaraderie and unity, I'd have chided you for your inward, even self-centered, approach to ministry. We had a world to conquer. But it soon became painfully obvious that we were never going to change the world out there when we couldn't get along in here."
Is the primary purpose of a church board representation or leadership?
I’ve become a strong advocate of a leadership-oriented board. Compared to representative boards, leadership boards have a completely different agenda. Rather than figure out what everybody wants them to do, the members of a leadership board have only one focus: finding the best course of action and following it. They are more concerned with leading than responding to every whim of the congregation. When faced with a difficult decision, they ask first, not “How will people react?” but “What does God want us to do?”
Now that we lean more heavily to the leadership side of the scale, instead of first asking what they would want us to do, we ask first what God would want us to do. Not only is this a better question; it’s a tremendous unity builder. It undercuts any tendency to see ourselves as lobbyists, defending the rights of the young or the old, charismatic’s or non-charismatic, or any other group in the church.
The first step in designing a function-oriented ministry is to decide what we’re trying to accomplish. In our case, we’ve settled on four functions as essential in a healthy ministry:
1. The study and practical application of God’s Word
2. The experience of meaningful worship
3. The development of significant and supportive relationships
4. The expansion of God’s kingdom.
We call them our Four Ws: The Word, worship, warmth, and witness.
We judge every program by its ability to help us fulfill one, or at the most two, of these functions. That way, we’re able to decide what we should and should not do. It doesn’t matter if every other church our size or stripe has a particular program—or even that it has worked for us in the past. If it won’t help us more effectively fulfill one of these functions, we won’t do it. And similarly, we won’t reject an idea just because no one else has tried it. If it holds the promise of helping us do a better job with one of the functions, we’ll give it a try.
For instance, at this time, we’ve decided not to have a choir. Occasionally, that’s a cause of concern to visitors who have a hard time imagining a “real church” without one. But in our case, instead of helping us fulfill our primary functions, a choir actually would set us back. It would cut into our congregational singing, something that has proven to be our most effective tool for fostering meaningful praise and worship. And a choir would undermine our home fellowships, a ministry that involves 70 percent of our adults on a weekly basis, helping them to build relationships and probe deeper into God’s Word. Experience has shown us that most of those involved in a weekly choir practice would not have the time to continue in a home fellowship.
So, even though there are many good reasons to have a choir, we’ve chosen not to have one. Maybe we will someday. But if we do, it will be because we’ve decided that a choir could help us more effectively accomplish our primary goals, not because every other church has one.
During the past nine years, our church has taken a new name, moved to a different location, shifted our program emphasis, changed board structure, and altered worship style. Yet these changes have been accomplished largely without conflicts and deviant behavior.
I remember when we went so far as to replace our Sunday evening service with home Bible studies. Not long after we dropped the evening service, a young father came to me.
“I grew up in a church where every change was a major battle,” he said. “So when I heard what you and the board were proposing, I was worried. My wife and I even thought of leaving before the battle broke out. We couldn’t believe it when nothing happened. I still can’t believe how easily people accepted the change.”
It was not nearly as easy as it looked. But I was glad he saw it that way.
“Criticism and compliments should be weighed, not counted.”
"When I arrived at church, I was armed with books and ideas on growth, evangelism, and reaching the community. Unity was the last thing I was worried about. If you'd told me to slow down and focus on camaraderie and unity, I'd have chided you for your inward, even self-centered, approach to ministry. We had a world to conquer. But it soon became painfully obvious that we were never going to change the world out there when we couldn't get along in here."
Is the primary purpose of a church board representation or leadership?
I’ve become a strong advocate of a leadership-oriented board. Compared to representative boards, leadership boards have a completely different agenda. Rather than figure out what everybody wants them to do, the members of a leadership board have only one focus: finding the best course of action and following it. They are more concerned with leading than responding to every whim of the congregation. When faced with a difficult decision, they ask first, not “How will people react?” but “What does God want us to do?”
Now that we lean more heavily to the leadership side of the scale, instead of first asking what they would want us to do, we ask first what God would want us to do. Not only is this a better question; it’s a tremendous unity builder. It undercuts any tendency to see ourselves as lobbyists, defending the rights of the young or the old, charismatic’s or non-charismatic, or any other group in the church.
The first step in designing a function-oriented ministry is to decide what we’re trying to accomplish. In our case, we’ve settled on four functions as essential in a healthy ministry:
1. The study and practical application of God’s Word
2. The experience of meaningful worship
3. The development of significant and supportive relationships
4. The expansion of God’s kingdom.
We call them our Four Ws: The Word, worship, warmth, and witness.
We judge every program by its ability to help us fulfill one, or at the most two, of these functions. That way, we’re able to decide what we should and should not do. It doesn’t matter if every other church our size or stripe has a particular program—or even that it has worked for us in the past. If it won’t help us more effectively fulfill one of these functions, we won’t do it. And similarly, we won’t reject an idea just because no one else has tried it. If it holds the promise of helping us do a better job with one of the functions, we’ll give it a try.
For instance, at this time, we’ve decided not to have a choir. Occasionally, that’s a cause of concern to visitors who have a hard time imagining a “real church” without one. But in our case, instead of helping us fulfill our primary functions, a choir actually would set us back. It would cut into our congregational singing, something that has proven to be our most effective tool for fostering meaningful praise and worship. And a choir would undermine our home fellowships, a ministry that involves 70 percent of our adults on a weekly basis, helping them to build relationships and probe deeper into God’s Word. Experience has shown us that most of those involved in a weekly choir practice would not have the time to continue in a home fellowship.
So, even though there are many good reasons to have a choir, we’ve chosen not to have one. Maybe we will someday. But if we do, it will be because we’ve decided that a choir could help us more effectively accomplish our primary goals, not because every other church has one.
During the past nine years, our church has taken a new name, moved to a different location, shifted our program emphasis, changed board structure, and altered worship style. Yet these changes have been accomplished largely without conflicts and deviant behavior.
I remember when we went so far as to replace our Sunday evening service with home Bible studies. Not long after we dropped the evening service, a young father came to me.
“I grew up in a church where every change was a major battle,” he said. “So when I heard what you and the board were proposing, I was worried. My wife and I even thought of leaving before the battle broke out. We couldn’t believe it when nothing happened. I still can’t believe how easily people accepted the change.”
It was not nearly as easy as it looked. But I was glad he saw it that way.
“Criticism and compliments should be weighed, not counted.”
January 18, 2016
Practical advice on how to bring unity to a board leading a church, pitfalls to avoid, training, communicating, selecting, etc. Well-written, short, but full of information. While I don't own it, it will probably be something to add to the library for reference.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews