What do you think?
Rate this book
Pursuing the Full Kingdom Potential of Your Congregation
"Full Kingdom potential," says George Bullard, "is a journey, not a destination. To reach your full Kingdom potential, its pursuit must be your enduring passion and desire." Drawing on his more than four decades of experience in congregational leadership, Bullard offers not just another process for congregational redevelopment. He learns from the past to take congregations on a spiritual journey that is open-ended, custom-made, and locally owned. His focus is on capacity building in each congregation, calling for a narrative approach to futuring in the life of congregations that responds to new things God is seeking to do in and through members of the congregation. From the TCP Leadership Series.
226 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 2005
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review
August 25, 2012
In Pursuing the Full Kingdom Potential of Your Congregation, George Bullard Jr. organizes twelve chapters of ideas as casual proposal documents to church leadership and congregational teams, complete with coaching breaks for team discussion and direction. What he calls a “spiritual strategic journey” is his comprehensive method of achieving full Kingdom potential in a church. Bullard spends his introduction and a large portion of his first chapter discussing what he is not trying to do with this book. He says he is not talking about church growth, health, faithfulness, success, or transformation. He calls this “Gapology.” This a constant longing to close the gap between where the church is currently and where they want to be in the future is what he calls by this term.
Bullard uses the first half of his book to prepare, navigate, identify, and recognize things about a church’s congregation in preparation for pursuing the full Kingdom potential. In identifying aspects of a church or congregation, Bullard says, “A combination of congregational participants, sister congregations in a same or similar context, and other outside observers might be able to discern if a congregation ever reaches its full Kingdom potential.” He continues by saying that they will be able to approach full Kingdom potential “Only when a congregation engages in a spiritual strategic journey to discern, discover, and develop their unique journey in the image of God.” Thus, the readers are taken on a journey to discern God’s best potential for their church and themselves.
Bullard is very big on preparing the congregation for change. He says there ought to be “People of Pastoral Leadership, People of Passion, People of Position, and People of Participation” for a congregation to make strong and positive transitions and changes . These are mostly self-explanatory, but Bullard defines “People of Position” as the twenty-one percent of the people who are passionate about the congregation’s future. This is the important segment of a congregation that needs to be on the same page as the staff leadership. If there is not a commonality in future vision, there is disunity and having full Kingdom potential is not possible. In the following chapter, he introduces a concentric circle diagram further describing the people groups in a church congregation. The first half of the book closes with another interesting diagram showing the life stages of a church, much like Robert Dale’s bell curve in To Dream Again, except Bullard shows revitalization steps on the downward sloping side of his graph.
Bullard uses the second half of the book to expound upon five major ideas in utilizing prepared congregations for full Kingdom potential ministry. These five big ideas have to do with transition, change, and transformation; spiritual relationships and discernment; future storytelling; congregational decisions; living the future congregational story that’s been foretold; and coaching congregations to pursue their full Kingdom potential. Bullard also adds a final chapter to apply the knowledge learned in the first eleven chapters to impacting the congregation’s denomination.
In the chapter on transition, change, and transformation, Bullard points out a very important and disparaging change that churches tend to make as they grow. He says that young churches contain maximum flexibility and creativity and, “As a congregation develops and establishes its patterns of relating, flexibility and creativity begin to decrease,” and inversely, management control increases. Bullard outlines several steps leaders can take to combat this natural tendency in their organizations.
The next chapter is where Bullard explains the need for spiritual renewal. He even goes to great lengths to outline his specific “Strategic Journey with 100 Days of Share and Prayer Triplets.” Following this chapter, he emphasizes storytelling. Most readers will think of storytelling as something that recaps and elaborates on what happened in the past. Bullard has a different view. This is where he talks about how to “pull” the congregation forward rather than “push” them. By keeping the future story in front of the people, the leaders can stay better focused on God’s vision for their ministry, and membership will be more open to what God may be calling them to do in their community. Chapter nine outlines thirteen choices that congregations must make to effectively write out these future stories. Some of these choices, such as “merge with other congregations” are difficult to consider. Many churches don’t even consider such questions seriously, and this is where Bullard’s book really hits its readers in a very serious way. It is one thing to talk about making mental changes, but a very different and more powerful thing to put in place some written decisions—or rules—that realistically move the church staff and lay leadership core down a new process of exploring further Kingdom potential.
In addition to coining a new term of “chaordic” (“chaotic” and “orderly”), Pursuing the Full Kingdom Potential of Your Congregation makes it clear that a congregation’s full Kingdom potential is not the equivalent of church growth, health, success, or even faithfulness. Bullard ends his book with guidance about coaching congregations and includes material on how denominations can utilize his book. Overall, this author delivers the ideas necessary for evaluating and elevating congregational ministry in the local church.
Bullard uses the first half of his book to prepare, navigate, identify, and recognize things about a church’s congregation in preparation for pursuing the full Kingdom potential. In identifying aspects of a church or congregation, Bullard says, “A combination of congregational participants, sister congregations in a same or similar context, and other outside observers might be able to discern if a congregation ever reaches its full Kingdom potential.” He continues by saying that they will be able to approach full Kingdom potential “Only when a congregation engages in a spiritual strategic journey to discern, discover, and develop their unique journey in the image of God.” Thus, the readers are taken on a journey to discern God’s best potential for their church and themselves.
Bullard is very big on preparing the congregation for change. He says there ought to be “People of Pastoral Leadership, People of Passion, People of Position, and People of Participation” for a congregation to make strong and positive transitions and changes . These are mostly self-explanatory, but Bullard defines “People of Position” as the twenty-one percent of the people who are passionate about the congregation’s future. This is the important segment of a congregation that needs to be on the same page as the staff leadership. If there is not a commonality in future vision, there is disunity and having full Kingdom potential is not possible. In the following chapter, he introduces a concentric circle diagram further describing the people groups in a church congregation. The first half of the book closes with another interesting diagram showing the life stages of a church, much like Robert Dale’s bell curve in To Dream Again, except Bullard shows revitalization steps on the downward sloping side of his graph.
Bullard uses the second half of the book to expound upon five major ideas in utilizing prepared congregations for full Kingdom potential ministry. These five big ideas have to do with transition, change, and transformation; spiritual relationships and discernment; future storytelling; congregational decisions; living the future congregational story that’s been foretold; and coaching congregations to pursue their full Kingdom potential. Bullard also adds a final chapter to apply the knowledge learned in the first eleven chapters to impacting the congregation’s denomination.
In the chapter on transition, change, and transformation, Bullard points out a very important and disparaging change that churches tend to make as they grow. He says that young churches contain maximum flexibility and creativity and, “As a congregation develops and establishes its patterns of relating, flexibility and creativity begin to decrease,” and inversely, management control increases. Bullard outlines several steps leaders can take to combat this natural tendency in their organizations.
The next chapter is where Bullard explains the need for spiritual renewal. He even goes to great lengths to outline his specific “Strategic Journey with 100 Days of Share and Prayer Triplets.” Following this chapter, he emphasizes storytelling. Most readers will think of storytelling as something that recaps and elaborates on what happened in the past. Bullard has a different view. This is where he talks about how to “pull” the congregation forward rather than “push” them. By keeping the future story in front of the people, the leaders can stay better focused on God’s vision for their ministry, and membership will be more open to what God may be calling them to do in their community. Chapter nine outlines thirteen choices that congregations must make to effectively write out these future stories. Some of these choices, such as “merge with other congregations” are difficult to consider. Many churches don’t even consider such questions seriously, and this is where Bullard’s book really hits its readers in a very serious way. It is one thing to talk about making mental changes, but a very different and more powerful thing to put in place some written decisions—or rules—that realistically move the church staff and lay leadership core down a new process of exploring further Kingdom potential.
In addition to coining a new term of “chaordic” (“chaotic” and “orderly”), Pursuing the Full Kingdom Potential of Your Congregation makes it clear that a congregation’s full Kingdom potential is not the equivalent of church growth, health, success, or even faithfulness. Bullard ends his book with guidance about coaching congregations and includes material on how denominations can utilize his book. Overall, this author delivers the ideas necessary for evaluating and elevating congregational ministry in the local church.
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review