Customer Reviews

Escape from Church, Inc.

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If you've read Fresh Faith by Cymbala and felt something stir in your pastor's heart, if you agreed with his assessment of church consultants and experts, then this book should be next on your "to read" list.

Wagner challenges the last 20+ years of pastoral training and modeling. He claims that the CEO/leadership model is not the biblical model of pastoring, and backs up his claim convincingly. Nowhere in the scriptures does God use the metaphor of king, ruler or leader for pastors. He repeatedly uses the metaphor of shepherd. Wagner sees significance in the repeated use of this term, event to Peter, who would have related to a fishing metaphor better.

I highly recommend this book to all pastors, seminary students and professors and those who are otherwise closely involved with ministry. It may challenge you, it may cast serious doubts on your current methodolgy and theology of the pastorate. If nothing else, it will cause you to examine your own pastoral theology and decide whether it is of this world or of God's design.

Glen Wagner articulately challenges the current CEO model of pastoral leadership that has dominated the church scene for the past two decades. He calls for a return to the pastor-shepherd model set forth in Scripture and practiced for centuries by men of God who have a heart for God and a heart for His people. He sees the shepherd model in the Great Shepherd and sensibly argues that it is the high calling of God; it is the pulse, the heartbeat of our Heavenly Father and His Son Jesus Christ who gave His life for the sheep. Glen writes with passion and purpose urging a return to a servant shepherding, compassionate caring, and relationally connecting ministry. It is the need most needed to be met in the church of Jesus Christ to restore the church to a model of ministry that is wholistic, and more than adequate to the task of effectively fulfilling God's Great Commission purposes. The book is a refreshing and enjoyable read giving a historical, Biblical but contemporary approach to effective ministry in our mixed bag of a modern/post modern world.

One day, about 4 years ago, a pastor friend called me with a broken voice. He had been crying. He was trying to tell me about this new book he just read, "Escape From Church, Inc." Short time later he spent more money than he could afford to purchase copies for all of his pastor friends that he thought would be interested. I do not know how many copies he gave out, but one of them came to me.

This book is fascinating! It is true that Wagner is so passionate he tips the scale a bit too far in the other direction. Yet, so many people bought into the CEO mindset, that he needed to make his voice loud and passionate.

Give this book a try.

This book reveals the deficiencies resulting from applying the corporate leadership model to the local church and demonstrates through scripture God's plan for caring for His people. In a sincere effort to maximize effectiveness, too many churches today have adopted the corporate model and have become driven by quantifiable but inappropriate goals. The corporate mindset has shifted the shepherd/sheep model to an employer/employee model, much to the detriment of the sheep and God's eternal purpose. After personally transitioning from a corporate model church to a pastoral church, my spiritual life and walk with the Lord is thriving as never before! I am called to pastor, yet the corporate approach that I have seen modeled and demonstrated in many churches has kept me from embracing the call on my life. So thank you Glenn Wagner! But still, one must admit that in practice it seems that purely pastoral churches often focus inward and lapse into a "me and my four and no more" environment. If I could add another chapter to this book, or even better have a follow up book, I would love to read more of the practical application of God's plan in present day churches addressing how both the people and the local body can flourish.

Writing with Steve Halliday, Glenn Wagner presents a book that calls pastors to be, well, pastors. The root of the word pastor hails us back to the idea that the pastor is a shepherd. He is not THE Shepherd, but a shepherd who works as an extension of The Good Shepherd (Jesus Christ). The premise of the book is that the biblical model for the pastoral position is one of a shepherd--not the modern trend to corporate-style leadership.

Through the course of the bank, the author guides us to biblical evidence of a shepherd's model for the pastor. Shepherds are relational, while other leadership models focus on bottom-line equations. He deals with the needs of the flock as well as the call of the pastor.

Overall, the book is a healthy look at the church and the position of her leader. Toward the end of the book is a chapter I expected to be extremely helpful--interviews with several pastors about their shepherd-style leadership approach. I found their responses less than helpful, but the bulk of the book is well worth the reading. The audience for this book is limited indeed. Church members in general will find the book informative and interesting, but not addressing their personal lives. On the other hand, this is a book that I would recommend for any pastor or church minister. Because of the excellent advice within its covers, I give the book 4 and one-half out of five reading glasses.

--Benjamin Potter, February 27, 2011

One of the most important books of the 20th century for changing the worldview of those holding the office of 'pastor'...but not functioning as a shepherd! While having structure, the church is not an organization, but an organism...a community of Christians who need a shepherd, not a manager.

As a pastor of twenty years and a student of church health, I was disappointed with this volume. Obviously the author has been burned by the abuse of church growth/health principles, and now swings the pendulum in excess to the opposite direction. He makes a sharp distinction between pastors who use a shepherding model and pastors who use a corporate model. The idea that the two both may be used together apparently never occurs to him.

Wagner hammers again and again on his point that the people of God throughout the Bible are depicted as a diverse flock with the pastor as the shepherd. Each sheep is in need of one-on-one ministry. He is certainly correct, but he omits Paul's analogy of the people of God as one body. Wagner gives no attention here to the corporate (gasp) need of the body, or of the flock as a whole, to receive loving care and nurture.

With all of its shortcomings, I still give this book two stars because it provides a good critique of church growth/health principles. It also emphasizes something modern pastors must never forget: according to God's Word, we ARE undershepherds to the great Shepherd, our Lord Jesus Christ.