Customer Reviews

The Habits of Highly Effective Churches: Being Strategic in Your God-Given Ministry

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Buy this book! George Barna always has some interesting insights that will challenge you to think about your church, denomination, or parachurch organization. Besides, his books are among the few resources you can get that are based on scientific research and not hunches.

Borrow this book only if you have everything Barna has written, you go to one of his conferences at least every two years, and you just want to take a quick look at his new book.

The book describes "a ministry as being effective when lives are transformed such that people are constantly enabled to become more Christ-like. Effective ministries foster significant and continual changes in how people live." page 7-8]

Of the nine habits, one of my favorites is that highly effective churches develop significant relationships within the congregation. Significant relationship with God and one another transform lives!

According to Barna, the bar that defines highly effective churches is high. It probably ought to be because too many churches feel that good enough is good enough when mandates of the Kingdom of God may be calling for more.

I am very impressed with Barna's book, as he hits the nail on the head on a number of issues. Based on his research, this Christian pollster shows how the church should relate to the world around it. I am going to go through this again--I highlighted throughout--and write down the main points. I also want to give this book to my pastors, as there are a number of areas my local church could improve. If we want to see God work in our churches, then we need to be smart and use biblical principles and practices. Barna definitely provides us with a solid work here.

I have just finished reading "The Habits of Highly Effective Churches" through for the second time and will probably read it again in the future. Having served in ministries for over three decades, I recognize the nine habits presented in this book as touchstones for any ministry that wants to see lives genuinely transformed. It is too easy for a church to lose its effectiveness. Barna's book helps to show why so many churches are filled with attenders yet are having little impact on the world around them with the life-changing message of the Gospel.

for those who don't know George Barna, google "The Barna Group" They do extensive polling of Christian opinion. So this book is much more than one man's opinions, it has valuable statistics like, "effective churches have at least 20 minutes of uninterrupted worship music." To me the most interesting part of this book is Barna's finding that only 10-15% of churches are truly effective, and even in these it happens more by accident than design.

I have enjoyed some of his other works but this falls flat. It was not written to a Christian audience rather for people who believe in a sort of American Christianity Manifest destiny. There are a lot of things American Christians do well but telling people that the their way is the only way that Christianity can exist in a democracy is definitely not one of them. Shakespeare said the eye can not see itself except by reflection the author should have reflected more but instead he tried to tell us how the American version of Christianity should work with out`putting research and thought into it. A little more reflection, looking how others are doing it would have been interesting but describing your view of your belly button was gross and boring.