Customer Reviews

Leading the Team-Based Church: How Pastors and Church Staffs Can Grow Together into a Powerful Fellowship of Leaders A Leadership Network Publication (Jossey-Bass Leadership Network Series)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
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2 star:		(1)
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This book was surprisely quick and easy to read yet very thorough. Any church or small business would benefit from reading this book. It's model is similiar to great world class companies, but is unique with it's theological links. It also recognizes the problems that happen in any small company...even churches....! It recognizes too everyone's desire to work in a place and do things we are passionate about!...Worthwhile for the entire staff to read!

In Leading the Team-Based Church, George Cladis weaved together principles from theology, ecclesiology, sociology, and business to create a rubric for applying a team-based model for doing ministry in the church. Cladis's thesis is that the historic hierarchical organizational model of top-down, leader-directed ministry is inconsistent with the nature of God, the New Testament pattern of church ministry, and the needs of a postmodern culture. The cornerstone of Cladis's paradigm is his premise that the persons of the Trinity exist in perichoresis, that is, as a team comprising perfect unity, fellowship, harmony, love, and purpose. The perichoretic Trinity thus becomes the exemplar for team-based ministry in the church. Part 1 explored the theological underpinnings of God as perichoresis and outlined nine characteristics of postmodern society. The seven chapters of part 2 examined the seven forms of leadership reflected in the attributes of God's perichoretic nature in juxtaposition with the characteristics of post-modernism and how these lend credence to team-based ministry in the church.

Review and Reaction

Cladis's interpretation of the Trinity as perichoresis forged the basis of his understanding of team-based ministry in the local church. While not appearing in the New Testament, perichoresis is a compound Greek word literally meaning "circle of dance" (4). To Cladis the Trinity is a perfect team. For him, the perichoretic image of the triune Godhead provides a helpful way of viewing the church and its organizational structure. Specifically, the church should work in perfect harmony, equality, and purpose, thus reflecting the image of God.

Cladis further asserted that the perichoretic model of the Godhead most accurately reflects the demands of a postmodern society for flatten hierarchical organizational structures that value individual giftedness, equality, and collaborative efforts. Cladis suggested that modernism promotes rugged individualism to the exclusion of community. Church structures that reflect a modernistic mindset are less inviting to postmodern people who value participation in decision making, inclusiveness in action, and personal fulfillment. Perichoretic team-based ministry, therefore, provides a more appealing model for postmodern people.

Cladis overreaches his thesis by insisting that team-based ministries are "the most theologically and culturally appropriate method for church leadership today" (17). His premise is specious at best and arrogant at worst. Such an assertion casts immediate aspersions upon centuries of church history. If one accepts Cladis at this point, then any form of church organization not based on teams is not just inefficient, but incongruent with the very nature of God.

One can make the point that scripture does not provide a definitive model for church organization. Allusions to church organizational patterns in scripture are more descriptive than prescriptive. Even the language of church leadership varies within the New Testament--pastor versus elder versus overseer. First century Christians initially adopted the Jewish synagogue model because it was the one most familiar to them, but later developed organizational models that more adequately met their evolving needs. The early church organized its ministry efforts around the needs of its constituency (such as the addition of an incipient deacon ministry in Acts 6:1-6). Their efforts were more pragmatic than theologically informed. They simply acted to meet the needs of the day.

Cladis makes a better point that a team-based ministry more effectively meets the needs of contemporary postmodern believers. The seven team attributes of covenanting, visioning, culture creating, collaborating, trusting, empowering, and learning, detailed in part 2, forms the book's core strengths. Cladis discussed each attribute biblically and then related each to his perichoretic model. Occasionally, he provided insights from the business world and fictionalized church settings to illustrate the efficacy of a particular attribute. Cladis's frequent references to his perichoresis model and to Rublev's icon of the Holy Trinity were distracting and thoroughly unhelpful. One draws the impression that Cladis is attempting to baptize the business model of teams into the language of the church--an unnecessary effort to spiritualize the secular to make it more appealing to the sacred. If a team-based model for ministry works, and does not violate scripture, then employ the best of what the business world has to offer for the advancement of the Kingdom of God.

Application

Cladis's seven characteristics of team-based ministry can fit well into today's church. Many are intuitively self-evident. The church exists in covenant with God and with one another. This covenant identity does not cease in staff meetings or in church council meetings. What healthy church does not want to have a unifying vision from God that creates a sense of purpose and provides meaning to its efforts? By in large, churches want to develop a cultural ethos reflecting it uniqueness as the people of God. Maturing church members want to contribute their gifts and talents toward a collaborative, trusting, empowering, and spiritually fulfilling mission. Many of Cladis's seven characteristics have an ethereal quality to them. They are better identified by the effect they achieve than the effort needed to achieve them. Nonetheless, they represent biblical ideals church leaders should strive to achieve in their ministry settings.

This reviewer has sought to apply these characteristics to a new preschool ministry team. The team of four mothers of preschool-aged children organized themselves around the mission to create a safe, secure, and satisfying nursery and preschool experience for children from birth through age three. The members have complementary skills and are highly motivated. The initial organizational meeting was unfocused because the members did not know how to work as a team. This pastor introduced the members to Cladis's seven characterizes for healthy teams. Some of the characteristics will take time to formulate, however the team was excited about the characteristics of vision, collaboration, empowerment, trust, and learning. The members embraced their vision of creating a top-notch preschool environment. They made a mutual commitment to work together to fulfill this vision. Only time will tell how well this new team can develop Cladis's characteristics.

Conclusion

Leading the Team-Based Church does what it needs to do. It provides a beneficial contemporary model for ministry leadership in a postmodern world. The old-style hierarchical pyramidal leadership model served the church well for more than one hundred years because it was how people were used to the world operating. It was sociologically consistent, fitting the prevailing worldview. The Medieval monarchical bishopric model worked a thousand years ago for the same reason--it reflected how people related to one another in a feudal society. Through the Renaissance, Reformation, and the Industrial Revolution, the way people viewed leadership changed. Each time this happened the church accommodated these sociological shifts and found the necessary theological support. Cladis does no differently. Sociological shifts notwithstanding, Cladis's seven attributes of team-based leadership are worthy characteristics for any church.

George Cladis has written a great book--the best I have found on team-building in the church. It is an easy read, very practical, filled with a lot of good ideas. I found his chapters on team covenants and on creating a visionary culture particularly helpful.

Cladis has learned a lot in his pastorates about teamwork--and teaches those principles well. He motivates me to want to build a strong team--not be a lone ranger in the pastorate. And he gives lots of ideas on how to do so.

I was assigned George Cladis's book for a seminary Team Leadership course. Since I'm interested in the idea of team leadership and want to grow in my understanding of the topic, I was looking forward to the book. What I experienced was a significant disappointment for me.

Cladis begins the book by offering a theological case for the need for doing God's work in teams (as opposed to more traditional, hierarchical, top-down leadership structures), based on his understanding of the perichoretic nature of the triune God. Though rather abstract to me, this formed a reasonable starting point for the book. He then proceeded to describe seven characteristics of team leadership, based on perichoresis, that he deemed essential for team leadership (i.e. making a covenant, sharing vision, collaborating, trusting, etc.).

Though the basic framework of the book was solid, I was disappointed by the lack of specificity related to team leadership. It seemed to me that Cladis's markers of team leadership were simply generic markers for good leadership. Though he used team leadership language, I thought that he was just offering standard leadership principles that would apply in any leadership model. Leaders in hierarchical models need to cast vision to be effective. Leaders in hierarchical models need to trust others (and be trusted by others) to be effective. It just felt rather generic and bland to me.

And this leads to my second primary critique. This book was very boring. It felt more like an extended seminary research paper (which I think it may have actually been in its earliest version) than a book to engage and inspire church leaders. His primary example of his principles was a running fable of the imaginary First Church of Appleton, but rather than helping me to access and understand the main ideas of the book like Andy Stanley and Patrick Lencioni have so successfully done in their books, this example was lifeless, generic, and often cheesy.

Ultimately, Cladis offered a few good leadership nuggets, but nothing that I haven't read in a dozen other church leadership books. I was disappointed that the book wasn't more engaging and am hard-pressed to recommend it for others.

What a breath of fresh air to see one with such an innovative, entrepreneurial spirit coming from a traditional mainline denomination. This book does more than just exhort you to form teams, it tells you how to create a culture of teams that will make your church more effective for the Kingdom of God. This one has definitely made my top-ten list!

Like others reading this book, I read this book while in Seminary in a leadership class.

The first idea I encountered in this book is the concept of Perichoresis, the idea of a dancing God. It has colored not only my idea of leadership, but also my idea of God. God, in Trinity, in motion.

I recently changed calls, and am now leading three very different congregations, and more importantly, three very different Sessions. I must admit, that the challenges of leading all three mean that I need to understand leadership even better, but more importantly that I need to help them understand leadership and become a team. Obviously, with three churches, without the team concept, all of us will fail.

My first meeting with each of the Sessions involved beginning the process of helping them become the leaders that they were meant to be. While we will not be doing written covenants, we will be doing covenant work, helping ALL of us to be built into teams.

I will not be using only this book, but will be keeping it handy as I work with the sessions. It makes a great resource for leaders.

If you are working on team building and team consensus, I recommend The World Cafe: Shaping Our Futures Through Conversations That Matter, which I have used with my previous church, and which I will eventually be using with each of the churches, and the three-church parish as a whole if and when we are ready to begin the process of looking at the future together.

Note - while the title uses the words "Church Staffs" I have applied this concept to "Church Leaders" incorporating both Deacons and Elders in the church.