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Managing Polarities in Congregations: Eight Keys for Thriving Faith Communities

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This book is a wonderful tool in thinking about congregations. The 8 polarities that are described are very well formulated and recognizable. The model that is being presented can directly be applied in the situation you are in. It is well written and good examples are used. Recommendable reading for leadership in the church

Is this a problem to solve or a tension to manage? Understanding how to use that question in making decisions is the great value I learned from Managing Polarities in Congregations and why I highly recommend it to leaders in faith communities.

Do you breathe in or out? Hopefully both. That makes breathing a tension to manage, and learning to do that well leverages your breathing capacity for greater growth and endurance.

Oswald and Johnson apply the concept of Polarity Maps to 8 keys for thriving faith communities. For some faith communities, it is a choice between strong pastoral leadership or strong lay leadership. For many faith communities,it's an either/or battle. Oswald and Johnson show how it's best as both/and, then they show how to leverage that polarity for growth.

Other polarities to manage include: Tradition AND Innovation, Spiritual Health AND Institutional Health, Management AND Leadership, Inreach AND Outreach, Nurture AND Transformation, Making Disciples: Easy Process AND Challenging Process, Call AND Duty.

The list could go on. As I read the book I thought of other polarities / tension areas to leverage for growth -- Church AND School, Work AND Family, etc. Appendix A applies polarities to Small Groups.

Buy this book for your leadership and for those who serve with you. Build your own polarity maps. Identify the problems that need to be solved, and discover the polarities that need on-going management and leverage them for growth.

If more leaders knew how to recognize and manage polarities, we would have much more vibrant faith communities. Johnson and Oswald have written a tremendously useful book. Their discussion of polarity management will help not only congregations, but any organization which finds itself in disagreement. Out of passion for the work and mission of the organization, and sometimes just because we all have our own ways of seeing things, polarities will always exist. In understanding polarities more completely (which the reader will begin to do within the first chapter), a clear path forward opens in the midst of conflict. This is an awesome, readable book. It will change the conversations and what's possible in many congregations!