A Prophetic Call to Become a Merciful Church

Jack Alexander offers a prophetic call to the church in "The God Impulse." This prophetic call comes in the nature of many Old Testament prophets who call the people of God to be a people of mercy and justice! Alexander speaks to the church through the wonderful story of The Good Samaritan. While this is an often heard story and has certainly provided inspiration for acts of mercy in the past, Alexander breathes new life into the story, thus strengthening the prophetic calling he has been give by God to challenge the church. In exploring this familiar parable from our Lord, Alexander challenges the church to see, go, do, and endure as we respond to the mercy of Jesus Christ, offering mercy to others. Alexander rightly points out that we have received an extreme gift of mercy from our Lord and in response we need to be people of mercy. A basic characteristic of God is that He is merciful. In imaging God, we too must be a merciful people. Read this wonderful text and discover the challenge to see, go, do and endure in your acts of mercy. See the needs around you! Go to those in need of mercy! Don't stop with going though, also engage with the needy--form relationships! Then endure by continuing in relationship and being a merciful person for the long haul.
I received this book as part of Baker Publishing's Blogging Program.

A Presentation of Mixed Priorities

"High Impact Teams" offers fine instruction for the church pastor/administrator or board on how to effectively nurture ministry in our current business model driven atmosphere for doing church. Lance Witt helps the church administrator or team administrator explore many concerns: defining your team and its goals, doing self-care and team-care within a spiritual environment, how to prioritize relationships within your team (make people more important that product), dealing with conflict on the team or within the organization, and defining the culture of your team/church/organization. This book is filled with practical methodology on the team based model of ministry. Many will find its insights illuminating and helpful as they build their organization. There are many practical steps for ministries to take advantage of.
Unfortunately, the presentation of this healthy model of team performance is presented a little backwards. The section on crafting culture is the final section of the book as perhaps it should be. Part of a vital culture in any church organization is the faith that is foundational to that church. So Lance Witt rightfully included the section regarding belief and discipleship in this section. While, he does state that this is most important for a church, the design of the book suggests that it is tertiary to all the other concerns of running the organization. The faith and discipleship of the organization or team should be the root of all else that gets done, from management to self-care to conflict resolution. Therefore, faith and discipleship should have the place of priority in our organizations and in the presentation of this book. Faith and discipleship should have been discussed in the very beginning. As I read, I kept feeling like this element needed greater emphasis. By the time it came up, it seemed like an afterthought.
I received this book as part of Baker Books blogging program.