BETTER CHANGE IN CHURCH:
When wholehearted commitment counts
By Rod Street and Nick Cuthbert
CPAS. 272 pages. £9.99
ISBN 978 1 506 193 823
Better Change in Church is a book which aims to help church leaders guide their congregations through change less traumatically and more effectively.
The book itself is designed as a reference manual that can be dipped into selectively, according to the particular issues faced when approaching change in any given church.
Sections
The work is divided into five sections which cover a variety of matters. The first section looks at God’s church and change. This seeks to flesh out what is meant by change itself, and why it needs to be handled better. The second section explores the challenge of change in the church and considers the dynamic of change itself, in the leader as well as those being led. The third section looks at foundations for change and examines ways in which a community can better be prepared for it. This includes clarifying the purpose of the church itself. The fourth section looks at working with the grain of change, rather than against it. Here the concern is with methodology and the kind of structures that need to be implemented to support change. In the fifth and final section, the authors highlight how to handle the tough issues that often make people scared of embracing change, like risk and conflict.
Reservations
I am certain that there is much that is helpful in this book and will no doubt offer much timely wisdom for those given the responsibility to lead a church through times of transition and change. But, unfortunately, I would have personal reservations in recommending it to my friends and colleagues. My main concern with it is what I feel is a lack of theological discrimination in regard to the main arguments and strategies it recommends. One criticism often levelled at some church growth and church leadership literature is that it can be top heavy in secular management techniques while being lightweight in biblical substance. Sometimes such criticism is ungracious and unfair.
But, in my opinion, here it seems that such a criticism would indeed be valid. It isn’t that this book does not have anything helpful to teach discerning church leaders. It’s just that, as I read it, I couldn’t help but ask myself what I was learning here that I might not learn equally well from a secular book on business management.
