Review - Doing Church as a Team

If you want to understand the great potential for teams in your church and better understand how to encourage a culture and environment for team-based ministry, you may want to read "Doing Church as a Team". The author is Wayne Cordeiro, senior pastor of New Hope Christian Fellowship in Honolulu, Hawaii. The book actually does a great job of bringing to life the truth of Ephesians chapter four, that effective ministry is gift-based and carried out by everyone, not just some special group called 'clergy.' The book does a better job of providing motivation for teams than for looking at the nuts and bolts on how to form teams and improve team performance. The chapter on building teams is an exception, giving one useful framework for building teams in such a way that scales well while emphasizing healthy relationships between those doing ministry together. Each chapter has a series of questions at the end, "Team Preparation" that lets a team or small group use the book as a workbook to help apply the principles in each chapter.

Table of Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1. Reaching for God's Best
Chapter 2. God Has a Plan
Chapter 3. Don't Forget Who You Are
Chapter 4. All God's Chillun' Got Gifts
Chapter 5. Finding Your Fit
Chapter 6. The Fastest Way to the Throne
Chapter 7. Mining Leadership Gifts in the Church
Chapter 8. Developing Servant-Leaders
Chapter 9. Setting Your Compass
Chapter 10. Alignment: The Power of Moving Together
Chapter 11. Building Teams
Chapter 12. Transitioning a Church Culture
Chapter 13. Nurturing the Team
Epilogue. A Moving Picture

The first four chapters set the foundation for team-based ministry. Chapters five and six transition towards practice in discussing the discovery of spiritual gifts. The second half of the book emphasizes several practical aspects of doing church as a team, and the end-of-chapter questions are very helpful. Be aware that most discussion even in the second half is focused a lot more on principles than examples or how-to. The readers who will benefit most from the book are church leaders looking to transition from a church structure where far too few are involved in ministry, and for ministry leaders who are starting or restructuring a new ministry. An existing team leader will find some points of interest but may finish wishing there was more material on actually working effectively with his or her team.

In upcoming posts I'll share some more detailed notes from my reading of "Doing Church as a Team".