The Starfish and the Spirit: Unleashing the Leadership Potential of Churches and Organizations
Digital Logos Edition
Overview
Imagine an organizational model for church leadership that enables the entire team to unleash their full potential.
The joy and vigor coming from a collective strength, intelligence, and skill in the community of leaders not only brings greater potency but better yields for your ministry. What would it be like to see this kind of healthy leadership reproduced into the second, third, and fourth generation, on multiple strands?
Leveraging the metaphor Ori Brafman popularized in his NYT best-selling book, The Starfish and the Spider, Rob Wegner, Lance Ford, and Alan Hirsch show:
The Starfish and the Spirit is about creating a culture where church leaders view themselves as curators of a community on a mission, not the source of certainty for every question and project. It’s about creating a team of humble leaders “in the middle” of the church, not at the top--leaders who naturally reproduce multiple generations of leaders, from the middle out.
- Helps to create a culture where church leaders view themselves as curators of a community on a mission.
- Invites to create a team of humble leaders “in the middle” of the church, not at the top.
- Guides to prepare the church of tomorrow to be agile while maintaining the accountability to be effective.
- Foreword: Run toward Your Fears, by Ori Brafman xi
- Section 1: Reimagining Church
- 1. Arachnophobia and Spider Bites
- 2. Good Things Running Wild
- 3. The Movement Starfish: Reimagining the Church as a Missional Movement
- 4. The Movement Starfish: Five Points of Multiplication
- 5. The Movement Starfish: What Makes a Movement and How Do We Measure It?
- Section 2: A Culture for Multiplying Leaders
- Section 2 Introduction
- 6. The Light-Load Leader Starfish: Equipping Others and Distributing the Weight
- 7. The Structure Starfish: Thinking outside Pyramids and Creating Circles
- 8. The Self-Management Starfish: Unleashing Freedom and Facilitating Order
- Section 3: A Culture for Multiplying Disciples
- Section 3 Introduction
- 9. The Disciple-Making Ingredients Starfish: Creating Environments and Mixing Ingredients
- 10. Outcome Focused: Disciple-Making Ingredient #1
- 11. Habit Fueled: Disciple-Making Ingredient #2
- 12. Community Forged: Disciple-Making Ingredient #3
- 13. Mission Fixated: Disciple-Making Ingredient #4
- 14. Content Flavored: Disciple-Making Ingredient #5
- 15. The Disciple-Making Ecosystem Starfish: Balancing Elements and Cultivating an Ecosystem
- 16. Vision: Disciple-Making Ecosystem Element #1
- 17. Voice: Disciple-Making Ecosystem Element #2
- 18. Vocabulary: Disciple-Making Ecosystem Element #3
- 19. Vehicles: Disciple-Making Ecosystem Element #4
- 20. Voyage: Disciple-Making Ecosystem Element #5
- 21. The Collective Intelligence Starfish: Embedding Simple Processes and Becoming a Learning System
- Conclusion: The Starfish Journey
- Acknowledgments
- Notes
If you want to learn the ways of decentralized disciple-making, then this is the book for you. In this manifesto on multiplication, Rob and Lance have laid the groundwork for how to see movement happen. Rob and Lance have proven track records as practitioners. If you want to grow, be challenged, and practice unleashing the potential of raising up leaders, then pick up a copy of The Starfish and the Spirit
—Myron Pierce, author, lead pastor of Mission Church, founder and president of Every Inner City
As a church planter in the West, I often have “yes, but how?” questions about disciple-making movements and microchurch multiplication. In this book, Rob and Lance have crammed eye-opening insights into every page, along with practical tools for every leader to reimagine the future of the church. If you’re passionate about catalyzing every member of your church to effectively help others find their way back to God, get reading.
—Emma Jeffery, regional director of NewThing Western Europe, Soulcity Church, United Kingdom
Like a cool rain after a decade of drought, The Starfish and the Spirit delivers relief, respite, and a total rethink on what it means to follow Jesus in this remarkable mission field we call life! Bravo to Rob and Lance for following and inviting us to join them.
—Hugh Halter, author of The Tangible Kingdom, FLESH, and Happy Hour