“In order for me to do what God is calling me to do, I have to equip God’s people to do his work.”

Book ?? Of 2019, “The Unstuck Church,” by Tony Morgan, is a handbook and diagnostic tool for churches of all sizes and shapes that comes directly from Morgan’s years of experience as a church consultant. Even though you could read only the chapters that pertain to your own church (once you’ve diagnosed where you are on the Church Life Cycle), I ended up underlining SO MANY things from all the chapters because there is so much good stuff here!

One of the things I most appreciated was his insistence that leadership in ministry is defined by equipping OTHERS. He takes the passage from Ephesians 4 (where it talks about how we’ve been gifted as apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherd, and teachers) and focuses on the last part of that where it says that we were given these gifts “to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up.”

That means that whatever gifting you’ve received hasn’t been given to you only to USE for God and his church. It’s been entrusted to you to INVEST into others! Ministry isn’t the thing that leaders do for the congregation. Ministry is raising up the WHOLE body of Christ, *using* the gifts he’s given to each of us!

I’ve also been listening to Morgan’s “The Unstuck Church Podcast,” and it is CRAZY how much great content he just gives away through there. If you want to, you could literally read this book and listen to a few podcast episodes with your team and it would be as if you brought in an outside consultant who is helping you find the blindspots in your church that are keeping you from accomplishing the mission that God has called you to.

Even though this book is written with church leaders in mind, frustration and feeling “stuck” is something that everyone can feel, both in their own life and at their church. If you want to pick up a copy, check out the book on Amazon and let me know what you think of it!

#drewreadsbooks