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The Toxic Congregation: How to Heal the Soul of Your Church
This book offers lifelines for pastors serving toxic and dysfunctional congregations.
A culture of triage engulfs mainstream religion in America. More and more churches are either toxic or dysfunctional. These churches contribute to the chronic decline of membership and burnout of clergy. Such churches cannot be "fixed" by even sincere or competent pastors without listening to God's guidance, insightful diagnosis, healing and conversion, revision, and supportive attention. Pastors did not sign on for this kind of ministry, but growing numbers find themselves in the throes of a life and death struggle for the soul of their church. This book will offer the vision, dynamics, and programming necessary for regenerating impaired congregations.
A culture of triage engulfs mainstream religion in America. More and more churches are either toxic or dysfunctional. These churches contribute to the chronic decline of membership and burnout of clergy. Such churches cannot be "fixed" by even sincere or competent pastors without listening to God's guidance, insightful diagnosis, healing and conversion, revision, and supportive attention. Pastors did not sign on for this kind of ministry, but growing numbers find themselves in the throes of a life and death struggle for the soul of their church. This book will offer the vision, dynamics, and programming necessary for regenerating impaired congregations.
157 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 2007
8 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
September 16, 2007
Excessive use of Newtonian-vs.-Quantum physics!
4 types of churches: toxic (harmful to people), dysfunctional (not working but not killing people either), normal (good), 'paradigmatic' (a 'model' church)
Chapters 1-4 give examples of these 4 types of churches. No great distinction is made between normal and paradigmatic.
Chapter 5: We have 3 agendas that we meet in this order (cannot move on if previous agenda is not met):
a) survival (positive = pleasure, negative = fear)
b) identity (pos. = love, neg. = anger)
c) relationships (pos. = joy, neg. = sadnes)
-- poor chapter on identifying these / inconsistent application and incoherent explanations
Chapter 6: "Instruments of Peace"
- Both suggestions and complaints should follow the same, stated/outlined paradigm (no examples are given, really, other than the suggestion/grievance is written, dated, assigned, and solution written). The author is "surprised" that these don't exist, that a written paradigm doesn't exist for how to listen to someone and take action. This idea would seem to me to stem from boards/pastors who don't listen to people, therein needing a formal system to take in complaints. For a book on the core of conflict, this sure seems like a lame band-aid.
- "The Forgiveness Formula":
a) Hear the Gospel (it's about forgiveness)
b) Accepting Forgiveness (from God, then translate into forgiving myself)
c) Confession
d) Doing Penance (restitution)
e) Pronouncing Absolution ("I forgive you fully.")
f) Reconciliation
- Healing: James 5:13-16
- Membership Vow Renewal
- Prayer Exchange (pray for something until the person bringing the issue is sure of some kind of response from God)
Chapter 7, titled, "self care of pastors," is a long list in a stream-of-conscious presentation of everything he can think of to help pastors stay healthy (diet, exercise, self-awareness, polity,...)
Chapter starts with his obvious conclusions on what happens to pastors in the 4 types mentioned in Chapters 1-4.
A bit of previous book, self-promotion
Chapter 8:
a) Every congregation and parishioner has a soul
b) The elected board is the soul-keeper of the congregation
The author excessively over-works himself to use new, contemporary, physics & medicine language to give weight to his exceptionally weak ideas and points. The language and use of metaphors ironically proves his ignorance, not his learning.
Great title, lame book.
4 types of churches: toxic (harmful to people), dysfunctional (not working but not killing people either), normal (good), 'paradigmatic' (a 'model' church)
Chapters 1-4 give examples of these 4 types of churches. No great distinction is made between normal and paradigmatic.
Chapter 5: We have 3 agendas that we meet in this order (cannot move on if previous agenda is not met):
a) survival (positive = pleasure, negative = fear)
b) identity (pos. = love, neg. = anger)
c) relationships (pos. = joy, neg. = sadnes)
-- poor chapter on identifying these / inconsistent application and incoherent explanations
Chapter 6: "Instruments of Peace"
- Both suggestions and complaints should follow the same, stated/outlined paradigm (no examples are given, really, other than the suggestion/grievance is written, dated, assigned, and solution written). The author is "surprised" that these don't exist, that a written paradigm doesn't exist for how to listen to someone and take action. This idea would seem to me to stem from boards/pastors who don't listen to people, therein needing a formal system to take in complaints. For a book on the core of conflict, this sure seems like a lame band-aid.
- "The Forgiveness Formula":
a) Hear the Gospel (it's about forgiveness)
b) Accepting Forgiveness (from God, then translate into forgiving myself)
c) Confession
d) Doing Penance (restitution)
e) Pronouncing Absolution ("I forgive you fully.")
f) Reconciliation
- Healing: James 5:13-16
- Membership Vow Renewal
- Prayer Exchange (pray for something until the person bringing the issue is sure of some kind of response from God)
Chapter 7, titled, "self care of pastors," is a long list in a stream-of-conscious presentation of everything he can think of to help pastors stay healthy (diet, exercise, self-awareness, polity,...)
Chapter starts with his obvious conclusions on what happens to pastors in the 4 types mentioned in Chapters 1-4.
A bit of previous book, self-promotion
Chapter 8:
a) Every congregation and parishioner has a soul
b) The elected board is the soul-keeper of the congregation
The author excessively over-works himself to use new, contemporary, physics & medicine language to give weight to his exceptionally weak ideas and points. The language and use of metaphors ironically proves his ignorance, not his learning.
Great title, lame book.
April 25, 2015
Not overly practical
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews