Team Leadership in Christian Ministry

by Kenneth O. Gangel

'Team leadership is the exercise of one's spiritual gifts under the call of God to serve a certain group of people in achieving the goals God has given them toward the end of glorifying Christ. 'How is your church or organization governed? Does it have an authoritarian, top-down administration? Is the ministry vision developed by a few top officials, with little input from staff or volunteers? Today the definition of an effective leader has changed.No longer does the model leader manage like the Lone Ranger - either do it his way or no way.Today the model leader shares responsibility with fellow team leaders and seeks to serve them. In this complete revision of his earlier work, Building Leaders for Church Education, Dr. Gangel carefully lays a biblical foundation for the team leadership model.This leadership is not dogmatic control or personality worship.It has no room for political power plays.Instead, it is Paul gently nurturing young Christians in his epistles.It is Barnabas willingly thrusting others into situations where they develop their own gifts.It is Christ, choosing not one, but twelve men to carry on His ministry.It is servant leadership. With examples, illustrations, and suggestions for further reading at the end of each chapter, Dr. Gangel prods and encourages the reader to move beyond the safety net of autocratic leadership into the rewarding, effective practice of leading with and through others.

Genres: Leadership, Church

488 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 5, 1997

Reviews

[Nick · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had to remind myself several times that this was from a Christian perspective. The author mentions how philosophy and psychology should be added to the Bible to make things work. He liberally uses the pronoun "she" when referring to someone in a position of leadership. He continually seems to forget that the Bible is sufficient, and women in leadership is a harder topic than just normalizing and accepting it. Whole stretches of the book just seem to forget about the Bible, and prayer and the Holy Spirit become afterthoughts. The author knew he needed to mention those things, because that is what Christian authors do, but he doesn't believe in them.

After that, this book would have you spend your entire ministry in meetings getting nothing done. Constant meetings worried over mission statements, vision statements, hierarchy, goals and objectives, and other nonsense that in no way advances the Kingdom of God. If this were a secular book about leadership, it is exactly what I would expect. People more worried about hierarchy, then about God's work, more concerned over keeping people happy than spreading the Gospel.

This was frustrating to read.

[Timothy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a difficult book to read. I think that there were some helpful leadership tips, techniques, and philosophies that I learned which I hadn't considered before. Gangel quotes 105 other books. It's almost like you're reading a synopsis of what other writers have said about leadership. Of the leadership books I've read this one is my least favorite. I think that I would rather read what books he quoted from all the time than reread this book. From a ministry / administration perspective and even just generally I do think that he covered a lot of helpful information, it was just very difficult to plow through it.

[Warren Pace · Rating 4 out of 5]

In depth presentation of Leading ministry. Great reference for pastors and leaders.