Rate this book

Pursuing Gods Will Together (2012)

by Ruth Haley Barton(Favorite Author)

4.25 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

0830835725 (ISBN13: 9780830835720)

languge

English

genre

Science Fiction

publisher

InterVarsity Press

review 1: Even though some people's reviews regard this book as idealistic at best, I think we could all agree that our church leadership meetings are more like corporate meetings (as a general statement.) Too often we lean on our own understanding and intelligence to make decisions. We need a better way!The author states that this a growth process and growth takes time. She even gives a general timeline of incorporating these principles over the course of a year!The closest comparison I can come up with is weight loss (which I struggle with!) perhaps the best advice I've heard is that you can't lose in a month what took you a lifetime to gain.Real change (spiritual, physical, mental) takes place over time. As a youth minister, I confess that I've done my share of wishing to see cha... morenge IMMEDIATELY! Most of the time this is simply not the case.So if you try this book, sit back, relax, take deep breaths and SLOW DOWN.
review 2: This book, with the way of life and the way of leading churches and ministries that it commends, is radically good. I couldn't agree more with the first sentence of Robert Mulholland's endorsement: "This book needs a warning label: `Content may be disruptive to your understanding of Christian life, leadership and community.'"The book is designed to be a guide for groups involved together in leading Christian churches or organizations. Although it could easily take years for a committed group to come to the place of experiencing together some of the things Barton describes, any group with the courage to take on the task of going through this book and facing the issues it describes will quickly taste the goodness of the kind of spiritual leadership in community which it commends. Barton writes not only as a theorist who has worked hard to develop a sound approach to discernment, but also as a practitioner who has ingrained these principles and practices in her own organization and as a guide who has helped many others find their way through them.Two-thirds of the book are dedicated to how individuals who make up a leadership group can become a community that is capable of knowing and doing the will of God together. As Barton emphasizes, it is futile to expect that discernment will genuinely happen in a community of undiscerning individuals, regardless of how sound the process may be. On the other hand, if a group is made up of discerning people, discernment will begin to happen even with very imperfect processes. The final third of the book is dedicated to a process that groups can go through as they face decisions which require discernment and what it would actually be like for them to experience doing God's will together after having discerned it in such intentional ways.Having been involved in leading Christian ministries over the past sixteen years, and having had the privilege of working alongside many wonderful and godly people along the way, my honest reaction to reading this book is both a grieved realization that I have never experienced anything like what it describes (and neither have the large majority of my colleagues) and a deep longing to one day be part of a community dedicated to living together in the ways Barton discusses which would keep us open and available to God, so that when we come together around the common purpose of our shared ministry, we could seek to know and do God's will in such deep trust toward God and one another.For anyone involved in leading any kind of Christian group (perhaps even right down to our families!), I cannot express sufficiently how highly I recommend Pursuing God's Will Together. less

Download links for: Pursuing Gods Will Together

Advertising