Morris, Robert. The Blessed Church: The Simple Secret to Growing the Church You Love.Colorado Springs, CO: Waterbrook Press, 2012.
Summary in a Sentence
Morris offers the story of the founding and accelerated growth of Gateway Church, providing a “how” and “why” for healthy, growth-oriented pastors, director boards, and organizational environments.
Elevator Pitch
In an ever-darkening world, the church must shine brighter than ever and must possess greater clarity and relevance. Morris lays out church leadership strategy and purpose in six steps: 1) the Gateway story, 2) the process for developing and expounding a church vision, 3) the character of a lead pastor, 4) the qualities of healthy supporting leadership, 5) the elements of balanced governance, and 6) the values of optimal church culture (xi). In offering the “why” of Gateway’s story, Morris hopes to complement divine vision and instruction given to local church leaders the world over.
Problem, Solution, and Significance
Problem: Churches suffer from lack of vision, unhealthy leadership, inadequate support, poor execution, stagnant growth, contentious governance, and dysfunctional corporate culture.
Solution: Leadership, equipping, and delegation with structure, balance, and healthy culture provide a platform for exponential and sustained growth. Board retreats can help solidify the vision, cohere the team, and solidify a culture of desired values.
Significance: In order for the church to gain influence and relevance as one of the seven social mountains in a post-modern, populist environment, it must clearly understand its function and key performance indicators. The church and its leadership must operate at optimum health.
Personal Application
- Exceptional sermons, skilled and Spirit-filled worship sessions, and extraordinary children’s ministry comprise three elements of a “wow” church experience (40).
- My ministry as an apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, or teacher is a gift from Christ himself. Its purpose is to equip the church to do the work of ministry. While ministry itself is implicit, leadership and eventual delegation of ministry work to equipped saints is the objective (75).
- My first and most important ministry is my family (81).
- The pastor’s three-fold job is to pray, teach the word, and raise up leaders (91).
- My church board may be comprised partly of myself as the pastor, church staff, and non-staff church members and community leaders. We may appeal to an additional apostolic elder board if we so decide (160).
- A corporate culture of generosity, freedom, rest, worship, and community is to be lived, preached, and modeled (167-200).
Quotes
- “If your vision involves growth, your real objective should be health” (30).
- “Frustration is a major precursor and indicator of vision” (34).
- “Feeding sheep well is… key to evangelism. The key to winning our cities consists of healthy, well-fed sheep” (42).
- “Vision can only be articulated by the leader… and can only be accomplished by a team” (47).
- “Feed my lambs, tend my sheep, and feed my sheep… As I finalize a message I’ve prepared, I consciously and intentionally ask myself if I’ve touched all of these bases” (61).
- “As you release leaders, empower them in ministry as you provide a healthy balance of accountability and autonomy… In my experience, most leaders fall into one of three categories: dominators, abdicators, and delegators” (108-109).
- “A vision is received by a person and confirmed and clarified by a group” (138).
- “We spend wisely, save aggressively, and give generously” (174).
- “The church must focus on all generations” (202).
Values Connection
- Ephesians 4:11-12, So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up.[1]
- Exodus 18:13-16, 21, Numbers 11:16-17, I Samuel 12:23, 16;7, Psalm 1:3, Psalm 75:6-7, Psalm 133, Proverbs 29:18, Isaiah 58:13-14, Zechariah 4:10, Habakkuk 2:2, Matthew 5:16, Mark 10:21, John 10:11-13, Acts 20:28, Romans 13:1-2, II Corinthians 10:15, Colossians 1:18, Ephesians 1:22-23, Philippians 4:9, I Timothy 3:5, 5:17, James 4:6, I and Peter 5:2,5.
[1]Unless otherwise noted, all biblical passages are referenced using the New International Version (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011).
David Lockwood 