The Big Idea: Aligning the Ministries of Your Church through Creative Collaboration (Leadership Network Innovation Series)

This highly practical book on not just preaching, but church-wide discipleship, is written by one of the leading, Biblically conservative churches today in the areas of creative communication, team-based ministry, evangelism and leadership development. Community Christian Church in Chicago is also recognized as one of the top five leading multi-site churches.The authors make a clear case that most of our churches send anywhere from 30 to 100 messages a week as to what we want our people to respond to in their growth. Our Sunday services, alone, often send 20-50 messages. In The Big Idea, the authors make a case for focusing the message to one Big Idea throughout the entire worship experience for the week and asking for clear response to that one idea in all areas of our church. They convincingly make the case that, in the long term, better discipleship occurs if we can yield a greater application response to the messages being sent--so people are living what they know rather than knowing far more than they live.Don't be intimidated by the author's success and size of church--they communicate very simply. Along the way they give suggestions for how smaller churches can begin to use some or all of what they share. This is not a book about a program, rather it is a book with lots of practical leadership process steps that can be gleaned from and subsequently contextualize to your own style, leadership and setting. You will quickly note this approach to communicating for discipleship is used by their multi-site mega church as well as church plants.After reading the first two chapters, I thought this book would make it on my top 10 list of must read leadership skills books for pastors. By the end of the book it was still in my top 25 and probably top 20. While the book is well illustrated throughout, I was left longing for just a few more varied examples. I especially was hoping that the authors would deal more with expositional preaching from the perspective of using that style of preaching to demonstrate good personal spiritual disciplines as a way of modeling. They did a very short, excellent bullet point treatment of ways to approach topical preaching--though this was the primary area I wished for more detailed illustrations of each approach (even if the examples were simply web links to sermons that could be listened to so as to learn more about how to effectively construct each kind of approach). If the authors had more extensively illustrated some of these ideas I would be telling you this is the best book on discipleship and preaching I have ever read. As it stands, it is still a great book that is sure to provide you with helpful ideas you can begin to implement quickly.

The thought of have having every one on the "same page" has been a value in church for years. But not until I read this book have I seen a church actually get everyone and everything on the same page.... literally. Every service, small group, satellite location, office cubicle, and purpose for the church comes from the BIG idea. This process is freeing and invigorating! Why hasn't this been done before! Instead of various areas of the church competing for resources and splitting the congregations attention is so many directions and thoughts (with limited lasting effect I might add), this church works in step with God and each other to make maximum impact and ultimate "stickiness". I love it!Regardless of how it may look in your setting, I highly recommend this book to get your creative juices flowing!

This is one of the most dangerous books I've read in relation to church leadership. People who like this book are not analytical thinkers. If the book says that the problem with church growth today is that people have too many ideas floating around in their lives, that deoesn't make it true. The book warns about all the "competing little ideas" families get "bombarded" with at church. The ideas are NOT COMPETING! They are harmonious! The authors claim that since divorce and other statistics are the same for Christians as non-Christians, we need to do away with the title "Christian" and change it to "Christ followers". What is needed is a differentiation between committed Chistians and those who call themselves Christians while not letting it effect their lifestyles. What is needed are churches that are willing to call sin sin and not water down the Gospel. What is NOT needed is to weaken the teachings of the church by trying to stick to just one idea a month for all departments. The authors think that's all people can handle, even though God gave 10 Commandments, Jesus Taught 8 beattitudes and Paul lists 8 gifts of the Spirit.You can pick through some of the practical helps in the last half of the book and find some good administrative suggestions. It's kind of like "dumpster diving" though. There might be something you want, but you have so sift through a lot of garbage to find it, and then it is probably contaminated by its emergent church poison. This book seems harmless to many, but it is a wolf in sheeps clothing.

The book offers a wonderful concept on creating a "Big Idea" that envelops your entire worship experience. Book does need some editing, but an excellent read . I highly recommend the book for churches wishing to impact their congregation.

I enjoyed the reading, but I do not agree with Dave on many issues. I liked the "Big Idea" concept for a church, it would help to keep focus. But one problem I had with him saying that I should stop calling myself a Christian and instead call myself a follower of Jesus. I am both, but saying that I am a Christian says who I am, not what I am. I agree that over the last 50 years the name "Christian" has become to mean a self-righteous, bigot, intolerant, and loud person. But so are some Americans, but that doesn't mean they are less an American. It's who they are.

Love The Big Idea! The concept makes sense, and I’ve seen pieces of it at work over the last ten years of ministry, but never all together like this. If you’re not a big church with a big staff (or any staff) thats okay, the section on implementation helps.

Would certainly streamline matters to implement this. The book belabors the point it makes...but overall I would say it is very good.

Helps you get a bigger perspective, and shows you how it can be done