Each week, the Flourish team would like to recommend resources that will help you on your journey of Church Renewal. While we don’t endorse every single idea from every single resource we are attempting to cultivate a useful resource list for you.
Resource: One Size Doesn’t Fit All, by Gary L. McIntosh Background: Gary McIntosh has shaped a couple of generations of Christian leaders via his books, writings, and teaching at Talbot School of Theology, Biola University. Full disclosure: Flourish Executive Director Matt Bohling is working on his Doctorate under Gary’s mentorship precisely because Gary’s writing have been so helpful to him.
Take-aways: One of the biggest mistakes church leaders make is to underestimate the effect of church size on the ministry of a church. Some readers may be familiar with Tim Keller’s article Leadership and Church Size Dynamics. We like to say at Flourish that One Size… is the grown up version of the Keller article. Of particular note in Gary’s book is the helpful tutelage that is given to a pastor of a small church who came from a medium-sized church. Given that 90 percent of churches are under 200 people and 80 percent are under 100, most pastors are involved in leading small churches. We commonly see those pastors lead in a non-relational manner that is needed in the small church. This makes Gary’s book perhaps one of the best a small church pastor could read.
Source: You can purchase the book in either Kindle or print.
Bonus content: The summary chart from One Size Doesn’t Fit All.
