Lance Ford

Leaders often bear the weight of the church on their shoulders. But have we made leadership into something it was never meant to be?Most of us are familiar with Atlas, the mythological Greek figure condemned to hold up the heavens. If you have ever been a pastor, no doubt you have felt something similar. Being "the leader" often feels like an overwhelming burden.In an era plagued by the fall of influential pastors, it's time to reconsider our fundamental understanding and application of leadership. The Atlas Factor sheds light on the tragic mistake of replacing the God-ordained headship of Jesus with human-made systems and presents a way to realign the body of Christ with its true Head. Only when we shift leadership onto Jesus' shoulders can we become the beautiful, joyful, Spirit-filled expression of the church God intended us to be.

Imagine an organizational model for church leadership that enables the entire team to unleash their full potential. The joy and vigor coming from a collective strength, intelligence, and skill in the community of leaders not only brings greater potency but better yields for your ministry. What would it be like to see this kind of healthy leadership reproduced into the second, third, and fourth generation, on multiple strands?Leveraging the metaphor Ori Brafman popularized in his NYT best-selling book, The Starfish and the Spider, Rob Wegner, Lance Ford, and Alan Hirsch show:How to take a close look at your church's organizational structure and how to adapt instead of simply adopt a certain kind of structural approach.How churches can function without a rigid central authority, making them nimbler in reacting to external forces.How seeding starfish networks inside today's churches will prepare the church of tomorrow to be agile while maintaining the accountability to be effective.The Starfish and the Spirit is about creating a culture where church leaders view themselves as curators of a community on a mission, not the source of certainty for every question and project. It's about creating a team of humble leaders "in the middle" of the church, not at the top--leaders who naturally reproduce multiple generations of leaders, from the middle out.

When Christ calls people, he invites them on a journey—a journey taken together in community. We have reached a point in history, however, when we think of the church as a fixed place where isolated individuals show up, consume a Christian message, drink some coffee, and get on with their lives. The times demand, and the gospel proclaims, that we recover our identity as a church that is a people on a quest for the kingdom of heaven, formed intimately by a loving God and called onto a long journey for the sake of our neighbors and our world. In The Missional Quest you?ll learn how to take your church on a long run, and how to sustain yourselves and one another along the way, through the power of God for the sake of the world.

The last thing you need is another book on leadership. So how is UnLeader different?Leadership-centric conversations dominate the contemporary evangelical church scene. The largest church leadership conferences each year include talks from corporate business executives and world famous CEOs. We are drilled with the message that if it worked for them it will work for the church.There is one overwhelming problem. Jesus himself is not our first choice when it comes to who we model ourselves after as leaders. Many times the life of Jesus directly contradicts much of what is being imported into the church under the mantra of effective leadership.This book is not about eliminating leadership in the church. UnLeader will help you redefine and recalibrate your view of leadership according to Jesus' life. Renew your ministry, reimagine your path to authentic servant leadership, and discover that the only leaders worthy of being followed in the Church are the ones who are following Christ himself.ReviewsIn a culture obsessed with leadership and leaders, this book turns the pyramid upside down, provoking all Christians to reexamine what the New Testament really has to say about the subject.-Frank Viola, author of Reimagining ChurchUnLeader is a fast, engaging read that makes a compelling case for a different way - a starkly Biblical way - towards leading the church into God's future. -David Fitch, B R Linder Chair of Evangelical Theology, Northern SeminaryAs the church struggles through seizmic shifts, UnLeader unwraps the reality of true God-sized influence. The future of the church and the fate of the world, at least in your neighborhood, are at stake...so read only if you intend to give your life away. -Hugh Halter, author of The Tangible Kingdom and Sacrilege