Considering the Longview

I had been blogging through parts of The Longview: Lasting Strategies for Rising Leaders.  But then I became distracted from this very good book by a very bad book.  So I’m back with a less extensive review of this very good book by Roger Parrott.

I am not typically fond of books on leadership.  Particularly by Christians.  They tend to avoid the reality of the flesh which makes leading difficult in so many ways.

This is a book I wish was written long ago, for I found I could have used this book about 10 years ago.  I’ve made many of the mistakes he tackles.  I also found some of his advice counter-cultural, and more helpful than what you usually hear.

His basic premise is to lead like you’ll never leave.  This means forsaking leadership by the immediate, short-term focus which leads to a never-ending series of new ministry models.  The short-term success can often set you up for a long-term failure.

As this unfolds throughout the book, he discusses the problem of ego which can undermine a leader.  It does because it shifts vision from God’s purposes to the leader’s agenda, undermines team work and people just don’t like to be near the Big Ego.

One of the more interesting chapters had to do with long-range planning.  Parrott sees this as a sure way to sink your ministry.  After years of leadership he looked back at all the long-range planning he had done.  The results were not worth the energy, and the plans did not even remotely anticipate how their circumstances would change.  He is not against planning, but wants to shift to more reasaonable endeavors than 10 year plans and the like.  His plan is to identify stewardship opportunities (being faithful), operational planning (how we’ll get essential tasks done well), opportunity tracking (taking note of unexpected opportunities).  At times you will indentify an important opportunity which you will then plan to benefit from.

He offers many more important ideas in this book, and uses ordinary illustrations to show us the importance of those ideas.  I may not be a “rising leader” but this  book will stayon my desk to help me stay on track.  So, if you are a young church leader, this is one of the books you’ll want to read.