Advanced Strategic Planning: A New Model for Church and Ministry Leaders / Developing a Vision for Ministry in the 21st Century / The Dynamics of Church Leadership

Advanced Strategic Planning: A New Model for Church and Ministry Leaders. By Aubrey Malphurs. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1999, 288 pp., $16.99 paper; Developing a Vision for Ministry in the 21st Century. 2nd ed. By Aubrey Malphurs. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1999, 234 pp., $15.99 paper; The Dynamics of Church Leadership. By Aubrey Malphurs. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1999, 157 pp., $10.99 paper.

The author's trilogy of published works in 1999 was a welcome addition to his growing list of titles written to promote church health. The most comprehensive treatise of these three is Advanced Strategic Planning. Not only is the book user-friendly, but it provides an array of diagrams, discussion questions, inventories, and evaluations to guide church leaders through self-assessment and application of stated principles.

Malphurs organizes the material logically into two parts: the preparation for strategic planning and the process for strategic planning. Part one builds a case for the primacy of strategic thinking and consequent planning. The individual uniqueness of every local church is accentuated. The second part of the book walks the reader through a systematic process to analyze ministry, discover core values, develop a mission, exegete culture, determine a vision, and then to formulate, implement, and evaluate the church's strategy.

Drawing heavily on his own pastoral and consulting experience, the author organizes and outlines his ideas into a step-by-step process any church leader can follow. It is unparalleled among its counterparts in the field of assessment tools for church leaders. The presentation of his storyboarding technique as a creative tool for thinking and acting is alone worth the cost of the book.

The second edition of Developing a Vision for Ministry in the 21st Century is an expanded treatment of chapter seven in Advanced Strategic Planning. While this updated version may be invaluable to a novice, it is too detailed, cumbersome, and repetitive for veteran church leaders. Stylistically, the author's propensity is to emphasize application. Therefore every chapter concludes with a worksheet or series of questions for reflection and discussion.

Organizationally, Malphurs maps out a detailed plan for adopting vision. Chapters define vision and elevate its importance, identify the personnel and process for giving birth to vision, and give counsel on communicating vision to the constituency. Implementation and preservation of the vision are given equal attention. In his treatment of developing vision, Malphurs's orientation is broad enough to cross boundaries between church and para-church ministries. Illustrations are drawn from Scripture and the marketplace. Timeless principles from the Book of Nehemiah are scattered throughout. Of particular value are two appendixes. Appendix A provides a visionary audit for individuals engaged in developing a vision. Interpretation of the data groups respondents as practical realists or more intuitive people. Appendix B is a collection of nine sample vision statements from individuals and churches.

One of the book's greatest strengths-its graphic detail-may also be its greatest weakness. At times the content seems redundant and too repetitious. This may be a disservice. Developing vision may appear to be a daunting task, overwhelming the reader and putting the whole valuable process at risk. Regardless, the author places an inordinate measure of responsibility on a single ministry leader in the organization as the point person who gives birth to the vision. In a local church context, this seems unrealistic in light of pastoral transitions that occur every three to four years. If the reader embraces the author's view on this point, then it seems reasonable to expect a church to be in a state of constant confusion as the vision changes with each new pastor.

The third published profile in this review is The Dynamics of Church Leadership. This book is one of several works in Baker's series Ministry Dynamics for a New Century, edited by Warren Wiersbe. Its style is distinctively different from the first two titles already discussed.

The entire volume is framed in a hypothetical conversation between a new pastor serving his fourth pastorate in nine years and a more experienced pastor who has weathered storms in the same church for twenty years. As the plot unfolds, the older pastor has been paired with the younger one through a teaching church network to foster a mentoring relationship. Frankly, the novelistic nature of this style becomes wearisome, but a few nuggets can be mined if one perseveres. It is yet another discussion on the critical nature of core values, mission, vision, and strategy. He repackages most of the same material found in Advanced Strategic Planning in a different format. Of particular value to church leaders is an excellent synopsis of the three primary dimensions of the church (chap. 4): the church as cause, corporation, and community. Each dimension is then compared and contrasted using a grid of Biblical metaphors, the Biblical emphasis, its focus, the role of Christ, the role of the pastor, the role of the people, the primary emotion, and the condition of the church in its absence.