"Sticky Teams" by Larry Osborne

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Larry Osborne, Sticky Teams. Zondervan, 2010. 221 pgs. 

Another blog tour is here, thanks to the good people over at http://engagingchurchblog.com/ for allowing me to be a part of this. 

Sticky Teams is a book on pastoral leadership which covers the three key relationship areas all pastors must deal with: staff, elders, and congregation.  Osborne begins by making a strong case for the importance of unity, and then moves through three sections: Removing roadblocks, getting everyone on the same page, and keeping everyone on the same page.  His focus is not on passing on his particular model for doing church, instead he puts his energy into laying out the principles behind his models. 

This book was excellent.  Osborne's insights are practical, focused, clear, and important.  He offers good, usable, advice for pastors in any position, however the book is clearly focused on the senior pastor's position.  I found his sections on guarding the gate (having very clear expectations of, and guidelines for, your leaders so that you catch problems before it is too late), ministry plumb-lines (the basic principles upon which you operate), and preempting conflict (there were two chapters on this, the main point in each was the same: Once a conflict arises, it is too late to set up your response, everyone is already in a position that they will defend.  Instead, before the conflict comes, make sure you are as clear as you can be). 

Conclusion: 4.5 of 5 stars.  Conditionally recommended (the condition being that you are in leadership in a church).  A very good book.  

Comments

Andrew R said…
Thanks for posting this review, Andrew!
8:51 AM
Larry Baxter said…
I also found the points (repeated in different ways) on dealing with conflict up front to be extremely wise and helpful, even if that can be very hard to do in practice :)
9:04 AM
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