book review

Leading Change in the Church

July 19, 2016 By Daniel Im

One of my favorite things to do is to help churches create alignment and momentum within their staff and leadership to move their church towards multiplication. In order to do just that, change needs to happen. There’s no other way around it.

Unfortunately, most pastors and leaders struggle with change management. This is because many forget to think through who all and what all is going to be affected by this change. As a result, people are overlooked, feelings get hurt, and easy wins are lost. Inevitably this results in unnecessary conflict that could have and should have been avoided.

Your mighty plans for change are then lost in the mire of relational trouble and politics. Nothing changes. Your church stays on the same course. And the next time you try to change something, you experience even more opposition and skepticism than ever before.

If only there were an easy step-by-step process to guide people through leading and managing change in the church.

Leading Change

John Kotter’s 8-Step Process outlined in Leading Change has heavily influenced the way that I process, think through, and lead change. I’ve implemented his 8-steps through precarious times and important shifts in churches, like when I helped my previous church make the shift to becoming more missional.

Here are his 8-steps, as now updated in his recent book, Accelerate:

Step 1: Create a Sense of Urgency
Step 2: Build a Guiding Coalition
Step 3: Form a Strategic Vision and Initiatives
Step 4: Enlist a Volunteer Army
Step 5: Enable Action by Removing Barriers
Step 6: Generate Short-Term Wins
Step 7: Sustain Acceleration
Step 8: Institute Change

Leading Change in the Church

These 8-steps are a proven system for change management and they can certainly be contextualized for use in the church, which I’ve personally done, but it’s definitely not a perfect fit.

Book Review and Best Quotes: Habits for Our Holiness by Philip Nation

April 21, 2016 By Daniel Im

“The spiritual disciplines can help you, but they cannot save you.”

I love books written on the spiritual disciplines because I understand that my relationship with God is the plumb line to everything in my life. If I’m not regularly spending time with God in prayer, reading Scripture, and engaging in the other disciplines, my compass gets skewed and there’s fall out everywhere else.

Here’s the problem though: most books on spiritual disciplines lack one thing.

That one thing isn’t great stories, solid theology, innovative ways to practice the disciplines, or motivation. That one thing is how the disciplines connect to mission.

In Habits for Our Holiness, my friend and co-teaching pastor, Philip Nation, addresses what’s been lacking in most books on spiritual disciplines in a readable, yet comprehensive way. It’s precisely this,

Discipline leads to mission.

Book Review: Spiritual Leadership by J. Oswald Sanders

February 23, 2016 By Daniel Im

Spiritual Leadership , with an emphasis on the word spiritual, is definitely an accurate description for J. Oswald Sanders’ book. He covers popular leadership principles, such as, time management and the importance of developing our talents, but the majority of his points and illustrations are all in reference to spiritual leadership.

Sanders introduces each chapter with a scriptural reference, by which he uses to ground his ideas within the chapter, but much of his explanation is rooted in his wealth of experience and/or the experience of other notable figures, such as Charles Spurgeon, A.B. Simpson, A.W. Tozer, and J. Hudson Taylor. Sanders believes that all Christians are leaders and that we should all develop our leadership potential.

Central to this book is the belief that God is the one who calls forth leaders in the church and then subsequently anoints them.

Spiritual leadership is a matter of being chosen, rather than choosing. Spiritual leadership is all about being last, rather than first. A spiritual leader is one that imitates Christ Jesus–the greatest spiritual leader of all. As important as it is for a leader to listen, lead, articulate, and inspire well, what takes precedence over any method or skill is one’s connection to the vine–Jesus Christ.

H3 Leadership: 5 Questions with Brad Lomenick

October 24, 2015 By Daniel Im

Recently, my friend Brad Lomenick, who formerly led Catalyst as the president and lead visionary, released his second book – H3 Leadership: Be Humble, Stay Hungry, Always Hustle.

Here’s a Q&A interview that I did with him to learn more about his book.

1. What are the 10 Keys to H3 Leadership?

It’s a habits book
20 chapters, 20 habits- the 20 habits all great leaders have in common
H3- Be Humble, Stay Hungry, Always Hustle
Humble, Hungry, Hustle is my own personal leadership mantra
Book is Based on my own failures and learnings
All birthed from a leadership crisis – walking away from Catalyst, turning 40, leadership was stale, and needed a reboot
Incorporates thoughts from other thought leaders
Short chapters with easy to implement action steps
Practical and application driven- dirt under the fingernails book
Leadership is hard, so leadership must be habitual

2. What is your goal with the book?

My hope is that H3 Leadership will serve as a leadership habits “manifesto.” As soon as you create habits, you’ll see these principles start to show up in your leadership on a day-to-day basis. It’s one thing to talk about it and know about it, but it’s another thing to put a process in place and go do it- which is H3 Leadership. One must be intentional to see something change. This is a process book.

How To Choose A Children’s Bible

July 28, 2015 By Daniel Im

Children's Bible

Being a father of three children and a pastor, I take my children’s spiritual life seriously. After all, Proverbs 22:6 says, “Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.” As important as it is to be a part of a church that has a good children’s program, I cannot fully rely on the church to cultivate my children’s spiritual life. It’s first and foremost my responsibility.

In fact, when you look at Joshua 1:8 and Deut 6:4-9, you discover the critical connection between Bible reading and a child’s spiritual life.

Joshua 1:8 – This book of instruction must not depart from your mouth; you are to recite it day and night so that you may carefully observe everything written in it. For then you will prosper and succeed in whatever you do

Deut 6:4-9 – Listen, Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is One. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. These words that I am giving you today are to be in your heart. Repeat them to your children. Talk about them when you sit in your house and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Bind them as a sign on your hand and let them be a symbol on your forehead. Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

So my hope, through this post, is to help you navigate through the plethora of children’s Bibles out there. Now obviously, this isn’t all there is, but I do believe that this is a good sampling.

When you look at the image above, I’ve plotted the Bibles according to their difficulty/maturity level and the level of engagement that my children displayed when I read it to them. As a father and a pastor, a good children’s Bible does not only have to be theologically accurate, but it also must convey the Scriptures in an engaging manner at the right maturity level.

So here are my reviews:

book review

Leading Change

Leading Change in the Church

“The spiritual disciplines can help you, but they cannot save you.”

Here’s the problem though: most books on spiritual disciplines lack one thing.

Discipline leads to mission.

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