The Starfish and the Spirit

Unleashing the Leadership Potential of Churches and Organizations

By: Lance Ford, Rob Wegner, Alan Hirsch, Ori Brafman - introduction

Narrated by: Thom Bromhead, Lance Ford, Rob Wegner

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.

Very Complex

Affirming the desire to see movements to Jesus, there is a lot I learned from this book. It is not written in the clear and concise manner of the original Starfish and the Spider book, and should be better understood as religious professionals' experience in moving into a "starfish paradigm" in Kansas City.

The real world examples are from an evangelical pastor's perspective and are not necessarily very helpful for servant-leaders arising out of the harvest.

I did learn a lot, there are some other books referenced I will read, but overall, not necessarily helpful to the masses.

Generally great. Very dense.

Reads like a textbook which means you either have to be 100% locked into the audio (as opposed to doing chores where someone could talk to you) or you just get the physical book. Honestly, I may buy the physical book as soon as possible just to have some highlights. I feel like I need more resources to implement what I learned. Maybe I will find that on the websites mentioned

I found the voice used for Alan Hirsch distracting. It just seemed like it popped up randomly

Fantastic Work

Thought provoking and actionable. Thanks to Rob, Alan, Lance and Brian for your steadfast work.

Be challenged. Be inspired.

These words will challenge you and inspire you to dream up what does Jesus want to do in your own community. It’s a layered book. I’ve read this book twice already and keep dreaming up what Jesus wants to do in my community. Thank you for this gift to the Kingdom.

Excellent content

An excellent resource to stimulate the thinking of those who care deeply for the much needed soul change in those they gather with