The Agile Church: Spirit-Led Innovation in an Uncertain Age

This book was chosen for the vestry at my church to read as the church undergoes very intentional self-study to determine where God is leading them in the future. I am not on the vestry, but I had been sitting in on meetings, so I thought I might as well read the book. I didn't dislike this book, but I didn't exactly like it either. The author, Dwight Zscheile (yeah, you thought of Nietzsche was hard to spell) comes from a background in the tech world and he brings many lessons from Silicon Valley to the church. I found this book uses a lot of different vocabulary for short periods of time throughout, which was hard for me to focus on and remember. This is not a problem in the beginning of the book, but by chapter 4 we are getting terms such as "technical problems," "adaptive challenges," "lean startups," "pivots," "disruptive innovation," "positive deviance," and "holding environment." That's all just in chapter 4. These terms are not how I am used to thinking about things and served as a barrier to me in reading. I am used to reading theology, pastoral care, Bible commentaries, and fiction. This felt foreign and it took a lot of energy to focus in order to understand all of what I was reading.

Aside from this critique, I really like this book. Zscheile is trying to get church leaders (lay and clergy) to think differently about how they lead so that all those in the church (and outside it) can listen and discern where God is taking them and already working among them. This is a book to change how one views the very concept of church-growth. It is inspiring and encouraging. It is encouraging because it takes the burden of growth off of the pastor and the lay leaders and it is inspiring because it resurrects the notion that the Spirit is the one doing the work and it encourages us to look for where the Spirit is already at work.

I like the content, but found the language and terminology cumbersome and prohibitive. At this point I would only use excerpts of this book with lay leadership, although I am curious to know how my church's vestry is reacting to it.