As a pastor for fifteen years and a Church Growth consultant with the Charles E. Fuller Evangelistic Association for the last ten, Carl George has witnessed and worked with pastors, parishioners, and churches in crisis. He recommends the following selections.
The Making of a Leader by J. Robert Clinton, Navpress, 1988
Clinton’s new book is the most significant application of leadership-development theory to Christian leaders yet written. His background as an electrical engineer and missionary equipped him well to enter his present post as assistant professor of leadership and extension at Fuller Theological Seminary. Clinton shows how crises in the developing leader’s life are to be understood as tests or checks to determine whether the leader has learned the spiritual lessons necessary to be admitted into the next phase of broadening spiritual authority and influence.
The Integrity Crisis by Warren W. Wiersbe, Oliver-Nelson, 1988
Stung by the media scandals of Pearlygate, Wiersbe, general director and Bible teacher on “Back to the Bible” radio ministry, offers a wise essay to help today’s churchmen and women regain their ethical balance. Drawing on the life of Nehemiah, but going far beyond a Bible exposition, Wiersbe offers his correctives to hastily conceived philosophies of life that lead eventually to disaster. This is good preaching and Bible study discussion material, more for preventing than recovering from crisis.
Resolving Church Conflicts by G. Douglas Lewis, Harper & Row, 1981
From his position as a pastoral educator and church consultant, Lewis has seen what happens in church crises. Crises are agonizing for some church people with a theology that forbids conflict as sub-Christian. Lewis summarizes theory and presents actual conflict cases. The two-page summation of principles and styles is worth the price of the book.
Church Fights by Speed Leas and Paul Kittlaus, Westminster, 1973
Writing with clarity, Leas and Kittlaus reduce five years of consultations into a process for understanding and dealing with church conflict. A flow chart suggests use of an outside referee (consultant) but includes options for those who decline such help. The authors prefer to approach conflict as an opportunity for growth rather than as an episode to regret. They give directions for gathering data, looking at interpersonal issues, understanding various outcomes, and even working a simulation game.
Preventing a Church Split by Gene Edwards and Tom Brandon, Christian Books, 1987
One of four books by Edwards on the problem of schism, this title belongs on every pastor’s shelf as surely as Band-Aids belong in the medicine cabinet. Edwards, who pastored and served as an itinerant evangelist, now leads conferences focusing on a deeper spiritual life. His book is a well-illustrated and powerful plea for calling people to a life committed to Christ as the most important way to avoid schism.
An attorney, Tom Brandon, contributes a section on conflict and resolution. He offers advice on prevention, and contrasts how leaders sometimes conduct themselves in a church fight with both supernatural and carnal responses.
Crisis Counseling by H. Norman Wright, Here’s Life, 1985
Wright is well-known for his teaching at Biola University and Talbot Seminary, and his extensive consulting practice and pastoral-training ministry. Starting with biblical principles, he explores crisis intervention, depression, suicide, death, divorce, childhood and adolescence crisis, transition, stress, making referrals, and using Scriptures and prayer in counseling. In the appendixes, Wright addresses legal obligations of counselors and gives a useful crisis-assessment summary.
The Minister as Crisis Counselor (Revised) by David K. Switzer, Abingdon, 1988
This widely read text for ministerial training by a professor of pastoral theology has been updated to include more gender-inclusive language and greater attention to the use of the telephone in crisis intervention. Switzer covers types of crises, general intervention processes, family crisis, grief crisis, divorce crisis, and the suicidal crisis.
Copyright © 1989 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
