Teaching or implementing?

The other day I met up with some pastors and one of them shared that he was working with the book The Purposedriven Church by Rick Warren. But, ha added quickly, what he did was he was preaching through it in the services. I reflected on that afterwards, because I think it's something that we often do, as leaders. We teach things, explain things, share books we have read, or we go to conferences and seminars and hear about stuff. But we don't actually put it to practice.

For example: It's one thing reading The purpose driven church and teach through it, it's something completely different implementing the philosophy of that book, the way of doing things that it describes.

As I reflect more it seems to me that one is the work of a Teacher, an explainer, and the other is the work of a Leader, or perhaps Apostle. Two different approaches, two different personalities. And because in the history of the church we have emphasized Pastors and Teachers, carers and explainers, we find it easier to talk about stuff rather than doing the stuff. We don't actually expect that things will change, even though we might talk about change. A way of doing things like Warrens book describes, or any other way really, requires the whole church to change in a quite profound manner. It's hard work.

But it seems to be that it's work that needs to be done if churches are going to evolve and grow. We're trying to do that now. slowly introducing new ways of thinking, showing them, repeating them a million times, because that's what it takes. We don't use Warrens model, but we have a pretty clear picture what we want to see, and talking about is just one part of the process, practicing it is the key.