The Starfish and the Spirit

Unleashing the Leadership Potential of Churches and Organizations

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

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.

©2020 Ori Brafman, Lance Ford, and Rob Wegner (P)2020 Zondervan

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.

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

Great book

It focus on real discipleship, real and healthy teams and leadership development!! Very recommended for your digital bookcase !!

Handbook for the disciple making disciple

There are times when milestones are set in history that mark new direction. This book seems to be just that… except the direction isn’t new. Instead it is a return to the original ways. Ways that today’s leader has not been trained in or seen modeled. Un-learning the modern top down, CEO style church leadership and a return to decentralized leadership will be essential to the disciple who makes disciples. I will look back on my copy of this book in 20 years and see a dog-eared, underlined, highlighted, handbook of sorts.

no, thank you.

As a huge fan of "The Spider and the Starfish" I held high hopes for "The Starfish and the Spirit" but found it lacked spontaneity and path-changing ideas.

Starfish, not what I expected. Not my favorite at all.

Starfish had some interesting concepts, but overall in my opinion there are more Christ centered Biblical books out there. It just didn’t speak to my heart. So unfortunately I won’t re visit this one.