Book Review: Beyond Business as Usual

17 Sep 2009

Rev. Michell has written a very useful and practical book to aid clergy develop vestry leadership based on his many years of involvement with them. Most resources for clergy and vestries deal only with the business end of things, what the denominational and diocesan canons and local by-laws require, how to conduct a meeting, and so on. However, this book concentrates on vestry leadership and how the clergy serves as a teacher to help form his or her vestry into a learning community.

Based on his failures and successes, he writes this book to help others avoid some mistakes and become effective in leading churches to expand their work in their communities. One of the things that I find helpful is that it aids clergy and vestry members to change from simply taking care of the business affairs of the congregation to becoming missional in their orientation. He states that, “The path to being a missional congregation runs through becoming a learning community.”

This simple book is written in two parts, the first part explains his thesis to move vestries away from a maintenance mindset to that of the vestry becoming a learning community that will be receptive to change. Each chapter ends with questions for group reflection. The second part of the book is a series of lessons, interactive learning, and discussions that can be adapted and used to help shape vestries into learning communities.

WORDS: GERARD JACOBS