by Dave Ferguson, Eric Bramlett, Jon Ferguson
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Product Description
Nothing is more dangerous than a single compelling idea that is lived out and nothing is more harmless than lots of little ideas never applied. By creatively communicating one Big Idea every week your church will transform people into genuine Christ followers who live out the mission of Jesus. Less is more!
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Average Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 Get in the middle, 2008-03-08
Unlike most books, the best aspects of the Big Idea are in the middle of the book. Most books share the best material at the beginning, but the Big Idea is strongest in the middle, as they lay out how they work the Big Idea.
Much of what is shared in the first portion is familiar to other books by Andy Stanley and others.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 A Must Read!, 2008-01-16
This is a must read for any pastor who wants the synergy of team leadership. It is full of practical suggestions that will focus your team and help you lead in a relevant way to reach today's generation of seekers. Great read!
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
High Impact, 2007-09-25
The Big Idea is helping our pastoral staff focus. The longer you're in ministry the more you need to focus. This book is really helping our dialog about what we are doing as a church. WE have the why nailed down it is the what and how that gets diluted. Ferguson makes an interesting case for little tuths and big biblical truths that must translate into action - helpful. Dan Boyd
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
Overcome Information Glut & Decision Paralysis at Church, 2007-08-17
I am an information junkie. I read newspapers, magazines, books, and blogs. I watch TV and listen to talk radio. I consider myself a well-informed guy. But being well-informed is not the same thing as being wise or effective. Indeed, too much information can paralyze our ability to make decisions.
Our churches often contribute to this glut of information. The pastor preaches on one topic, Sunday school teachers teach on another, the worship leader sings new songs with multiple verses, and the announcement guy rambles on with the church's upcoming events. No wonder parishioners get stuck in their spiritual lives. They have too much information to act on. They know more than they can do.
In their new book, The Big Idea, Dave Ferguson, Jon Ferguson, and Eric Bramlett tackle the topic of information-glutted, decision-paralyzed churches. They argue that churches should teach one big idea per week, and that this big idea should be reinforced in all the church's venues (worship services, Sunday school classes, and small groups). They demonstrate the multiple benefits of the big-idea approach. And they offer practical guidelines for how to implement this model of ministry in your church based on their own experience.
Do you want to make more and better followers of Jesus Christ? Do you want to see a greater connection between people's faith and works? Then, as The Big Idea's subtitle puts it, "focus the message" so that you can "multiply the impact." Teach your parishioners one thing a week. They can do more with less.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
Great book, truly, I just want the moon, 2007-05-08
This highly practical book on not just preaching, but church-wide discipleship, is written by one of the leading, Biblically conservative churches today in the areas of creative communication, team-based ministry, evangelism and leadership development. Community Christian Church in Chicago is also recognized as one of the top five leading multi-site churches.
The authors make a clear case that most of our churches send anywhere from 30 to 100 messages a week as to what we want our people to respond to in their growth. Our Sunday services, alone, often send 20-50 messages. In The Big Idea, the authors make a case for focusing the message to one Big Idea throughout the entire worship experience for the week and asking for clear response to that one idea in all areas of our church. They convincingly make the case that, in the long term, better discipleship occurs if we can yield a greater application response to the messages being sent--so people are living what they know rather than knowing far more than they live.
Don't be intimidated by the author's success and size of church--they communicate very simply. Along the way they give suggestions for how smaller churches can begin to use some or all of what they share. This is not a book about a program, rather it is a book with lots of practical leadership process steps that can be gleaned from and subsequently contextualize to your own style, leadership and setting. You will quickly note this approach to communicating for discipleship is used by their multi-site mega church as well as church plants.
After reading the first two chapters, I thought this book would make it on my top 10 list of must read leadership skills books for pastors. By the end of the book it was still in my top 25 and probably top 20. While the book is well illustrated throughout, I was left longing for just a few more varied examples. I especially was hoping that the authors would deal more with expositional preaching from the perspective of using that style of preaching to demonstrate good personal spiritual disciplines as a way of modeling. They did a very short, excellent bullet point treatment of ways to approach topical preaching--though this was the primary area I wished for more detailed illustrations of each approach (even if the examples were simply web links to sermons that could be listened to so as to learn more about how to effectively construct each kind of approach). If the authors had more extensively illustrated some of these ideas I would be telling you this is the best book on discipleship and preaching I have ever read. As it stands, it is still a great book that is sure to provide you with helpful ideas you can begin to implement quickly.
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