Thom Rainer’s “Who Moved My Pulpit?” is a great book for pastors and church members alike. Rainer has built a reputation for knowing how churches move, the latest trends, for solid research and great leadership advice. In this book he tackles the question of how pastors can lead change in their churches, giving an eight stage model for approaching and leading change effectively.

The title of the book comes from an actual story; a pastor once changed the pulpit without giving anyone a heads up … resulting in massive controversy and ultimately taking two years to rebuild ministry momentum after the conflict. I’ll be honest, stories like that are frustrating to read; a part of me is shocked at the things that can become sources of conflict, but at the same time, Rainer does an effective job of using such stories to give extreme examples of how poorly implemented change can incredibly disrupt a church’s ability to ministry.

He describes the different types of church members and how to most effectively guide them through change, how to build a coalition of support, gives guidance on the pace of how change should work, coaches on how to communicate to the church as a whole and ultimately how to implement the change.

Ultimately, Rainer is a change advocate. He writes that “nine out of ten churches in North America are losing ground in the communities in which they are located. They are declining or growing more slowly than their respective communities” (Kindle location 366). He attributes that decline in part to many churches’ inability change with the culture, a result of a far too often inward focus instead of an outward focus.

It’s a great book. Over the last couple years I’ve become a big fan of Rainer’s work. It’s small, so it’s a fast read. It’s definitely a great book for pastors and their leadership to read together as they think through how to lead their churches. Towards that end, he includes discussion questions at the end of each chapter that can be used either by the individual reader to diagnose his/her church, or for the leadership team as they process the information together.