Escape from Church, Inc. calls pastor-leaders away from the business executive model of doing church and back to the model of a caring shepherd who tends his sheep. Wagner offers a practical, biblically sound view of how pastors can become all God intended them to be and guides them into new vision, new values, and a new way of pastoring that begins not with doing, but with seeing and being.
Average Rating: 4 out of 5 stars(4 out of 5 stars)
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5 out of 5 stars
Reviewed by Ed Taylor (Aurora, Colorado), January 26, 2004
E. Glenn Wagner hits a home run with this short volume extolling the biblical virtues of the pastor as shepherd. Jesus did not tell Peter to 'direct' his sheep, but to tend and feed them. Written in simple, easy to understand language, Mr. Wagner draws us back to the biblical model of leadership moving us away from the latest wind of corporate management that has gripped the landscape of the church today. I highly recommend this volume to both pastors and leaders.
2 out of 5 stars
Reviewed by David R. Bess (Charleston, West Virginia), September 01, 2003
As a pastor of twenty years and a student of church health, I was disappointed with this volume. Obviously the author has been burned by the abuse of church growth/health principles, and now swings the pendulum in excess to the opposite direction. He makes a sharp distinction between pastors who use a shepherding model and pastors who use a corporate model. The idea that the two both may be used together apparently never occurs to him.
Wagner hammers again and again on his point that the people of God throughout the Bible are depicted as a diverse flock with the pastor as the shepherd. Each sheep is in need of one-on-one ministry. He is certainly correct, but he omits Paul's analogy of the people of God as one body. Wagner gives no attention here to the corporate (gasp) need of the body, or of the flock as a whole, to receive loving care and nurture.
With all of its shortcomings, I still give this book two points because it provides a good critique of church growth/health principles. It also emphasizes something modern pastors must never forget: according to God's Word, we ARE undershepherds to the great Shepherd, our Lord Jesus Christ.
5 out of 5 stars
Reviewed by Matt (Santiago de Compostela, Galicia), November 09, 2001
If you are are sick of the church that follows the corporate business model and are interested in ministry that takes care of people, then I recommend this book.
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