The book’s style is clearly North American, with its characteristic lists of ‘6 reasons for this,’ and ‘7 solutions to the other’ and its very pragmatic solutions. But if you prefer other styles, do persevere, or you might miss the book’s important lessons!
The authors have discovered and put into practice a series of simple yet profound biblical principles about relationships, collaboration and networks: principles that are transferable across cultures and sectors.
It focuses on the authors’ passions and vision for church planting. But it’s not a stretch to apply the lessons about collaborative networks into other areas of Christian service. They even have a whole chapter dedicated to possible models of networks (including geographic examples).
Given that it’s a very short and simple read, it’s not difficult to apply its principles about collaboration to working together in other contexts such as:
- reaching next generations (childreneverywhere.com and nxtmove.global)
- serving orphans and vulnerable children (worldwithoutorphans.org)
- coming alongside the forcibly displaced (refugeehighway.net)
- protecting the freedom of religion and belief (rlpartnership.org)
How much more might we be able to achieve together in all these areas?
As authors, Dave Ferguson and Patrick O’Connell put it, ‘Networks build the kingdom, not individual castles; and networks build the kingdom by tearing down the walls that divide.’
The authors explain that God is a relational God, so people made in His image are (by definition) designed to be relational beings. They illustrate with a cruel experiment apparently conducted in Germany in the 13th century. They also look at statistics about loneliness in the Northern Hemisphere in the mid-20th century: ‘one study found that loneliness is as bad for your health a smoking fifteen cigarettes a day.’
The church of Christ is one Body. It is not designed to be splintered and divided. As Dave Dummitt puts it, ‘When Jesus comes back, He’s not coming for a harem; He’s coming for His Bride. We are one church – His church.’ Ferguson and O’Connell quote extensively from Jesus heartfelt prayer, recorded in John 17. Meanwhile, they look to Jesus as the antidote to self-centred thinking and the building of personal Empires.
As the authors say, ‘The reason that shocking moral failures occur, large ministries collapse, and movements implode always comes back to this – a leader, leaders or leadership who wake up one day and rather than pointing to Christ, they point to themselves’ (italics added).
Their conviction is that the biggest barrier to collaboration is ego. As they put it, ‘My tendency is to depend on me. My tendency is to give me the credit. That tendency is sin.’
As someone who serves with Christian Daily International and other global initiatives committed to promoting Christian unity, I welcome this strong appeal to effective missional unity. Again, if you aren’t from North America, you may need to lay aside some cultural prejudices and ignore that which is not relevant. As you do that, you will hopefully allow the authors to lead you to the culturally transferrable truths found in Scripture that point to the ways of Jesus.
Together: The Great Collaboration. Dave Ferguson, Patrick O’Connell. Exponential, Paperback. ISBN: 978-1624240478.
