It: How Churches and Leaders Can Get It and Keep It by Craig Groeschel is a fantastic book on leadership and the local church. We’ve all been to churches that have “it” and visited some that clearly didn’t. From the first page of the book to the last I was nodding my head in agreement with LifeChurch.tv’s pastor as he journeyed me through what a church must be and it’s leaders have to become.

He boils down the modern church with all of it’s trappings to come up with a description of what a healthy “it” church looks like. He focuses on walking with God, failures, teamwork and other classic leadership teachings. He profiles maybe a half dozen churches (Granger, NewSpring, etc) that have “it” right now and warned everyone that “it” comes from God and isn’t because of personality or performance. Groeschel borrows from tons of other leadership books and teachings but frames it in such a way that you can intuitively see whether a church gets “it” collectively or not. The best part of the book aren’t specific principles, but in the way Craig details how they do and don’t do those things. Brilliant transparency about the good, the bad and the ugly.

Here’s the challenging part – as you read the book, you’ll throw what he says up against your church. You’ll question whether your church has “it” or not. And I think that’s the point – he is giving a friendly reminder to all churches and church leaders, like yourself, to strive for what God intended the church to be, not what it has become.

Next year, I want you on the “it” list. A

JG