Book Review: Church Is A Team Sport

Jim Putman was a college wrestler who became a church planter. This book is a great read for any pastor/church planter who comes from an athletic background. The sports analogies Jim uses are really applicable to what we see in churches every weekend.

For me, the one big takeaway from this book has to do with changing the score cards. In sports, score cards and stat sheets will tell you the story behind the game. They will tell you a whole lot more than what the final score was of the game. Too often, churches look only at weekend attendance numbers to determine whether or not the church team is "winning" the game. However, the score cards go a lot deeper. Score cards look at people's involvement in a church's small group system. Change the score cards to notice when a sheep is missing from the flock. Change the score cards to make relationships and group community a priority to everything that happens at the church.

This is what it means when Putman calls church a team sport. Every person is valuable, and every person has a role. A pastor is a coach for his team. This is big, because a coach knows and understands the strengths and weaknesses of his players. He also learns how to get the best out of his team, and takes time to develop the weaker players for the future. A great coach is in it for the long haul. So is a great pastor.

I highly recommend this book for any church pastor, small group facilitator, or really a leader of any sort.