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The Big Idea: Focus the MessageMultiply the Impact (Leadership Network Innovation Series) | 
 enlarge | Authors: Dave Ferguson, Eric Bramlett, Jon Ferguson
Publisher: Zondervan
Category: Book
List Price: $16.99
Buy New: $11.55
You Save: $5.44 (32%)
New (33) Used (10) from $5.85
Avg. Customer Rating:  11 reviews
Sales Rank: 49505
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 208
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.3 x 0.7
ISBN: 0310272416
Dewey Decimal Number: 253
EAN: 9780310272410
ASIN: 0310272416
Publication Date: February 1, 2007
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Churches that bombard people with too many "little ideas" can miss the Big Idea. Community Christian Church embraced the Big Idea and everything changed. They decided to avoid the common mistake of bombarding people with so many "little ideas" that they suffered overload. They also recognized that leaders often don't insist that the truth be lived out to accomplish Jesus' mission. Why? Because people's heads are swimming with too many little ideas, far more than they can ever apply.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 6 more reviews...
 Get in the middle March 8, 2008
Unlike most books, the best aspects of the Big Idea are in the middle of the book. Most books share the best material at the beginning, but the Big Idea is strongest in the middle, as they lay out how they work the Big Idea.
Much of what is shared in the first portion is familiar to other books by Andy Stanley and others.
 A Must Read! January 16, 2008
This is a must read for any pastor who wants the synergy of team leadership. It is full of practical suggestions that will focus your team and help you lead in a relevant way to reach today's generation of seekers. Great read!
High Impact September 25, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
The Big Idea is helping our pastoral staff focus. The longer you're in ministry the more you need to focus. This book is really helping our dialog about what we are doing as a church. WE have the why nailed down it is the what and how that gets diluted. Ferguson makes an interesting case for little tuths and big biblical truths that must translate into action - helpful. Dan Boyd
Overcome Information Glut & Decision Paralysis at Church August 17, 2007
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
I am an information junkie. I read newspapers, magazines, books, and blogs. I watch TV and listen to talk radio. I consider myself a well-informed guy. But being well-informed is not the same thing as being wise or effective. Indeed, too much information can paralyze our ability to make decisions.
Our churches often contribute to this glut of information. The pastor preaches on one topic, Sunday school teachers teach on another, the worship leader sings new songs with multiple verses, and the announcement guy rambles on with the church's upcoming events. No wonder parishioners get stuck in their spiritual lives. They have too much information to act on. They know more than they can do.
In their new book, The Big Idea, Dave Ferguson, Jon Ferguson, and Eric Bramlett tackle the topic of information-glutted, decision-paralyzed churches. They argue that churches should teach one big idea per week, and that this big idea should be reinforced in all the church's venues (worship services, Sunday school classes, and small groups). They demonstrate the multiple benefits of the big-idea approach. And they offer practical guidelines for how to implement this model of ministry in your church based on their own experience.
Do you want to make more and better followers of Jesus Christ? Do you want to see a greater connection between people's faith and works? Then, as The Big Idea's subtitle puts it, "focus the message" so that you can "multiply the impact." Teach your parishioners one thing a week. They can do more with less.
Great book, truly, I just want the moon May 8, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This highly practical book on not just preaching, but church-wide discipleship, is written by one of the leading, Biblically conservative churches today in the areas of creative communication, team-based ministry, evangelism and leadership development. Community Christian Church in Chicago is also recognized as one of the top five leading multi-site churches.
The authors make a clear case that most of our churches send anywhere from 30 to 100 messages a week as to what we want our people to respond to in their growth. Our Sunday services, alone, often send 20-50 messages. In The Big Idea, the authors make a case for focusing the message to one Big Idea throughout the entire worship experience for the week and asking for clear response to that one idea in all areas of our church. They convincingly make the case that, in the long term, better discipleship occurs if we can yield a greater application response to the messages being sent--so people are living what they know rather than knowing far more than they live.
Don't be intimidated by the author's success and size of church--they communicate very simply. Along the way they give suggestions for how smaller churches can begin to use some or all of what they share. This is not a book about a program, rather it is a book with lots of practical leadership process steps that can be gleaned from and subsequently contextualize to your own style, leadership and setting. You will quickly note this approach to communicating for discipleship is used by their multi-site mega church as well as church plants.
After reading the first two chapters, I thought this book would make it on my top 10 list of must read leadership skills books for pastors. By the end of the book it was still in my top 25 and probably top 20. While the book is well illustrated throughout, I was left longing for just a few more varied examples. I especially was hoping that the authors would deal more with expositional preaching from the perspective of using that style of preaching to demonstrate good personal spiritual disciplines as a way of modeling. They did a very short, excellent bullet point treatment of ways to approach topical preaching--though this was the primary area I wished for more detailed illustrations of each approach (even if the examples were simply web links to sermons that could be listened to so as to learn more about how to effectively construct each kind of approach). If the authors had more extensively illustrated some of these ideas I would be telling you this is the best book on discipleship and preaching I have ever read. As it stands, it is still a great book that is sure to provide you with helpful ideas you can begin to implement quickly.
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