Look Before You Lead: How to Discern and Shape Your Church Culture Paperback - 2013

From the rear cover

Before you can lead your church, you have to know your church.

Pastoral ministry is challenging work. It is made even more challenging when a pastor ignores the church's "congregational culture" when seeking to minister to members or implement changes. Just as a pastor studies to interpret the Scriptures, he or she must also interpret the local church culture to better understand and move the church toward accomplishing its mission and vision.

In Look Before You Lead, trusted church leadership expert Aubrey Malphurs shows pastors how to read their church's unique local culture, how to change or revitalize it, and even how to combine two cultures when one church adopts another. This unique resource approaches leadership and discernment from a solid, biblical perspective and includes a number of helpful appendixes that are key to reading and understanding the culture.


"Aubrey Malphurs was one of the seminary professors who shaped my thinking in ministry twenty-five years ago. I have read everything he has written. Why? You would have to read two dozen books to get what you get in just one of Aubrey's. He is a master of boiling a big idea down to the essential action steps. He has done it again with Look Before You Lead."--Randy Frazee, author of The Heart of the Story; senior minister of Oak Hills Church

"There's no one better to bring a step-by-step leadership guide to pastors than Aubrey Malphurs. Look Before You Lead sheds practical and biblical light on the subject of church culture, a concept that many writers leave in the dark."--Will Mancini, founder of Auxano; author of Church Unique

"A half century ago, no one in the United States was talking about church culture. Today church culture is a popular, but often misunderstood, concept. In Look Before You Lead, Aubrey Malphurs assists church leaders to define, discover, and design a church culture that wins people to faith in Jesus Christ. Whether you are a church planter, pastor, or consultant, this book will help you develop a spiritually healthy organizational church culture."--Gary L. McIntosh, professor of Christian ministry and leadership, Talbot School of Theology, Biola University; author of There's Hope for Your Church

Aubrey Malphurs (PhD, Dallas Theological Seminary) is professor of pastoral ministries and leadership at Dallas Theological Seminary and president of the Malphurs Group. He engages in church consulting and training and is the author of more than twenty ministry resource books.