For five months, our Leadership Board read Patrick Lencioni’s The Advantage together, one section per monthly meeting. This post is for anyone who wants to do the same work in their own church. We made a guide for you.
It’s called Reading Together: A Faith-Grounded Companion for The Advantage. It’s free, and you can download it at the bottom of this post.
What’s Inside
The guide walks alongside Lencioni’s book, so you’ll still want your own copies of The Advantage. Inside, you’ll find:
A case for organizational health as faithful work. The church has done this work for a long time, from Jethro’s advice to Moses to the apostles in Acts 6.
Five chapters that follow the book. Each one has theological framing, suggested scripture to open a meeting, five questions for a board or staff, and notes on leading the conversation.
A reflection for the leader. Each chapter ends with one question for the person leading to sit with before the next meeting.
Help compiling your own playbook. Three tests for your answers to Lencioni’s six questions, and a simple one-page format.
Who It’s For
Pastors leading a board or council through The Advantage can drop the questions and scripture straight into an agenda. Staff teams can take one question a month in 10 to 15 minutes. Lay leaders and board chairs can read it on their own and bring something useful back to the rooms where they serve. It’s written for congregations of any size or tradition, so adapt anything that doesn’t fit.
How to Use It
Read it through once before you plan anything. It’s short enough for one sitting, and you’ll see the whole shape first. Then start with your board, one section a month. Change the questions for your context, replace examples that don’t fit, and add scripture that speaks more clearly in your tradition.
The Story Behind the Guide
When our Leadership Board affirmed this work in April 2026, a guide was only a possibility. As the reading began in May and these Reading Together posts appeared, its shape came into view. The material built up all summer: theological framing for each part of the book, questions written for Board agendas, and what we learned at each meeting. The guide gathers that material and shapes it for use in any church.
One Last Invitation
If you use this guide, we’d love to hear about it. Leave a comment on this post or send a note. Hearing how it travels to other churches helps shape what comes next here: more resources for church leaders, including the next book we read together. If there’s a book you’d want to read alongside us, mention it in the comments.
Thank you for reading with us across these five months.
Click below to download the companion guide.
