The opening story in the opening chapter about the small business owner teetering on burnout while doing absolutely everything herself makes me think of all the pastors we’ve worked with over the years. Despite the challenge to “equip others to do the work of the ministry,” most of us find ourselves doing all sorts of things to keep the church running. We run around from Sunday to Sunday, from crisis to crisis, responding to the needs of everyone else. It’s exhausting. Like Predictable Success (another title with a similar theme that we’ve covered in the Book Club), this book is a game plan for stepping back. It’s a manual on how to design an organization that can run without you. While all about small businesses, the comparisons are straightforward. In anything, there’s even more at stake for churches. The stakes in ministry are higher than they are for most businesses. We need a church that isn’t dependent on us just for the sake of a vacation (though that’s true) but also so that the church can effectively fulfill its mission.