In the tradition of Jim Collins' business classic, "Good to Great," Dr. Thom S. Rainer set out to determine the x-factor that allowed a select few churches to become great while the majority remain mediocre or die altogether. Rainer, who is dean of the Billy Graham School of Missions, Evangelism and Church Growth at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, has been researching churches for 15 years and has authored or co-authored 15 books on church health and growth. His latest book is like none other before it: "Breakout Churches: Discover How to Make the Leap," Zondervan; 2004; $21.08.
"None of the work I have done in this area has impacted me like this project," Rainer wrote. The book could also have been titled, "Heartbreaking Churches," since Rainer's arduous research revealed only 13 churches that made the leap to greatness. But he notes that his criteria were strict and unique in disqualifying churches that hired new pastors in order to breakout.
Rainer knew when he undertook his research for "Breakout Churches" that the typical solution to stagnant churches is to replace the pastor. So he looked instead to churches that had broken out under the leadership of the same pastor.
Even so, what he found in data collected from more than 50,000 U.S. churches was that change that brought dying churches back to life remained a change in the senior pastor  not a staffing change, but a spiritual change.
"We sought stories of changed leadership values rather than stories of changing leaders," Rainer wrote. The process of moving a church from mediocrity to greatness "included more than the transformation of a church; it also included the transformation of a leader." Rainer outlined this transformation in detail.
Rainer wrote that leadership failure is one of the primary reasons 8 of 10 American churches are declining. His research indicated that perseverance in leadership was the most important quality distinguishing churches that made the leap.
"The breakout church leaders had no fewer conflicts; they decided to persevere despite the pain and struggles," Rainer wrote. Careful not to prescribe, but only to summarize his findings, Rainer wrote that breakout church leaders were Christ-like in spirit, committed to their church for an average 21 years and determined to love even the unlovable among their congregation. They held biblical values in preaching and teaching, and looked beyond the church walls to focus on a hurting world.
Rainer noted many other marks of a breakout church. But it was his focus on leadership that made his research particularly important for church leaders. "Breakout Churches" speaks to struggling pastors, to the burned out, the broken down, the disheartened and the depressed. But it doesn't give them a message of hope as much as it gives them a shovel with which to dig their way out of the hole of complacency or conflict avoidance that is holding their churches back.
The book includes a Breakout Church Readiness Inventory for leaders to assess the health of their own churches and stories of the 13 breakout churches. They are as different as the denominations and ethnicities represented in what Rainer claims is an unbiased statistical sampling of churches, based on Breakout criteria. What they have in common is that they represent the Kingdom possibilities for any church that commits to greatness.
"It is a sin to be good if God has called you to be great," Rainer wrote.
