Stand Firm, the free book by Jon-Michael Sherman

● Free book · 409 pages

Stand Firm.

By Jon-Michael Sherman

A pastor’s field guide to criticism, conflict and hard conversations. For lead and executive pastors leading in a critical world.

  • Secure the core first: your convictions, your marriage, your board and your team
  • Hard conversations, firing well, NDAs and transitions without disunity
  • A field guide to 50 criticisms, with an online reply and a lobby answer for each

Free. Instant download. We never sell your information.

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The order matters

It’s the inside stuff that kills churches.

Most pastors spend their energy fighting fires on the perimeter while the house burns down behind them. Stand Firm works from the inside out.

Security first

You’ll know what you believe and why, and you’ll stop getting knocked off balance every time someone pushes.

Then unity

A core around you, your spouse, your board, your executive team, your staff, where there’s no daylight.

Then defense

With your house in order, you can defend the flock and answer critics with courageous clarity.

Plus a field guide: fifty of the most common criticisms pastors hear, each with what’s underneath it, what might be fair, a scriptural answer, a paste-ready online reply, and what to say in the lobby.

Inside the book

Security first. Then unity. Then defense.

Eight parts and 54 chapters, each ending with a Stand Firm action list, plus a field guide to the 50 criticisms pastors hear most.

Part 1The Critical World

  1. 1Welcome to the Critical World
  2. 2The Criticism Economy
  3. 3Leaving Purposeful Ambiguity
  4. 4Scandals, Scooby-Doo, and Senior Citizens
  5. 5Theology Informs Polity
  6. 6Raise a Standard

Part 2The Cost of Courage

  1. 7This Is Not the 90s
  2. 8Three Choices: Stand, Compromise, or Deny
  3. 9The Fear of Man vs. the Fear of the Lord
  4. 10The Ways Out
  5. 11Responsible To, Not For
  6. 12Courage Is Contagious
  7. 13The Pen and the Pulpit, Not the Sword

Part 3Secure the Core

  1. 14A Secure Shepherd
  2. 15A Red-Hot Vision
  3. 16No Daylight at Home
  4. 17No Daylight at the Top
  5. 18Hire for Alignment
  6. 19Clarity Early, Not Late
  7. 20Let Them Self-Select
  8. 21The Ordered Path to Unity
  9. 22Don’t Manufacture Disunity
  10. 23The Denominational Decision

Part 4Hard Conversations and Internal Conflict

  1. 24Your Authority Is Borrowed
  2. 25Wise, Fool, or Wolf
  3. 26The Three D’s: Disciple, Discipline, Dismiss
  4. 27The Hard Conversation Framework
  5. 28Lobby Criticism
  6. 29Staff Conflict
  7. 30Divisive People

Part 5Firing Well, NDAs, Ethics, and Transitions

  1. 31Talk About the Last Day on the First Day
  2. 32The New Cause: Misalignment
  3. 33Hire Slow, Fire Fast
  4. 34The Performance Improvement Plan
  5. 35How to Dismiss Someone
  6. 36NDAs: When They’re Right and When They’re Wrong
  7. 37Exit Ethics
  8. 38Telling the Church: Transitions Without Disunity
  9. 39When They Go Public

Part 6Above Reproach: Safeguarding Without Spiritualizing

  1. 40Cover-Up Culture and Honor Culture
  2. 41Four Lanes
  3. 42Recovering Confession
  4. 43Screening Without Losing the Gospel
  5. 44When the Accusation Comes
  6. 45Design for Failure

Part 7External and Digital Defense

  1. 46The Nugget of Gold
  2. 47Know the Schemes
  3. 48The Engagement Spectrum
  4. 49Engage, Ignore, or Answer Once
  5. 50Gracious and Strong
  6. 51Hills Worth Dying On
  7. 52Lose, Low IQ, LARP, or Long Game
  8. 53The Battle for Middle-earth: Pastor vs. Pastor
  9. 54Eyes on the Play

Part 8The Field Guide: 50 Criticisms

  1. 1–5Money
  2. 6–10The Pastor
  3. 11–15Buildings and Size
  4. 16–20Authority and Trust
  5. 21–25Church and Institution
  6. 26–30Theology and Truth
  7. 31–35Culture and Politics
  8. 36–40Sexuality, Gender, and Roles
  9. 41–45Style and Preference
  10. 46–50Staff, Scandal, and Exits

Prefer to watch?

Learn to hear the voice behind the criticism.

Much of Stand Firm draws on Sermons of the Serpent, Jon-Michael’s free course on the sayings people repeat and the isms underneath them. Once you can hear it, you hear it everywhere.

Watch the free course →Also free: Sermons of the Serpent →
Stand Firm, a free book

Free book · 409 pages

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