Overview

Modern church leaders need to cultivate innovative and creative leadership skills, as they navigate today's post-Christian world, and as their congregations look to them for insight and guidance. Gil Stafford takes a fresh look at this vital need, drawing upon his experience as a college coach, university president, and parish priest, and interweaving them with ancient spiritual practices found within the discipline of spiritual direction. Personal anecdotes help the reader envision their own life-transforming pilgrimage, as they develop into the type of adaptive leader that churches need in today's rapidly changing world. This book challenges church leaders to foster sacred safe space, holy listening, silence, and wisdom storytelling, in order to create a discerning church community. These techniques of spiritual direction can be applied to every aspect of the church, from small group studies to conducting parish business. Gradually the leader will be able to delegate some of his responsibilities to the congregation, liberating them to be leaders, and rescuing him from trying to be all things to all people.

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9781566994415

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Reviews

At last! A book about church leadership which is not derived from a business model, but which draws on an explicitly religious one: spiritual direction. This book is a gift for pastors and for congregations that will benefit from wise, creative pastoral leadership informed by it. -- Kay Northcutt, Associate Professor of Preaching and Worship, Phillips Theological Seminary; Pastor, Author of Kindling Desire for God: Preaching as Spiritual Direction It is quite simply refreshing, not to speak of moving, to find a book on church leadership so thoroughly oriented around the spiritual practices that enable the community of faith to be an alternative to the culture in which we live. If you would be glad to live the rest of your life and not hear the word entrepreneur again, if your flesh crawls when church leaders describe themselves as CEOs, if you have 'had it' up to your voice box with people who understand the Christian faith as a business to be conducted in rational, pragmatic ways, you want to read this book. -- Tex Sample Ph.D, Robert B. And Kathleen Rogers Professor Emeritus of Church and Society, Saint Paul School of Theology Kansas City, MO

"At last! A book about church leadership which is not derived from a business model, but which draws on an explicitly religious one: spiritual direction. This book is a gift for pastors and for congregations that will benefit from wise, creative pastoral leadership informed by it. -- Kay Northcutt, Associate Professor of Preaching and Worship, Phillips Theological Seminary; Pastor, Author of ""Kindling Desire for God: Preaching as Spiritual Direction"" It is quite simply refreshing, not to speak of moving, to find a book on church leadership so thoroughly oriented around the spiritual practices that enable the community of faith to be an alternative to the culture in which we live. If you would be glad to live the rest of your life and not hear the word entrepreneur again, if your flesh crawls when church leaders describe themselves as CEOs, if you have 'had it' up to your voice box with people who understand the Christian faith as a business to be conducted in rational, pragmatic ways, you want to read this book. -- Tex Sample Ph.D, Robert B. And Kathleen Rogers Professor Emeritus of Church and Society, Saint Paul School of Theology, Kansas City, MO"

At last! A book about church leadership which is not derived from a business model, but which draws on an explicitly religious one: spiritual direction. This book is a gift for pastors and for congregations that will benefit from wise, creative pastoral leadership informed by it. -- Kay Northcutt, Associate Professor of Preaching and Worship, Phillips Theological Seminary; Pastor, Author of Kindling Desire for God: Preaching as Spiritual Direction It is quite simply refreshing, not to speak of moving, to find a book on church leadership so thoroughly oriented around the spiritual practices that enable the community of faith to be an alternative to the culture in which we live. If you would be glad to live the rest of your life and not hear the word entrepreneur again, if your flesh crawls when church leaders describe themselves as CEOs, if you have 'had it' up to your voice box with people who understand the Christian faith as a business to be conducted in rational, pragmatic ways, you want to read this book. -- Tex Sample Ph.D, Robert B. And Kathleen Rogers Professor Emeritus of Church and Society, Saint Paul School of Theology, Kansas City, MO

Author Information

Gil Stafford is the vicar at St. Augustine's Episcopal Parish, the chaplain for Episcopal Campus Ministries at Arizona State University, Tempe, and a writer for Forward Movement. He once played professional baseball, coached college baseball, and was a university president. Life is a pilgrimage and he has taken many, including walking Ireland coast-to-coast. Gil and his wife Cathy are co-founders of 2Wisdom's Way. Tex Sample is Robert B. and Kathleen Rogers Professor Emeritus of Church and Society at St. Paul School of Theology. He is the author of several books, including Earthly Mysticism.

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