To be effective, leadership must be humble and strong. The leadership we often see in churches and not-for-profits, as well as in corporations, can be neither. The purpose of this book is to analyze these assertions, then to discuss how those who are preparing to be leaders and those who wish to be more effective leaders can recognize and avoid the pitfalls that lead to weak and arrogant leadership by adopting certain habits of life.

From Haiti mission teams to companion churches in Kenya, congregations everywhere are breaking through walls of difference and engaging in mission that transforms lives around the world, around the corner, and in the pews. And they're not waiting for a national church body to lead the movement. In this stimulating new work, Titus Presler has listened closely to church leaders and activists within and beyond the Anglican fold, and then mined his own rich experience as a scholar, priest and leader in global mission efforts. The result is a book that equips congregations with theological background for building mutual relationships across borders of difference, even as it explores fresh models and practical tools for joining and participating in God's mission.

Unpacking a common, but rarely addressed problem from the theological dimensions of codependency to treatment of the minister and congregation clergy experts Platt and Knudsen cite real-life experiences with clergy addiction and congregations in crisis in this ecumenical approach to recovery.

Chapter 1: The Theological Dimensions of Codependency

Chapter 2: How It All Begins: The Seeds of Codependency in a Congregation

Chapter 3: Symptoms of Codependency in the Congregation

Chapter 4: The Minister and Addiction

Chapter 5: Options for Ending the Codependency

Chapter 6: Treatment and Early Recovery

Chapter 7: Change

Chapter 8: Recovery for the Minister and the Congregation

Chapter 9: The Search Process, or, How They Find Each Other

Appendix"

Churches everywhere are scrambling to get linked with Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. But are they ready for the Digital Reformation: the dramatic global shift in the nature of faith, social consciousness, and relationship that these digital social media have ushered in? Tweet If You Heart Jesus brings the wisdom of ancient and medieval Christianity into conversation with contemporary theories of cultural change and the realities of social media, all to help churches navigate a landscape where faith, leadership, and community have taken on new meanings.

Written from a post-Christendom/emergent worldview, this books was born of a singular question asked in hundreds of ways: "What do we do to be faithful in this changed and changing reality?" Whether shaped by anxiety, a foretaste of coming changes, excitement, or energy at the prospects of witness and service the future holds, the question remains the same and the answers elusive. Part one addresses church functions under categories of governance, modeling, collaboration, champion, catalyst, mission, covenant, disciple, change and leadership. Part two offers further explication of the functions, including books recommended for in-depth study, application ideas, and further exploration of themes."

Practical and theoretical instruction for mainline church planting. The Episcopal Church has recognized that planting new churches is a high priority through the Mission Enterprise Zones initiative, which provides grant funding for new worshiping communities, in partnership with dioceses. While there is significant literature and training available for church planters in evangelical contexts, very little is available for planters in the Episcopal/mainline context. This book addresses how to rise up and train leaders for the difficult task of planting new churches in the twenty-first century. It answers the essential questions, such as why should we plant churches, what models of church planting are most successful, what kinds of leaders are necessary, and what problems can be expected. Through the author's personal experience and interviews with diocesan experts and leaders in mainline denominations, it provides strategies, approaches, and problem-solving techniques.

This collection of true stories is written by Mihee Kim-Kort and Andy Kort, a married clergy couple who met while they were in seminary. They share their unique perspective on the joys and challenges of ministry in alternating segments, forming a collective narrative that illuminates the inner-workings of a clergy marriage, even as it inspires with heartfelt tales of life in ministry. Throughout the book Mihee and Andy relate their respective impressions of shared experiences, revealing inherent differences and potential sources of conflict, but also demonstrating how they work through their differences, communicate, and collaborate to make the most of their strengths. With twenty years of ministry experience between them, a blue Subaru Outback crammed full of child carseats, a tired boxer dog named Ellis, and life experience in three states, Andy and Mihee have struggled with infertility, survived the threat of foreclosure, traveled abroad and led mission trips together, and through it all remain yoked together. This tale of endurance is only made possible by hard work, sympathetic friends, endless conversations, countless cups of coffee and bottles of beer, and the grace of God.

The first year or so of a pastor's tenure in a new congregation is precarious; many pastors stay at a new congregation for fewer than five years. This handbook helps both experienced and new pastors enter a new congregation effectively. Drawing from organizational systems leadership material in religious and secular worlds, it offers nearly 50 tips and tools designed to help new pastors analyze their congregation's system and then to lead leaders within the congregation to affect positive change. Using imagery from Alice in Wonderland to clarify various archetypal roles within the church community, Harris provides concrete suggestions for facilitating communication and dealing with difficult behaviors within the congregation. He provides a coaching approach to ministry, in which the pastor reframes issues and asks provocative questions a powerful strategy to maximize a new pastor s chances for success. Readers will find tools to help them uncover critical information about their new congregation regarding: .congregational norms, particularly regarding the office of pastor, conflict, and holy objects; .their history and sense of God's call; .the true leaders among the congregation; .mutual accountability."

This collection of true stories is written by Mihee Kim-Kort and Andy Kort, a married clergy couple who met while they were in seminary. They share their unique perspective on the joys and challenges of ministry in alternating segments, forming a collective narrative that illuminates the inner-workings of a clergy marriage, even as it inspires with heartfelt tales of life in ministry. Throughout the book Mihee and Andy relate their respective impressions of shared experiences, revealing inherent differences and potential sources of conflict, but also demonstrating how they work through their differences, communicate, and collaborate to make the most of their strengths. With twenty years of ministry experience between them, a blue Subaru Outback crammed full of child carseats, a tired boxer dog named Ellis, and life experience in three states, Andy and Mihee have struggled with infertility, survived the threat of foreclosure, travelled abroad and led mission trips together, and through it all remain yoked together. This tale of endurance is only made possible by hard work, sympathetic friends, endless conversations, countless cups of coffee and bottles of beer, and the grace of God.

The first year or so of a pastor's tenure in a new congregation is precarious; many pastors stay at a new congregation for fewer than five years. This handbook helps both experienced and new pastors enter a new congregation effectively. Drawing from organizational systems leadership material in religious and secular worlds, it offers nearly 50 tips and tools designed to help new pastors analyze their congregation's system and then to lead leaders within the congregation to affect positive change. Using imagery from Alice in Wonderland to clarify various archetypal roles within the church community, Harris provides concrete suggestions for facilitating communication and dealing with difficult behaviors within the congregation. He provides a coaching approach to ministry, in which the pastor reframes issues and asks provocative questions a powerful strategy to maximize a new pastor s chances for success. Readers will find tools to help them uncover critical information about their new congregation regarding: .congregational norms, particularly regarding the office of pastor, conflict, and holy objects; .their history and sense of God's call; .the true leaders among the congregation; .mutual accountability."

The revised and expanded edition includes new information, new teaching resources, and perspectives gained in the last eight years, as well as the General Convention resolutions of 2015. Beyond Business as Usual is full of resources for forming the vestry as a learning community. It deals with the "soft" side of leadership that enables the pastor and vestry together to journey along the leadership path. Each chapter can be read and reviewed at a series of vestry meetings or as part of a vestry retreat, and includes questions for group and individual discussion. The book also contains resources for vestries, based upon different preferred learning styles, for the formation part of the vestry meeting or retreat.

"The first thing to say in our exploration of priesthood is this: priesthood is a fundamental and inescapable part of being human. All human beings, knowingly or not, minister as priests to one another. All of us, knowingly or not, receive priestly ministrations from one another. Unless we begin here, we are not likely to understand the confusions and uncertainties and opportunities we have been encountering in the life of the church itself in recent years. We shall be in danger, in fact, of creating makeshift solutions to half-understood problems, easy answers to misleading questions, temporary bandages for institutions that need to be healed from the ground up." - L. William Countryman There is a lot of tension in churches today about whose ministry is primary-that of the laity or of the clergy. L. William Countryman argues that we can only resolve that problem by seeing that we are all priests simply by virtue of being human and living, as we all do, on the mysterious and uncertain border with the Holy. Living on the Border of the Holy offers a way of understanding the priesthood of the whole people of God and the priesthood of the ordained in complementary ways by showing how both are rooted in the fundamental priestly nature of human life. After an exploration of the ministry of both laity and ordained, Countryman concludes by examining the implications of this view of priesthood for churches and for educating those studying for ordination.

Recent crises have revealed the desperate need for wise, grounded leadership. Too often, leaders have little experience and even less training in how to address crises in a way that strengthens their communities and guides them into the future. Drawing on examples from government, business, health care, non-profits, and the church, this book helps leaders in those sectors in the present crises and beyond. When a pandemic closes down churches, schools, and offices; when protests rage over racist police brutality; when everything you've always done as a leader becomes irrelevant, where can you turn? This book examines leaders who creatively navigated crises, drawing out principles of crisis leadership from them. This series of Little Books of Leadership is designed to foster conversations within congregations around certain principles and practices that nurture community and growth in the ongoing life of the church.

Are you a current or emerging Christian leader who yearns to make a significant long-term difference?
Do you sometimes wonder how to distinguish what is imperative from what is important?
Are you a board member who wants your church or parachurch leadership team to become more intentional and on-target about doing the right things the right way?
"The Leader's SEEcret" is a parable that explores and applies God's Word to today's world of leadership diversions. It delves underneath the surface issues of a leader's or manager's knowledge and skills.
"The Leader's SEEcret" will help you discover, understand, and apply ten core features of one ancient principle. You will understand how to infuse the situations you face as a leader or manager with that timeless reality. And you will learn how you can inspire your staff to do so, too.
Along the way, "The Leader's SEEcret" shows the failure and regret a leader causes when his or her current leadership priorities conflict with lifetime purposes.
This story comes in a concise, get-to-the-point writing style, making it very helpful for individual or group study.
One warning: The principle undergirding LeaderSlip is simple---but not necessarily easy. If you take the challenge, you will become a more effective leader and---perhaps even more crucial---you will protect yourself from eventual failure.

Pastors today are overwhelmed by the perfect storm of too many responsibilities, too few resources, and too rapid congregational, cultural, and technological changes. Many of them confess that the cares of modern ministry have nearly choked the life out of their holy service. Here is a resource for integrated personal and professional transformation and healing for pastors; better equipping them to be effective spiritual leaders for the long haul of professional ministry. We are in a time of great spiritual awakening among Christians, people of other faiths, and self-described spiritual but not religious seekers. Insightful spiritual leadership is needed now more than ever to navigate the waves of pluralism, postmodernism, and globalism. Spiritual leaders need to sharpen their mission, administration, outreach, and preaching skills, but they also need to deepen their commitments to spiritual growth and self-care practices to insure healthy and effective ministry over the long haul.

Over the past ten years, the North American mission field has experienced dramatic changes, which in turn have required congregations, middle judicatories, and denominations to adapt. Among these adaptations is an expectation for clear goals and quantified progress towards those goals. Church leaders who have never needed to measure their goals and progress with metrics may find this change daunting. The use of metrics denominational and middle judicatory dashboards, and the tracking of congregational trends has become an uncomfortable and misunderstood practice in this search for accountability. Doing the Math of Mission offers theory, models, and new tools for using metrics in ministry. This book also shows where metrics and accountability fit into the discernment, goal setting, and strategies of ministry. While there are resources for research on congregations, tools on congregational studies, and books on program evaluation, there is a gap when it comes to actual tools and resources for church leaders. This book is intended to help fill that gap, giving leaders a toolbox they can use in their own setting to clarify their purpose and guide their steps."

The general decline of American mainline Protestant churches today is well documented. Church redevelopment imagining and actualizing new life for dying churches is a productive and vital response to congregational decline, but it can be daunting. Here is guidebook for church leaders, to help them reinvigorate their churches with both practical advice and tested theory. A comprehensive case study of Beneficent Congregational Church, which successfully turned the tide and quadrupled its worship attendance, provides inspiration as well as concrete strategies for church redevelopment. The study indicates that successful and faithful church redevelopment involves a shift from a modern-patronage ministry model to a postmodern-plural ministry model. Building on current church redevelopment literature by bringing selected Biblical and theological texts into conversation with leadership concepts, systems theory, social sciences, and congregational studies, this book creates a multidisciplinary transformative conversation. The result is both strategic proposals for growing your church and a model for doing practical theology in your own ministry context. Dedicated, trained leadership in cooperation with the power of the Spirit can create the possibility of new life in dying congregations."

Newman himself called the Oxford University Sermons, first published in 1843, the best, not the most perfect, book I have done'. He added, I mean there is more to develop in it'. Indeed, the book is a precursor of all his major later works, including especially the Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine and the Grammar of Assent. Dealing with the relationship of faith and reason, the fifteen sermons represent Newman's resolution of the conflict between heart and head that so troubled believers, non-believers, and agnostics of the nineteenth century, Their controversial nature also makes them one of the primary documents of the Oxford Movement. This new edition provides an introduction to the sermons, a definitive text with textual variants, extensive annotation, and appendices containing previously unpublished material.

This vital revised and expanded update to How to Thrive in Associate Staff Ministry (Alban, 2000) provides guidance to the growing population of staff members employed by churches. Churches are expanding their staffs, but the turnover rate remains high, often due to stress, isolation, and conflict on the job. Lawson and Boersma address what it takes to thrive personally, professionally, and relationally within associate staff ministry. Based on updated research and interviews with over 600 veteran associate staff members from many different denominations, Lawson and Boersma describe the priorities, attitudes, and practices that can help associate staff members thrive in their ministry roles. They present, explain, and illustrate a four-part Model for Thriving in Associate Staff Ministry, a concrete framework that readers can use to help achieve satisfaction and balance in their own lives. In addition to addressing those in associate staff roles, the book also includes chapters to help supervising pastors and church boards support their associate staff members. Each chapter includes questions for personal reflection or discussion with others to help readers engage with the material and determine what steps they might take to improve their own experience in associate staff ministry."

According to George Barna, uncovering God's vision for your ministry is not an option. It's essential for the most productive ministry that will accomplish God's goals for building his kingdom. Ministry leaders with a clear picture from God of where they are headed are much more likely to experience a successful journey. In this book, Barna uncovers how God has shared his vision throughout history, how vision is different from mission, common practices and beliefs that inhibit true vision, practical steps toward experiencing and carrying out God's unique vision for them, and ways to share and promote congregational ownership of the vision.

Robert Bellarmine was one of the pillars of post-Reformation Catholicism: he was a celebrated theologian and a highly ranked member of the Congregations of the Inquisition and of the Index, the censor in charge of the Galileo affair. Bellarmine was also one of the most original political theorists of his time, and he participated directly in many of the political conflicts that agitated Europe between the end of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth century.
Stefania Tutino offers the first full-length study of the impact of Bellarmine's theory of the potestas indirecta in early modern Europe. Following the reactions to Bellarmine's theory across national and confessional boundaries, this book explores some of the most crucial political and theological knots in the history of post-Reformation Europe, from the controversy over the Oath of Allegiance to the battle over the Interdetto in Venice. The book sets those political and religious controversies against the background of the theological and institutional developments of the post-Tridentine Catholic Church. By examining the violent and at times surprising controversies originated by Bellarmine's theory, this book challenges some of the traditional assumptions regarding the theological shape of post-Tridentine Catholicism; it offers a fresh perspective on the centrality of the links between confessional affiliation and political allegiance in the development of the modern nation-states; and it contributes to our understanding of the development of 'modern' notions of power and authority.

Arising out of consultations under the auspices of the Centre for the Study of the Christian Church, this book examines the Church of England's decision to ordain women to the priesthood and to make pastoral provision for those opposed. It attempts to discover and define the theological principles underlying both the ordination of women and the determination of the Church to maintain communion when these developments provoke fundamental disagreements. The book also considers the role of the so-called "flying Bishops", set in place by the Episcopal Ministry Act of Synod (1993). All the contributors support, with varying degrees of enthusiasm, the Act of Synod, but they are divided in their view of the ordination of women.

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."

The eleventh-century papal reform transformed western European Church and society and permanently altered the relations of Church and State in the west. The reform was inaugurated by Pope Leo IX (1048-54) and given a controversial change of direction by Pope Gregory VII (1073-85). This book contains the earliest biographies of both popes, presented here for the first time in English translation with detailed commentaries. The biographers of Leo IX were inspired by his universally acknowledged sanctity, whereas the biographers of Gregory VII wrote to defend his reputation against the hostility generated by his reforming methods and his conflict with King Henry IV. Also included is a translation of Book to a Friend, written by Bishop Bonizo of Sutri soon after the death of Gregory VII, as well as an extract from the violently anti-Gregorian polemic of Bishop Benzo of Alba (1085) and the short biography of Leo IX composed in the papal curia in the 1090s by Bishop Bruno of Segni. These fascinating narrative sources bear witness to the startling impact of the papal reform and of the 'Investiture Contest', the conflict of empire and papacy that was one of its consequences. An essential collection of translated texts for students of medieval history. -- .