When Leadership and Spiritual Direction Meet: Stories and Reflections for Congregational Life - Softcover

Stafford, Gil W.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1566994411 ISBN 13: 9781566994415

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2014

Synopsis

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.

About this title

About the Author:

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.

Review:

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)

About this edition

• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 1566994411
• ISBN 13: 9781566994415
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 232