Know Your Story and Lead With It:
The Power of Narrative in Clergy Leadership
by Richard L. Hester and Kelli Walker-Jones
Published by The Alban Institute
God's great story is woven with divine care in our own stories. The wisdom in this book will help you mine your story and lead with it. Gather wisdom from the cutting floor of your memory. Explore the spaces between memory and the telling of it. Celebrate what you discover. Nurture your community into the rich life of curiosity and not-yet-knowing
I commended this book to clergy in the fall district teaching days as we focused together on extravagant generosity. It is a helpful for pastors, laity, classes and groups as we discern how God continues to teach us through the journeys we are taking through this life.
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Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life by Richard Rohr Published by Jossey-Bass
A number of you commended this book to me. I am reading it again, even more slowly this time, wanting to absorb its wisdom.
Richard Rohr describes two halves of our lives: in the first we are creating a container or identity, and in the second we are finding the content that the container is intended to hold. In "first-half-of-life" culture, we are invited to move with intentionality into the encounter with our deepest selves as we have been created by God.
The image is deeply Biblical, often expressed in the words of Jesus: we move up by moving down. Or the way down is the way up! This is the heart of the second half of life. We do not go this way easily. Our failures, illnesses, frustrations are often the door to the riches of the second half of life.
This is a book that names spiritual mystery while grounding us in Biblical truth. It will help us live wisely and well into the second half of life, no matter what our numerical age. |
