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Spring 2007: Reading Recommendations
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"What shall I read?"
Wondering what books would most inspire and inform you—and other leaders—as the days lengthen during the spring? Congregational Resource Guide staff ask you to consider these top pics. (Click on the book's title to access the publisher's Web site and ordering information. Or if you prefer, click on "Amazon" at the end of each annotation to order the book from Amazon.)
We at the Alban Institute and the Indianapolis Center for Congregations wish you and yours hope and blessings during this season of renewal.
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Alligators in the Swamp: Power, Ministry, and Leadership
George B. Thompson, Editor. Cleveland, OH: Pilgrim Press, 2005.
The authors in this essay collection contend that, because church leaders barely understand power, they are at risk of abusing it. This book focuses on power and self, power and culture, power and community decision-making, and power and public policy. Editor George Thompson suggests that using power wisely requires discerning the layers of congregational culture—particularly the characteristics and role of a church's deep-seated beliefs. Such beliefs are often hidden in the deepest layer of the culture, just as things are hidden in mud at the bottom of a swamp. Pastors and churches can apply this book to reframing their understanding of power and its responsible use in the church.
Amazon
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Church, Identity, and Change: Theology and Denominational Structures in Unsettled Times
David A. Roozen, James R. Nieman, Editors. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2005.
David Roozen and James Nieman ask how denominational structures are affected in times of change. After reviewing the literature on this topic, they examine eight American denominations (four mainline and four evangelical) in detail, having recruited an interdisciplinary group of scholars to present a historical overview, a sociological case study, and a theological essay for each denomination. The focus is on how denominations can "bear their legacies faithfully and effectively into a changing future" and the intent is to "generate critical but appreciative reflection that provides grounded, comparative, and multidisciplinary insights for both scholars and practitioners who care about how denominations seek to embody God’s work."
Amazon
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Counseling Women: A Narrative, Pastoral Approach
Christie Cozad Neuger, Author. Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress, 2001.
Frustrated with the pastoral counseling approaches learned in seminary and her early residency, Christie Cozad Neuger sought an approach to pastoral counseling that respected the personal and cultural realities of women's lives. From many years of working with women, she developed a four-fold counseling framework that reflected her strongest theological values: "empowerment, justice, grace, and integrity." This framework also reflected her training in narrative counseling—an approach that focuses on the realities we construct through the meanings we give to our experiences, particularly our relational experiences. This book, written from a feminist perspective, will be especially helpful for counselors helping women to gain clarity and make fruitful choices.
Amazon
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A Failure of Nerve:
Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix
Edwin H. Friedman, Author. New York, NY: Seabury Books, 2007.
This book distills wisdom from the late rabbi and therapist, Edwin Friedman, to explain how chronic, systemic anxiety—in families, institutions, and society— operates to derail leadership. Friedman examines five elements of chronic anxiety: reactivity (reacting strongly to events and other people); herding (adapting to the least mature members of a group); blame displacement (focusing on being a victim and failing to take responsibility for one's actions); a quick-fix mentality (seeking symptom relief instead of changing); and lack of well-differentiated leadership (failing to lead with courage). He then shows how the well-defined leader can deflect and lessen anxiety by maintaining a "modifying, non-anxious, and sometimes challenging presence."
Amazon
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Getting to Amen: Eight Strategies for Managing Conflict in the African American Church
Lora-Ellen McKinney, Author. Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press, 2005.
Getting to Amen acknowledges that conflicts have arisen in African American churches as their members have become increasingly diverse. The first section is a primer on managing conflict. The second section applies conflict management strategies to particular issues (including women in leadership, homosexuality, church migration, politics and preaching, and nondenominationalism). The third section invites African American Christians to explore ways of honoring their common history and to make or strengthen partnerships with other African American organizations (both faith-based and secular). Anyone interested in learning how to cultivate more respectful and productive communication around the difficult issues being addressed in African American congregations would benefit from reading this book.
Amazon
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How (Not) to Speak of God: Marks of the Emerging Church
Peter Rollins, Author. Orleans, MA: Paraclete Press, 2006.
Peter Rollins challenges us to examine how we can speak of God in ways that touch the minds and hearts of a new generation, and yet not speak of God in ways that limit God to our own concepts. He argues that the church cannot address God's identity, nor our identity as Christians, as we have in the past. Still, we can learn from past practices. In the process, we can begin to develop a theology of worship that transforms us—through a deep love for God and for each other. Rollins presents both the theory behind his "emerging church" theology and creative liturgies that embody this theology.
Amazon
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Raging with Compassion: Pastoral Responses to the Problem of Evil
John Swinton, Author. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2007.
Congregational leaders frequently face the challenge of responding faithfully to suffering around them, both within and beyond the congregation. John Swinton, a professor of pastoral care, considers the limitations of dealing only intellectually with evil and suffering. What we need, he asserts, is an approach that helps us both resist and transform suffering. This must be done relationally, in community. Swinton proposes a "practical theodicy" within the wider discipline of pastoral theology: careful reflection on the gestures and practices of Christian life which help people live with healing and hope. Those practices include listening to silence, making room for lament, encouraging forgiveness, being discerning and thoughtful, and embodying hospitality.
Amazon
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Saving Miss Oliver's: A Novel
Stephen Davenport, Author. Oakland, CA: H.H. Bonnell, 2006.
Even mediocre schools touch people deeply; great schools join themselves to the hearts of students, parents, teachers, and alumni. Love intensifies their passion for everything the school does, sometimes making the school leader's role enormously challenging. Leaders of colleges, churches, synagogues, and other much-loved institutions will resonate with Fred Kindler's difficulties as he becomes the first male head of a girls' boarding school. He follows a leader whose long tenure led Miss Oliver's to educational excellence and fiscal peril. This novel combines novelistic virtues—convincing characters, artful language, an intriguing plot—with a grasp of organizational dynamics that makes it a rare treat for readers who are also leaders.
Amazon
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Spiritual Leadership in the Small Membership Church
David Canada, Author. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2005.
David Canada believes there are two central signs of spiritual development in small churches: inclusiveness and hospitality. He argues that growth in spiritual leadership involves both individuals and communities of faith, and that it is a process of integrating feeling, knowing, and acting under God’s guidance. Such growth, he says, leads to integrity—as well as to greater inclusion, to reaching out to others. This book explores ways that worship, Bible study, prayer, and acts of mercy can contribute to a small congregation's spiritual growth. It also examines the roadblocks to growth and presents ways to move beyond them. It concludes with strategies for developing welcoming small churches.
Amazon
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Stilling the Storm: Worship and Congregational Leadership in Difficult Times
Kathleen S. Smith, Author. Herndon, VA: The Alban Institute, 2006.
Kathleen Smith asserts that "when congregations go through difficult times, those difficulties will affect the worship life of the congregation, and the practice of worship will itself be a key part of the congregation's healing process." Drawing on extensive research as well as her experience as a pastor, teacher, and administrator, Smith discusses how to provide leadership and worship that address the troubling realities of day-to-day life as well as the difficulties that can arise within the congregation. Stories are used to reveal the impact of crisis, transition, and conflict on worship; to examine the congregation as a living system; and to explore worship as a vehicle for healing.
Amazon
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This House We Build: Lessons for Healthy Synagogues and the People Who Dwell There
Terry Bookman, William Kahn, Authors. Herndon, VA: Alban Institute, 2007.
Rabbi Terry Bookman and psychologist William Hahn offer insights into how synagogues function. Drawing on both organizational systems theory and Jewish values—and employing a number of case studies—they focus especially upon the attitudes and actions that build and maintain congregational vitality. Vital congregations are "healthy houses" that are mission-driven, not market-driven. Such congregations foster healthy congregants committed to building community, healthy clergy committed to leading effectively, and healthy relationships between leaders and followers. This book would be helpful to anyone involved in synagogue leadership—including clergy, professional staff members, and boards. It would also be a useful read for those involved in educating synagogue clergy.
Amazon
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The World to Come: A Novel
Dara Horn, Author. New York NY: W.W. Norton, 2006.
Benjamin Ziskind—a depressed, divorced game-show researcher—recognizes a Chagall sketch while attending a cocktail party at a local museum. Believing the sketch was wrongfully taken from his family, he steals it. From there the novel breaks into a variety of interwoven theological and moral stories that span the 20th century and several continents. Throughout, the "world to come" theme surfaces—referring to both those who have passed before and those who have not yet arrived. Says author Dara Horn: "The already-weres and the not-yets of our world, the mortals and the natals, are bound together somewhere just past where we can see, in a knot of eternal life."
Amazon
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