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Summer 2010: Reading Recommendations
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"What shall I read?"
Wondering what books would most inspire and inform you—and other leaders—as you enjoy the summer while planning initiatives for the fall? Congregational Resource Guide staff ask you to consider these top picks. (Click on the book's title to access the publisher's website 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 a summer of rest and renewal.
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The Business of the Church: The Uncomfortable Truth that Faithful Ministry Requires Effective Management (Book)
John W. Wimberly, Jr., Author. Herndon, VA: Alban Institute, 2010.
Ordained clergy often feel that their role is attending to the spiritual and theological growth of congregants. Consequently, they leave the business management of a church to lay leaders. But John Wimberly contends that good stewardship of a church's resources requires a pastor to have sound management skills. He argues that a systemic approach to a church's "inputs" (people, finances, and facilities) will enable a pastor to realize fruitful "outputs" (proclamation, pastoral care, program, and mission). With chapters devoted to each of these inputs, "manager's checklists" offering practical tips, and appendices featuring accounting exercises, this book provides bedrock education in the skills a pastor needs to manage a congregation well.
Amazon
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Everything is God: The Radical Path of Nondual Judaism (Book)
Jay Michaelson, Author. Boston, MA: Trumpeter Books, 2009.
In traditional ideas about God, the Almighty is wholly transcendent, wholly other—a being separate from us who created us, loves us, and judges us as his children. But this concept does not hold for the mystics of many traditions. There is another view, grounded in nondual Judaism, which asserts that "all things, and all of us, are like ripples on a single pond, motes of a single sunbeam, the letters of a single word." Jay Michaelson devotes the first half of this volume to exploring the theory of nonduality. The second half explains what this theory means for us in our day-to-day lives as people of faith.
Amazon
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A Field Guide to U.S. Congregations: Who's Going Where and Why (Second Edition) (Book)
Cynthia Woolever, Deborah Bruce, Authors. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010.
Based on the U.S. Congregational Life Survey, this updated edition of the Field Guide offers new information and insights on the people who worship in congregations across the United States: their ages, levels of education, employment, and theological perspectives, among other factors. It also educates readers on the sizes, staffing, finances, and levels of change in congregations. Throughout the text are interesting "fast facts" (such as that ten percent of regularly attending worshipers are not members of a congregation) and "myth traps" (such as that congregational giving has declined; in fact, it has risen). Appendices examine ten key strengths of U.S. congregations and invite readers to participate in the survey.
Amazon
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God Is Not One:
The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World—and Why Their Differences Matter (Book)
Stephen Prothero, Author. New York, NY: HarperOne, 2010.
As religious violence threatens whole communities, and even nations, the temptation is to search for interreligious dialogue that emphasizes the so–called "common spiritual quest" of all religious traditions. Religion scholar Stephen Prothero warns against such a temptation. He argues that each of the major faith traditions frames our primary religious problem and solution quite differently. For Muslims, the problem is pride and the solution is submission. For Christians, the problem is suffering and the solution is salvation. For Jews, the problem is exile and the solution is returning to God. Until and unless we grasp these real differences, asserts Prothero, true interfaith understanding will elude us.
Amazon
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I Thought My Father Was God: and Other True Tales from NPR's National Story Project (Book)
Paul Auster, Editor. New York, NY: Picador, 2001.
Novelist Paul Auster has brought together some of the most poignant, funny, and compelling stories from his work as editor of the National Story Project, a development of National Public Radio. Coming from musicians, doctors, priests, housewives, a trolley-bus driver, and a prison inmate, these stories are grounded in people's personal experiences and their reflections about them. The subjects vary: animals, objects, families, strangers, war, love, death, and dreams. These short vignettes might serve as props for a sermon or a Sunday school class. However they are used, they offer quick and engaging anecdotes that remind readers of what makes us most unique—and most human.
Amazon
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Made for Goodness: And Why This Makes All the Difference (Book)
Desmond Tutu, Mpho Tutu, Authors. New York, NY: HarperOne, 2010.
Desmond Tutu, joined by his daughter Mpho Tutu, answers those who ask how he has maintained his faith in people despite the oppression he has faced throughout much of his life. As he answers this question, he explores how he sees the world and his role in it, how he sees God, and what are the spiritual practices that sustain him. Key to Tutu's world view is the conviction of our innate goodness. And when we act on that goodness, the quality of all of life is enhanced. We can face suffering, failure, and sin when we keep ever before us the reminder that we are "precious to God."
Amazon
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Photography and the Art of Seeing: A Visual Perception Workshop for Film and Digital Photography (Book)
Freeman Patterson, Author. Toronto, Ontario: Key Porter Books, 2004.
This book is for people who want to observe more closely, see more clearly, and develop their visual imaginations, whether they are photographers or not. Freeman Patterson examines the barriers to seeing: preoccupation with oneself, overexposure to stimuli, and the "labeling that results from familiarity." Featured throughout the book are stunning photographs and insights into what makes them so lovely. (Tombstones in a country church yard, for example, convey warmth and comfort because of the way the sunlight touches them, and the church itself expresses strength and support.) Featured also are exercises to stretch the imagination. Consider this book if you seek to engage your capacities for non-linear, creative thinking.
Amazon
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The Power of a Positive No: Save The Deal, Save The Relationship, and Still Say No (Book)
William Ury, Author. New York, NY: Bantam Dell, 2008.
Negotiation specialist William Ury contends that how we say "no" determines the quality of our lives. All too often we are reluctant to say "no" when we know we should, or we say "no" in ways that damage relationships and impede agreements. People need ways, he argues, to say "no" gracefully. Preparing a positive "no" involves discerning what we are saying "yes" to. This "yes" will empower us to say "no" to what does not support those vital concerns. The author discusses how to deliver the positive "no" to the other party and how to transform the other party's resistance to our "no" into acceptance.
Amazon
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Sacred Strategies: Transforming Synagogues from Functional to Visionary (Book)
Isa Aron, Steven M. Cohen, Lawrence A Hoffman, Ari Y. Kelman, Authors. Herndon, VA: Alban Institute, 2010.
The authors of Sacred Strategies contrast merely functional synagogues with those that are truly visionary. While the functional group tends toward passivity, nonreflective leadership, and resistance to change, the visionary congregation exemplifies sacred purpose, meaningful engagement, a holistic ethos, and a tendency towards innovation, reflective leadership, and participatory culture. The book shows how visionary traits are demonstrated in worship, learning, and community life. It also explains the factors that support visionary transformation and those that hinder it. Chief among the supporting factors is the opportunity for synagogue participants to know they matter—in their connection to their faith, their community, and the larger world.
Amazon
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Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things (Book)
Randy O. Frost, Gail Steketee, Authors. New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010.
Since Jesus first admonished listeners not to "store up for yourselves treasures on earth," clergy in countless communities have preached against hoarding—that habit of collecting and keeping more and more unnecessary "stuff." But serious hoarding may indicate more than a "sinful habit." Hoarders, assert psychology and social work professors Randy Frost and Gail Steketee, often have attention deficit disorder and process information differently than others. They strongly fear losing key information, wasting things that might be valuable later, letting go of items with emotional meaning, or even abandoning a part of their identities. If there are hoarders in your congregation, know that they suffer too. This book can help.
Amazon
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This Odd and Wondrous Calling: The Public and Private Lives of Two Ministers (Book)
Lillian Daniel, Martin B. Copenhaver, Authors. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing, 2009.
Congregational ministers Lillian Daniel and Martin Copenhaver have written a book that examines the beauty and challenge of the pastoral life. We get an up-close view of time spent with a woman in a hospice room and time spent with a committee arguing over chili macs. We discover how the "twin imposters" of praise and criticism can inhibit effective ministry. And we observe "God's presence in the lives of people of faith." Here is a book for those considering a call to ordained ministry, those who want to know what such ministry is like "from the inside," and seasoned ministers who need to remember why they followed their call.
Amazon
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Women Out of Order: Risking Change and Creating Care in a Multicultural World (Book)
Jeanne Stevenson-Moessner, Teresa Snorton, Editors. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2010.
This essay collection by theologians, social scientists, and practitioners—most of them women of color—explores the pastoral care of and by women in light of differences in race, class, ethnic background, sexual orientation, age, experience, and other cultural realities. Essays examine the various ways women can be perceived as being out of sync with stereotypes—and therefore as "out of order" or too complicated to understand. In addition, some essays examine how women risk change, how they care for themselves and each other in a multicultural world, and how they face limits to inclusion. This book offers an insightful resource for those who provide care to marginalized persons.
Amazon
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