Little Books of Leadership

In difficult circumstances, conflicts, and life-changing events, we often need inspiration and support to move forward. The root of the word resilience means "to rebound" or "to bounce back," which implies something happened that was out of our control and required us to recover. Drawing from a variety of sources, this Little Book looks at how we learn to recover and how we can lead others to do the same. 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.

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.

Drawing from a variety of sources, this Little Book addresses how we can communicate more effectively, and how we can lead others to do the same. The literal definition of communication is "to make common." It shares a root with words we know well in congregational life: community and communion. At the heart of learning to live in common is the practice of speaking the truth in love: being honest and direct, fostering trust, and learning how to listen. 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.