It’s beginning to feel a lot like Spring. The sun is staying with us a bit longer each day. We can begin to see renewal and new life blooming all around us but what about inside of us. Spring can be an opportunity to start something new, begin new habits, grow in an area of your life that feels stagnated.
One of the best ways for a leader to grow is through working through a book to gain more knowledge and wisdom about personal development, leadership, team building, or strategic thinking. One of the things I love about reading for growth is that I get to spend hours with someone who has gone before me, identified issues, and experienced transformation. Much like coaching, reading helps speed up the learning curve.
With this in mind, I want to share with you 7 Books Every Church Leader Should Read This Spring:
- Emotionally Healthy Spirituality by Pete Scazzero
Scazzero shares from his personal experiences how surface level living almost derailed his personal life and professional ministry. Only when a leader gets emotionally mature can they lead with spiritual maturity. If I were to choose one book to start with this Spring, it would be this one. Scazzero identifies 7 Pathways of Emotional Healthy Spirituality that hae the potential to transform your life and leadership… if you are willing to get below the surface.
“A lack of emotional health in the early years of my ministry almost cost me everything—my marriage, my family, my work, and my own well-being. I am thankful to God for his mercy. This mercy enabled me not only to survive but to enjoy a richness and joy in the Christian life that I had given up believing was possible. If you are hungry for God to transform you as well as those around you, I invite you to continue reading.”
2. A Tale of Three Kings by Gene Edwards
In this retelling of the lives of Saul and David – the first two kings of Israel – the question becomes: What kind of leader will you be? Will you rely on title, external power, or your own will? Will you become bitter and seek revenge on those who hurt you? Will you submit in humility and wait on the Lord or will you take any and every opportunity to take what is rightfully yours? I promise you… this book is not about the people around you. A Tale of Three Kings is written for you. If you have enough courage, it will help you reveal areas of your life and leadership that are hidden in the shadows. It will speak to your hurts and disappointments. It will make space for you to wrestle with your place in God’s Story.
“I believe we will find the story to be in two parts. In part 1 we shall meet an older king, Saul by name, and a young shepherd boy named David. In part 2 we shall once more meet an older king and a young man. But this time the older king is David and the young man is Absalom. The story is a portrait (you might prefer to call it a rough charcoal sketch) of submission and authority within the kingdom of God. Ah, they have turned off the lights, and the players have taken their places. The audience has quieted itself. The curtain is rising. Our story has begun.”
3. A Failure of Nerve by Edwin Friedman
When I first read A Failure of Nerve, it was though every light in my house turned on at once. I could suddenly see why I reacted the way I did in certain situations. It help me understand why other leaders made certain decisions or acted in a particular way in leadership situations. Friedman takes concepts first identified in Bowen Family Systems and applies them to the larger world in organizations, churches, synagogs, and politics. Chronic Anxiety – disproportionate emotional reactivity – will derail your own thought processes, your team, and your organization. Learning how to be differentiated (separate yet connected) and becoming a non-anxious presence (emotionally regulated) have been game-changers for me both personally and professionally.
“The five aspects of chronic anxiety are reactivity, herding, blaming, a quick-fix mentality, and lack of leadership—the last not only a fifth characteristic of societal regression but one that stems from and contributes to the other four. Each of these perverts natural principles of evolution, namely, self-regulation, adaptation to strength, the response to challenge, and allowing time for processes to mature.”
4. Boundaries for Leaders by Dr Henry Cloud
I’m actually re-reading this book this Spring because of the season I am in right now. Too often, leaders become discouraged when they are facing challenges from every direction. The best way to reign in the chaos is to take personal responsibility on that which you can control. Cloud reminds leaders that they are ridiculously in control of the boundaries they set forth for their team or organziation – expectations, attitude, example, etc.
“You may be beginning to lead something new, or you may be focusing on turning something around and making it better. A leader’s clear boundaries are often what an organization is waiting for, and when it happens, it can create the most valuable company in the world. When a leader steps up and leads, and sets boundaries that provide clarity that cuts through the noise, it is a new day.”
5. Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership by Ruth Haley Barton
What good is it to gain the world of leadership tips and tricks and lose your soul along the way? Ruth Haley Barton, using the life and leadership of Moses, goes beyond developing skills for leadership and invites us to develop our souls. I’ve always identified with Moses. We were both adopted. Moses had the tendency to lose his temper and lash out in anger. He overfunctioned as a leader until he nearly burned out. He got frustrated with people. He wrestled with the awesome leadership burdens he was tasked with. Barton brings all of these things into focus and provides practical ideas for developing what is happening inside you so that you can lead from the overflow of your soul.
“Strengthening the soul of your leadership is an invitation to enter more deeply into the process of spiritual transformation and to choose to lead from that place. It is an opportunity to forge a connection between our souls and our leadership rather than experiencing them as separate arenas of our lives. Spiritual transformation is the process by which Christ is formed in us for the glory of God, for the abundance of our own lives and for the sake of others. God is the one who initiates and guides the process and brings it to fruition. The soul-full leader is appropriately humbled by this realization and also relieved to not have to bear the heavy weight of responsibility for changing herself or others. The soul-full leader is faithful to the one thing he can do—create the conditions that set us up for an encounter with God in the places where we need it most. To continually seek God in the crucible of ministry no matter how hard it gets.”
6. Canoeing the Mountains by Tod Bolisinger
Probably no other book has been “right on time” like Canoeing the Mountains. Many discovered this book just prior to and during the COVID lockdowns. There were many technical problems to be faced during that time and pastors really rose to the occasion. Creative solutions for how to deliver Sunday services over the internet and how to remain connect to their congregations helped keep many leaders motivated during a difficult season. However, as COVID season began to drag on it became apparent that the old ways of doing ministry were no longer capable of taking us into the new world we were and will continue to face. The Lewis and Clark Expedition expected to canoe all the way to the Pacific. The Rocky Mountains changed those plans. What got us here… will not get us there.
“A couple of years ago I learned that three of my pastor friends around the country had resigned on the same day. There were no affairs, no scandals and no one was renouncing faith. But three good, experienced pastors turned in resignations and walked away. One left church ministry altogether. The details are as different as the pastors themselves, but the common thread is that they finally got worn down by trying to bring change to a church that was stuck and didn’t know what to do. Their churches were stuck and declining, stuck and clinging to the past, stuck and lurching to quick fixes, trying to find an easy answer for what were clearly bigger challenges. What all three churches had in common was that they were mostly blaming the pastor for how bad it felt to be so stuck. “If only you could preach better!” “If only you were more pastoral and caring!” “If only our worship was more dynamic!” “Please, pastor, do something!” (That is what we pay you for, isn’t it?) And to make matters worse, the pastors don’t know what to do either. In this changing world we need to add a new set of leadership tools. This is a guidebook for learning to lead in a world we weren’t prepared for.”
7. Managing Leadership Anxiety: Yours and Theirs by Steve Cuss
I believe that Leadership requires you to bring your thoughts, emotions, and actions in alignment so that you can function well and provide space for others to do the same. Anxiety – disproportionate emotional reactions and responses – shut down our ability to think, feel, and act appropriately. In Managing Leadership Anxiety, Cuss will help you identify your own anxious reactions and how to recognize anxious reactions in others.
“Leaders face a steady onslaught of internal and external pressures we are not trained to handle. We focus on skill development and hone our gifts but too often neglect the most powerful leadership tool: awareness of what is happening under the surface. All manner of triggers, reactivity, and stories we tell ourselves bubble just under our conscious awareness. This boiling collective blocks our capacity to be present because it takes energy to manage, especially when we’re not aware of it or when we’re reacting unconsciously to anxiety in someone else. This book will help diagnose what is causing your anxiety and also provide you with prescriptive tools to help diffuse anxiety—moving you from being managed by anxiety to managing anxiety, both yours and theirs. You will become more self-aware, but becoming aware is only step one in the growth process. We all know people who are self-aware but do tremendous damage, or even people who use self-awareness as permission to stay the same. Awareness is critical to be sure, but it is not the path of growth, it is simply the gate. We unlock it and walk through it, but on the other side of self-awareness is difficult work that brings deeper freedom for us and those we serve. This is no small journey.”