The Pastoral Excellence Program Team recommends the following books:

The Massachusetts Conference's Board of Directors and Executive staff have been reading Good to Great and the Social Sectors by Jim Collins.

Here is a review of this book by Lovett H. Weems, Jr, Distinguished Professor of Church Leadership and Director, G. Douglass Lewis Center for Church Leadership (which also has a Pastoral Excellence Grant from the Lilly Endowment, Inc.) *This review was orginally published in Leading Ideas (Feb. 28, 2007), the monthly newsletter of the G. Douglass Lewis Center for Church Leadership.

When Jim Collins’s book Good to Great was published in 2001, it received immediate and widespread attention because of his previous work and the exhaustive research that went into the book, as well as theories that were both innovative and counter intuitive. It was a national best seller, and brisk sales continue even several years later. Collins was surprised to discover that thirty to fifty percent of those purchasing the book worked in the social sector, not the business world. This supplemental monograph was written to address the many questions he received from social sector leaders who found Collins’s insights intriguing and yet wondered if they truly applied outside a business environment. Church leaders will appreciate Collins’s understanding that the goal of serving organizations such as churches is not merely to be more “business-like,” but rather to be more disciplined around the organizational mission.There is no need to impose the language of business on churches, but it is critical to recognize the dynamics. The goal of the original book was to study companies that were “good” for many years based on their performance and moved then to become “great” companies, far surpassing businesses as a whole. Collins was seeking to discover how such companies made and sustained such a leap in performance. In this short book, Collins seeks to interpret some of the key original findings for the not-for-profit world, including churches. He focuses on five issues from his original book and discusses their implications for social sector leaders in the
nonprofit world.

Those themes are:
1. Defining Great - Calibrating success without business metrics
2. Level 5 Leadership - Getting things done within a diffuse power structure
3. First Who - Getting the right people on board, within social sector constraints
4. The Hedgehog Concept - Rethinking the economic engine without a profit motive
5. Turning the Flywheel - Building momentum by building the brand

One recurring theme is that organizations that achieve their goals have found ways to change their focus from input and effort to results and outcomes. Readers will also come away with appreciation for the importance of
disciplined consistency for any organization serious about accomplishing its mission. It is when consistency with mission and values is combined with consistency of effort over an extended time that missional greatness
(or as the church would say, fruitfulness) is accomplished. As a privately published supplement, Good to Great and the Social Sectors is not available through all traditional book sources but can be purchased online from amazon.com. To learn more about Collins’s work and to read an excerpt from this book, go to www.jimcollins.com.

Susan Dickerman recommends:

• Dorothy Bass (Editor). Practicing Our Faith: A Way of Life for a Searching People. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 1998.

  In this collection of essays, Dorothy Bass and contributors from many denominations look at practices that are distinctively Christian – hospitality, forgiveness, healing, discernment, and several others – and reflect on how they can be used to shape a faithful Christian life.  Dorothy Bass will be coming to the Massachusetts Conference in April 2007 to spend two days, one with clergy and the other at Andover Newton Theological School as part of its new field education pilot program which draws on practices explored in Practicing Our Faith.

• Jackson Carroll.  God's Potters: Pastoral Leadership and the Shaping of Congregations.  Grand Rapids, MI:  Eerdmans, 2006.

  A veteran clergy watcher, Carroll uses data from what is likely the most representative survey of Protestant and Catholic clergy ever undertaken to take a look at who is doing ministry today, what it involves, and how pastors are faring in leading their congregations. Building on Paul’s image of Christians as “clay jars,” he paints a portrait of pastors as “God’s potters” whose calling is to form congregations so that they more fully reveal God’s treasure.

   

Chris Braudaway-Bauman recommends:

• Lillian Daniel. Tell it Like it Is: Reclaiming the Practice of Testimony. Herndon, VA: Alban Institute, 2006.

  Lillian Daniel, the former pastor of Church of the Redeemer, UCC, in New Haven, Connecticut, tells the story of how testimony came to be a regular practice of this congregation and how it transformed them – both the individual lives of members and the life of this church.

• Thomas G. Long.  Testimony:  Talking Ourselves into Being Christian. Jossey-Bass:  San Francisco, 2004.
  Preaching professor Tom Long shows how Christians are always “talking themselves into being Christian.” Through talking about our faith, he says, we actually discover what we believe about God, and we grow in faith.
• L. Gregory Jones and Kevin R. Armstrong.  Resurrecting Excellence:  Shaping Faithful Christian Ministry.  Eerdmans, 2006.
  

  Resurrecting Excellence aims to encourage an ambition for the gospel that rejects both competition and mediocrity and focuses instead on the beauty and power of living as faithful disciples.  Drawing on ancient sources as well as on contemporary voices, the authors, one a seminary dean and the other a local church pastor, offer portraits of pastors, lay leaders, and congregations that embody “a more excellent way.”  Like God’s Potters listed above, this book is part of a series published by Pulpit & Pew, a major research project of Duke Divinity School and the Lilly Endowment, Inc., which seeks to describe the state of pastoral leadership in the United States and to contribute to an understanding of what constitutes excellent pastoral leadership and how it can be called forth and supported.

   

Larry Peers recommends:

• Christina Baldwin. Storycatcher: Making Sense of Our Lives through the Power and Practice of Story. Novato, CA: New World Library. 2005.

As religious leaders, we are “storycatchers.” We hear stories, tell stories, craft stories, interpret stories—and live stories. This book is a guidebook for consciously inviting stories to be evoked and “tended.” In addition to her explication of  “storycatching”, Baldwin provides a resource to use in adult faith formation and sermon writing—even though that is not her central intention.

• Sharon Daloz Parks. Leadership Can Be Taught. Boston, MA. Harvard Business School Press,2005.

Perhaps you sensed that Ron Heifetz has something to say to you about pastoral leadership, but you find that you need help in interpreting it. Parks provides that interpretation by providing practical implications on the complexity of leadership. “The hidden issue, giving the work back to the group, formal and informal authority” are all familiar phrases of  Heifetz’ lexicon. Parks also gives insights into his other metaphors, including “personal tuning, getting on the balcony, using yourself as a barometer,walking the razor’s edge, and orchestrating the conflict.”

• Alan Jones. Reimagining Christianity: Reconnect Your Spirit without Disconnecting Your Mind. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2005.

Despite its title this book feels more like a biography than a theology. Because of that it helps us to see the resonances between the two. As he traces his faith journey, this Dean of Grace Cathedral in San Francisco grapples with the role of Christianity in the world. Imagination becomes a Christian practice in building a bridge between life and faith.

Ann Plumley recommends:

• Caroline A. Westerhoff.  Calling: A Song for the Baptized. Boston, MA: Cowley Publications, 1994.

A perceptive observer and spiritually grounded thinker, Caroline Westerhoff examines the principles of our Christian call. What if instead of asking, “What are we to do if we are followers of Jesus?” we were to consider ministry distinct from role and function and instead ask, “Who are we to be if we are followers of Jesus? Who are we to become?”

• Martin Smith, Martin L. A Season for the Spirit: Readings for the Days of Lent. Originally published by Cowley Publications in 1991, reissued by Seabury Classics: New York, 2004.

Written when Smith was the Superior of the Society of Saint John the Evangelist in Cambridge, MA, this book is a journey in which we discover that Christ, through the Spirit, embraces every aspect of our humanity. A long-time favorite of many for Lent, this essay series is a rich experience at any time of year.

• Robinson, Marilynne. The Death of Adam: Essays on Modern Thought. Picador Publishing: New York, 2005.

In her introduction, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Marilynne Robinson says these essays are “contrarian in method and spirit. They assert, in one way or another, that the prevailing view of things can be assumed to be wrong, and that it’s opposite, being its image or shadow, can also be assumed to be wrong. They undertake to demonstrate that there are other ways of thinking, for which better arguments can be made.”