The Challenges of Pastoral Leadership

Book excerpt: Its too easy to learn and apply business leadership models to the pastoral sector. But is it the best alternative to form Church leaders? What are we missing when we use business models in ministry? This book is about creating more sensitivity on how some of these secularly learned models can inadvertently limit pastoral effectiveness, and suggests an hourglass approach to leadership capable of fostering a set of principles more harmonious with ministry intent. In many ways this book is a guide for cultivating and developing a more authentic sense of leadership in ministry, one that emerges from within the scholarly sources of the leadership field but at the same time is rooted in the principle leadership is a spiritual practice. This book is a must have for clergy, religious women and men, and anyone engaged with forming ministry leaders or performing leadership roles in diocesan, parish life, or Church ministry.