What does it mean to provide leadership for the church in an increasingly secular context? Analyzing the phenomenon of secularization in the West and charting common Christian responses, this indispensable resource from Gordon Smith discusses the competencies and capacities essential for cultivating distinctively Christian leadership today.

"A useful book for those who want to find balance in their lives and add a dimension of spirituality to their leadership." —Kenneth Killian, Assistant Professor Vanguard University of Southern California "The information is approachable, nonthreatening, and personal. The authors discuss their own past roles as educational leaders, providing instant credibility." —Jennifer Baadsgaard, Assistant Principal Roosevelt High School, San Antonio, TX Revitalize your leadership and help shape a better future for the students you serve! This fourth volume of The Soul of Educational Leadership series offers key strategies for identifying the moral and ethical dimensions of school leadership practice. With thought-provoking contributions from top leadership figures like Terrence E. Deal, Dawna Markova, and Scott Thompson, this enlightening resource combines research with innovative ideas for practice and emphasizes: Spirituality within a life-sustaining context The role of spirituality in empowering leaders as agents for transformative change A moral obligation to create safe and supportive learning spaces for students Spirituality in Educational Leadership helps educators align everyday practice with core values in ways that will make a significant difference in their professional and personal lives.

Academy of Parish Clergy 2020 Top Ten Book for Parish Ministry In Faith Formation in a Secular Age, the first book in his Ministry in a Secular Age trilogy, Andrew Root offered an alternative take on the issue of youth drifting away from the church and articulated how faith can be formed in our secular age. In The Pastor in a Secular Age, Root explores how this secular age has impacted the identity and practice of the pastor, obscuring his or her core vocation: to call and assist others into the experience of ministry. Using examples of pastors throughout history--from Augustine and Jonathan Edwards to Martin Luther King Jr. and Nadia Bolz-Weber--Root shows how pastors have both perpetuated and responded to our secular age. Root turns to Old Testament texts and to the theology of Robert Jenson to explain how pastors can regain the important role of attending to people's experiences of divine action, offering a new vision for pastoral ministry today. This is the second book in Root's Ministry in a Secular Age series.

In our progressively changing environment, it is of crucial importance to deepen our understanding of peace between people and how leadership can enhance that by 'leading for peace'. This book proposes a useful framework for all leaders (including business, political leaders and peace developers) on how to attain peace between people. The book is presented in four sections: 1. Peace leadership in perspective: Discussions on the nature and meaning of peace leadership, important building blocks for peace leadership (emotional, social and communal intelligence), and a peace leadership-in-action model (which forms the basis of the book). 2. Implementation strategies focus on lead self, lead with others and lead communities. Lead self includes: leading peace through self, others and the community, the role of wisdom and spirituality in leading self and others, and individual, social and cultural inertia preventing humanity from attaining peace. Lead others includes: leadership theories which support peace leadership, the improvement of cultural intelligence amongst peace leaders, and women's role in peace building. Lead communities includes: peace leadership in the public and private sectors, healthcare for the vulnerable and its meaning and contribution towards peace leadership, and working from helplessness to serving the community. 3. Tools and initiatives to become a highly effective peace leader, including information and communication technological innovations for peace leaders and sport as a tool for peace building. 4. Concluding thoughts. Concluding thoughts are given, with the emphasis on what we have learned and looking ahead. This editorial book provides a significant contribution within the emerging peace leadership discipline as the international community, non-governmental organisations, and the public and private sectors struggle to formulate sustainable peace initiatives at the tribal, local and communal societal level.

The place of religion in society has changed profoundly in the last few centuries, particularly in the West. In what will be a defining book for our time, Taylor takes up the question of what these changes mean, and what, precisely, happens when a society becomes one in which faith is only one human possibility among others.

A Top Ten Book for Parish Ministry in 2017, Academy of Parish Clergy The loss or disaffiliation of young adults is a much-discussed topic in churches today. Many faith-formation programs focus on keeping the young, believing the youthful spirit will save the church. But do these programs have more to do with an obsession with youthfulness than with helping young people encounter the living God? Questioning the search for new or improved faith-formation programs, leading practical theologian Andrew Root offers an alternative take on the issue of youth drifting away from the church and articulates how faith can be formed in our secular age. He offers a theology of faith constructed from a rich cultural conversation, providing a deeper understanding of the phenomena of the "nones" and "moralistic therapeutic deism." Root helps readers understand why forming faith is so hard in our context and shows that what we have lost is not the ability to keep people connected to our churches but an imagination for how and where God could be present in their lives. He considers what faith is and what steps we can take to move into it, exploring a Pauline concept of faith as encounter with divine action. This is the first book in Root's Ministry in a Secular Age series.