This book is about hope, and how it is sustained by the personal spirituality of school leaders. Defining this not only in religious terms but using a concept of ‘secular spirituality,’ it shows that leadership actions must rest on the foundation of a personal value system, demonstrated as ‘a lived faith in action.’ Drawing on interviews with 150 headteachers and capturing their authentic voices, it uses the metaphor of ‘reservoirs of hope’ to promote practitioner reflection on the value systems, leadership styles and sustainability strategies of headteachers, as they act as the external reservoir of hope for their schools whilst ensuring that their own internal reservoir of hope never runs dry. It also offers a theological reflection on the spiritual and moral leadership of headteachers, providing a connecting bridge between educational leadership and theology.

This text is about hope, and how it is sustained by and in the leaders of our schools. It utilises the metaphor of 'reservoirs of hope' to promote practitioner reflection on the value systems, leadership styles and sustainability strategies of headteachers.

In a time of discouragement, how can the Church renew itself and its outreach to all people? Bishop Robert Barron, Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, insists that a "dumbed down" Catholicism cannot succeed in today's highly educated society--instead, the Church needs to draw upon its great theological heritage in order to renew its hope in Christ. With Renewing Our Hope: Essays for the New Evangelization, Bishop Barron traces this renewal through four stages. "Renewing Our Mission" lays out the challenges that call for Catholics to become more aware of their own intellectual resources in encountering the "Nones." "Renewing Our Minds" showcases the importance of theological reflection as a font of wisdom and sanity in the Church, touching on Thomas Aquinas, Hans Urs von Balthasar, the recently canonized John Henry Newman, and Pope Francis. In "Renewing the Church," he proceeds to look at how Scripture, the family, the seminary, and Catholic college graduates can each contribute to this renewal. Finally, in "Renewing Our Culture," he returns to the judgments Catholics must make in assessing contemporary culture, specifically, family life, liberalism, relativism, and (surprisingly) the beauty of cinema. Bishop Barron, known as the host of the Catholicism PBS video series, was previously rector and professor of systematic theology at Mundelein Seminary outside Chicago, Illinois. He demonstrates again in Renewing Our Hope his ability to make the fruits of his wide reading accessible to a broad audience, while still giving his academic colleagues much to consider.