Saddleback Church

Henry and Richard Blackaby are "concerned that many Christian leaders are reading secular books and are applying their teachings uncritically" so they wrote Spiritual Leadership to help Christian leaders in business, politics and the pastorate develop the qualities of spiritual leadership. Spiritual Leadership will help you understand God's design for leadership and will enable you to lead God's people towards the fulfillment of his purposes. Let the Blackaby's teach you the biblically based principles that will enable you to lead in the 21st century.

Recommended by Erik Rees

These reflections come out of his own openness to personal struggle and growth. He here recounts recent experiences at a L'Arche community for the mentally handicapped. His message lovingly conveys how his relationships with these broken people have so deeply touched him. Heart-warming and provocative.

Recommended by Buddy Owens

If you're a leader in some capacity, you can certainly relate to feeling like a "fish out of water" and wonder if you're truly effective. In this book, Barna unveils the results of years of research and hundreds of interviews and emerges with a new definition of what leadership is—and isn't. He also discusses how to be sure that one has been called by God to lead and reveals the importance of character and the communication of vision. Each chapter concludes with a section called "Uncomfortable Questions" that will reveal your own strengths and weaknesses.

Recommended by Buddy Owens

In The Making of a Christian Leader, Dr. Robert Clinton identifies the patterns God uses to develop a leader. By studying the lives of hundreds of historical, biblical, and contemporary leaders, Dr. Clinton has determined the six stages of leadership development, and he establishes checkpoints to clarify where you are in the process.

Recommended by Tom Holladay

Drawing on experiences from his work with Fortune 500 companies, nonprofits, and individual leaders, Dr. Henry Cloud, a clinical psychologist and nationally syndicated radio host, shows how our character can keep us from achieving all we want to (or could) be. In Integrity, Dr. Cloud explores the six qualities of character that define integrity. He uses stories from well-known business leaders like Michael Dell and sports figures like Tiger Woods to illustrate each of these qualities. He shows us how people with integrity: They are able to connect with others and build trust, are oriented toward reality, finish well, embrace the negative, are oriented toward increase, and have an understanding of the transcendent.

Recommended by Kenny Luck

No religious leader can thrive without having heart for the job. But in these times of unpredictability—caught up in trying to help others maintain their hearts—few complete their ministries without sometimes neglecting their own spiritual needs.

Reggie McNeal proposes that effective spiritual leaders must become experts in matters of the heart—particularly their own. Maintaining heart for the demanding work of ministry hinges on leaders' ability to discern God at work in their own lives, shaping their hearts to embrace the particular ministries to which they are called. This process of finding heart depends on an interactive partnership with God. God introduces the storyline—but the leader's responses affect the development of the drama.

To demonstrate these points, McNeal leads readers on an excursion into the heart-shaping drama of four major biblical leaders: Moses, David, Jesus, and Paul. He identifies the influences God used to shape them: Culture—the times and the environment in which a leader is raised; Call—the leader's personal call by God to mission; Community—the people who shape and sustain the leader; Communion—the leader's personal relationship with God; Conflict—the leader's engagement of destructive forces in life and ministry; and Commonplace—the daily choices of living. Using illustrative stories of contemporary church leaders who opened their hearts to God's guidance, McNeal shows how God is still using these same influences to shape the hearts of religious leaders today.

Spiritual leaders must become experts in matters of the heart. They must learn to discern God at work in their own lives, shaping their hearts to embrace the particular ministries to which they are called. A Work of Heart shows how God prepares leaders today just as he did in biblical times—and how God creates these leaders in order to share his heart with his people.

Recommended by Erik Rees

The need for talented, vigorous leaders in the church today cannot be overemphasized. Such times demand the active service of men and women who are guided by God and devoted to Jesus Christ.

With more than 750,000 copies in print, Spiritual Leadership stands as a proven classic for developing such leadership. In these pages J. Oswald Sanders presents the key principles of leadership in both the temporal an and spiritual realms, illustrating his points with examples form Scripture and the biographies of eminent men of God (Moses, Nehemiah, Paul, David Livingstone, Charles Spurgeon, and others). He writes that even natural leadership qualities are God-given, and their true effectiveness can only be reached when they are used to the glory of God. Featured topics include:

• The cost of leadership
• The responsibilities of leadership
• Tests of leadership
• The qualities and criteria of leadership
• The art of reproducing leaders
• The one indispensable requirement of leadership

New to this updated edition are a "For Reflection" section and a growth-empowering study guide designed to enhance the usefulness of Spiritual Leadership as a training tool for future generations.