Customer Reviews

Know Your Story and Lead with It: The Power of Narrative in Clergy Leadership

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

It's hard to imagine being a steward of the gospel story unless one is willing to be a steward of one's own story. That's the assumption of "Know Your Story and Lead With It, the Power of Narrative in Clergy Leadership," by Dick Hester and Kelli Walker-Jones. The book is designed to encourage ministers to mine their own experience as a method to clarify and strengthen their own leadership as ministers. The book talks about how to assist a minister in leading a congregation out of problem-saturated stories into alternatives of hope.

The book encourages ministers to lead out of curiosity and the position of "not-knowing" and thus engaging the congregation in appreciating their own stories. This kind of leadership relieves clergy from the burden of having answers to problems as they help people discover the wisdom embedded in their own life stories.

Peer-learning groups comprised of minister colleagues provide a forum by which one can tell their stories and explore their meaning. Ministers spend years in seminary preparing to teach and preach the gospel story but typically spend little time or effort exploring their stories. Ministerial success or failure can often be attributed to one's acceptance of the world of experiences from childhood forward including one's family of origin. This book is a tool peer learning groups of ministers can utilize to help them find purposeful meaning in their stories.