Customer Reviews

Lead the Way God Made You:: Discovering Your Leadership Style in Children's Ministry

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I have always enjoyed books about leadership, giftings, and children's ministry and with this book you get all three of those topics wrapped up into one well written book.

I found that Larry through his descriptions of each type of person that God has made, did a wonderful job of painting a very clear picture of not only team work and what it consist of, but also helps walk you through a self discovery of how God made you and where He would have you fit.

In this realistic look into the many dynamics of children's ministry leadership and where each of us fit Larry goes on to not just help each of us to find who God has made us to be but Larry also guides us into how to recognize who God made others to be and how we can all fit on the team.

I have been a full time children's pastor for 15+ years and really enjoyed reading this book as well as giving it to each of my volunteers. In this book it has everything from simple language to challenging us veterans in children's ministry by building a plan to make our cast (volunteer team) complete.

I read this book a few years ago and loved it so much that when I took over as director for the children's ministry at my church I bought copies for the rest of the staff and we read through it together. For those of you who are like me and were once a drama club/class...nerd...person...this book will be right up your alley. It really helped to pinpoint areas of needs in our ministry and how to structure the staff to meet them and in a creative, original way. Realizing the gifts and passions of each person on the CM team really helps each person to feel more appreciated, more passionate for what they do, and gave me the strength to continue when things got rough. God really blessed me through this book.

I have always enjoyed books about leadership, peoples gift sets, and children's ministry. It brings great pleasure that with this book you get all three of those topics wrapped up into one well written book titled Lead the way God made you by Larry Shallenberger.

I found that Larry through his descriptions of each type of person that God has made, did a wonderful job of painting a very clear picture of not only team work and what it consist of, but also helps walk you through a self discovery of how God made you and where He would have you fit. Unfortunately due to the terms that Larry uses to describe each leadership style, I think that it may serve as a double edged sword as well. The terms come from the theater field which for me is a huge plus and very understandable. For some, this may work against the true greatness of this wonderful book and the content in it. I completely feel that if anyone will read this book and work through the terms used to describe the leadership styles in the end they will actually see the true genius of what Larry has accomplished in the direction he chose to write from.

In this realistic look into the many dynamics of children's ministry leadership and where each of us fit Larry goes on to not just help each of us to find who God has made us to be but Larry also guides us into how to recognize who God made others to be and how we can all fit and work successfully on the team.

I have been a full time children's pastor for 17+ years and have thoroughly enjoyed reading this book as well as giving it to each of my volunteers over the years since the publishing of the book in 2005. This book has everything from simple language to challenging veterans in children's ministry by building a plan to make our cast (volunteer team) complete.

What about you? How did God make you? How are you wired for leadership? Do you dream for your team? Do you keep things organized? Post here in the blog how you lead or how your team shares that leadership. And to make it worth your time to comment, I will give away an autographed copy of Larry's book at the end of the blog tour, from a random drawing of all comments.

This is definateley one of those books that have made and stayed on my top shelf of must read books for children's ministry. Lead the Way God Made You: Discovering Your Leadership Style in Children's Ministry

It does not seem that long ago, but in the fall of 2003 I began my journey in full-time children's ministry in Madison, WI. I had Biblical and theological foundations from my newly earned Pastoral Studies degree and loads of volunteer experience working with children. However, lacking a great deal of maturity, I started ministry trying to be someone else. I grew up in the mindset that children's ministry was event-driven, using puppets, performance, juggling, clowning/miming, Scripture pictures, and gospel magic. Having no real training in those areas, I took lessons in magic and devoted a great deal of time to trying to become a children's ministry performer. I patterned my ministry after the models I grew up with and it did not take long before the thing that I so desired to become my entire life (a pastor) felt like it was going to kill me and my wife! God taught me an important lesson: Ministry was not going to work unless I was going to be myself. This was one of the toughest and longest lessons I learn as a young pastor. I wish Larry Shallenberger's book, Lead the Way God Made You, was around in 2003.

The central message of Shallenberger's precise work is simply that God created you to lead in a specific way and that's okay. Shallenberger dispels the myth of the perfect leader at the outset of the book and introduces the dominant metaphor of the book, the theater. It really is a perfect setup for the rest of the content because it touches on a theme that everyone feels and experiences. The content is rich and it leads the reader through a process of self-discovery with the "Dramatic Leadership Assessment Test" and gives Scriptural foundations for each of the Assessments styles (Director, Stage Manager, Drama Coach, Theater Manager, Stagehand, and Production Assistant). For me, the assessment confirmed my leadership style (Director) but gave me critical insights into the other styles.

I loved the tone of the book because the experience of reading felt like I was being mentored by an experienced leader. Here's some of the parts that resonated the most with me:

* Quote, page 49: "A few years ago, a senor leader in the church pressured me to launch this program. I politely told him that it sounded like a good idea first initiative for the new children's pastor." Gutsy
* The "5 Star Training Planner" on page 122 and the Leadership Style Summaries (to share with your team) are some resources that are worth more than the price of the book.

Part of spiritual leadership is the hard work of self-reflection and self- discovery. Use Lead the Way God Made You to help you long the way.



Matt