I am going to go to my leadership shelf now and review a couple of the books that I have up there.
Spiritual Leadership
The first one is just called Spiritual Leadership by Blackaby. And this was one of the workbooks that we used in Bible college on a spiritual leadership class and I was just talking to Brother Cottle about this, our teacher. And he is since retired from teaching as I understand it and retired from pastoring, but a member of Southwest Baptist Church there in Oklahoma City and just a genuine man. And what I remember from this class was the first word there, spiritual leadership. And I wanted to start here because leadership has to first be spiritual. And I guess in many ways that was one of the lessons that has stuck with me all these years. Forgetting some of the details of this book, it has been almost 20 years probably since the since the class itself. But the thing that stuck with me was that man, we have got to be men of God. We have got to not just be CEOs of a business, but we are spiritual leaders and we have got to nurture our hearts for the Lord.
We have got to walk with God. And that is been such an important lesson. I remember this book being extremely weighty. heavy to read, deeply important and with an air about it that made you want to be a man of God. That kind of a that kind of a thing. So I appreciate Spiritual Leadership. This one would be good to revisit one day, I am sure.
The Pastor’s Guide: Leading and Living
The next is The Pastor’s Guide: Leading and Living. I got this from a retired pastor. This is one of those one of those pastoral preparation books that you might get before pastoring. It is kind of a overview of what a pastor does and I have not read the entire thing, but a good reference material in there.
Turn the Ship Around
Next is Turn the Ship Around. And what an excellent book by David Marquet, David Marquet, I forget how he pronounces his name. I have watched some of his videos since then. but this became one of my favorite books in the first year of pastoring. this was written by a submarine commander, submarine captain, that was all trained on a nuclear sub, but last minute he switched gears and was assigned to one of the worst subs in the fleet, and not a nuclear sub, which he had great expertise in.
So he was able to come in as a as a captain. Normally, he was the answer guy. He had all the answers for all the technical questions, and he could just give commands and fire off intelligent commands to all of his junior officers. But what he found was that not knowing the answers actually helped him as a leader, because he would then request that his junior leaders, who were the ones that really knew the boat inside and out, that they would be the ones that would make the decisions, and he would just approve their decisions. So he turned the ship around the leadership of the ship around by empowering others down the chain to do their job and to do their job well, and keep him informed. So instead of him issuing commands top-down, they would present plans, and he would approve, and that was the way he wanted his his ship to be operated, or his boat to be operated. So that turned that turned everybody I mean it made everybody more happy because they felt like they actually had a part in what was going on. Morale improved, their their their numbers improved, everything about the ship became one of the best in the fleet after being one of the worst in the fleet.
So it is a great leadership book taken from the leadership lessons from a boat commander, a submarine commander.
The Resilient Life
Next is The Resilient Life by Paul Chappell and a good I would say fairly typical of Striving Together, just a good solid Baptist book on the Resilient Life, on living as as a Christian, on sticking through it sticking to it through the ups and the downs. So you can have that.
Leaders of Men
This next one I still have my sticky note, Brother Russo. I apologize. I just realized I have not read this one yet. But this is called Leaders of Men by North Valley Publications out of North Valley Baptist Church in Santa Clara. Brother Jack Trieber’s the pastor up in there. And Brother Russo gave me this book after after attending the conference up there, the pastors conference. And I appreciated the gift and I just realized I have not read this yet. But sounds like it is full of great stories about being leaders of men.
EntreLeadership
Next is Dave Ramsey’s EntreLeadership. This one I actually had a physical copy of read and covered much of Dave Ramsey’s materials before and gone through that and taught them here at the church.
We have done Financial Peace University. but this one I really enjoyed from the business angle. It was a Dave Ramsey book but it was not financial teachings as much as it was leadership principles and how to build a business and how to keep your team happy and how to be an entrepreneur but from a Christian’s perspective and with that financial twist, that financial angle. So I really enjoyed the ins and outs of the business and the behind the scenes on EntreLeadership. Very very good principles in that book.
Everyone Communicates, Few Connect
Next is the only John Maxwell physical copy that I have. this one is Everyone Communicates, Few Connect. And with every John Maxwell book there is a lot of fluff, a lot of stories, a lot of collection of things he is gathered here and there and a few good nuggets along the way that really resonate with me. So, I appreciated the communication aspect of the leadership. It was not just straight leadership principles, but it was narrowing in on the communication aspect of leadership, on being able to communicate in ways that are not just blasting the words out there to everybody, but actually connecting with people.
And he seems to be so good at that. This seems to be an area that I need to improve that all the time. So, that connection, that you-focused conversation, that bringing the conversation around to other people, allowing them to talk and asking questions, and being focused on people more than just focused on self. This is a good reminder for that.
Advancing Forward
And then last one here, I have U.S. Military Advancing Forward by Len Cole. I love Brother Len Cole. He is in our church, and he goes out to Florida for a few months at a time and writes books well into his 80s and still just going strong. I love the Cole family desperately and appreciate all the work that he puts into this. Any of his books are following a structure or format of taking biblical principles and tying them with lessons that he is learned from his life. So, his his marriage book on Ruth ties in the teachings of Ruth and tells the stories of his own marriage. This is leadership principles that he has learned over the years of leading businesses and working in big companies, working in the finance world, but then tying in biblical principles from the lessons and leadership lessons and stories that that that he has from his years of experience.
Anytime he gets behind the pulpit and teaches us, I just enjoy just sitting back, and I just want him to keep on talking, just keep on telling stories, just keep on going. And I love Brother Brother Cole’s communication. I am glad that he has captured many of those stories in written form and appreciate the books that that he has put together. So I believe this is available on Amazon. I do not remember if we have it in our resource desk or not, but many of those other books that I mentioned are just good leadership books. As I mentioned before many of the books that I go through are audio, but these are the ones that I happen to have in physical form. So that is my leadership shelf that I have in the background of me. and perhaps in a future video we will go through some of these other books that we have here. But for now, that is it. God bless you. We will see you in the next video.
