Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership by Ruth Haley Barton

I have been reading Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership and wanted to recommend it to any of you who are in ministry or church leadership of any sort. This is one of those books you feel like is speaking right to you. Just about every page has something I want to try to remember. That is saying something because many books struggle to give you a handful of memorable or memory-worthy nuggets. I would easily put this book in the top five books on leadership I have ever read.

The primary focus of this book is a study of the life of Moses and how God used him to lead the Hebrews from Egypt to the Promised Land. Her biblical insights are outstanding. The way she pulls the narrative apart and yet keeps an eye on the big pictures is done with skill and care. It never feels like she is stretching her points or taking the story too far. The strength of this book is how she connects Moses’ story with her own and then engages the reader to consider how all of that intersects your own story so that you can grow and not become weary in a leadership position.

This book is drenched with experience. What is amazing about Barton is that she doesn’t just experience things. She knows how to take her experiences and unpackage them into principles that she is able to communicate to others in a profoundly powerful way. It is almost like she has been taking notes on her life as she has lived it in order to share them with others in Christian leadership positions to help them through. At the end of each chapter there are exercises to help you put into practice the things you learned, pray about it and meditate on it.

So if you have a chance to pick up a copy you won’t be disappointed.