The remarkable success of the book A Pastor’s Toolbox: Management Skills for Parish Leadership has demonstrated that the demands of time and financial challenges continue to impact the work of today’s parish leaders. The need has become even greater for practical tools to assist in the many aspects of temporal administration, leadership, and church management. This follow-up volume provides all new information, insights, and practical tools that pastors need to handle the complexities of parish management in the twenty-first century. Sixteen contributors from across the country deliver key content that focuses on promoting excellence and best practices in the areas of management, finances, communications, and human resources development. A Pastor’s Toolbox 2 provides: leadership tools for the pastor and his team; help for working with the parish’s pastoral and finance council; intercultural competence and complex pastoring situations; suggestions for time management and effective meetings; human resources, change management, and canon law; tools for parish stewardship, communications, and Catholic schools. The book is an outgrowth of the Toolbox for Pastoral Management, a nationally recognized joint project of Leadership Roundtable and Seton Hall University. Learn more at www.LeadershipRoundtable.org.

Today’s parish leaders are expected to be holy and prayerful spiritual guides, great preachers and compassionate confessors, but also to make important decisions in key areas like finance, budgeting, hiring and firing, fundraising, risk management, relationship-building, and more—often with virtually no transition or training. And with all the requisite education in philosophy and theology they must provide future pastors, in addition to formation in priestly spirituality and pastoral care, seminaries can do little to prepare priests to deal with the difficult temporal issues pastors face. A Pastor’s Toolbox is designed to help fill that void. It is loaded with valuable information, insights, and practical tools that pastors need in order to begin handling the complexities of parish management in the twenty-first century.The book is an outgrowth of The Toolbox for Pastoral Management, a nationally recognized joint project of The National Leadership Roundtable on Church Management and Seton Hall University. The Leadership Roundtable is a nonprofit organization of Catholic lay leaders, religious, and clergy working together to promote excellence and best practices in the management, finances, communications, and human resources development of the Catholic Church in the U.S. through the greater incorporation of the expertise of the laity. Learn more at www.TheLeadershipRoundtable.org.

With the ever-increasing demands placed on our parish leaders, what can seminaries do to prepare priests to deal with the difficult issues they will face? In addition to formation in priestly spirituality and pastoral care, future pastors require lasting support as they discern the call to priesthood and prepare to enter parish leadership after ordination. Filled with valuable information for supporting seminarians in their ongoing formation, A Seminarian's Toolbox provides practical tools and guidance for achieving best practices in parish leadership. This book is a project of The Leadership Roundtable, a nonprofit organization of Catholic lay leaders, religious, and clergy working together to promote best practices in the formation of clergy and lay leaders in the United States. Learn more at www.LeadershipRoundtable.org.

Here is an opportunity for pastors and seminary students to learn from the best. In this second book of the "Preacher's Toolbox" series, more of today's most popular Christian leaders offer sage advice on "Inspirational Preaching" that will motivate and encourage readers to deliver more effective and inspirational sermons. Teachers like John Piper, Brian Wilkerson, Gordon MacDonald and John Ortberg offer guidance and instruction from both personal and Biblical perspectives. Together with Book 1 of the "Preacher's Toolbox" series on "Prophetic Preaching," pastors and Christian leaders will have a well-spring of knowledge on the art of preaching today. Table of Contents - "The Supremacy of God in Preaching," by John Piper - "The Biggest Idea in Preaching," by Haddon Robinson - "Authentic Inspiration," by John Ortberg - "Helping People Think Higher," by Bryan Wilkerson - "Preaching the Wow Factor," by Lee Eclov - "Inspired and Inspiring," by Jeffrey Arthurs - "Fighting for Your Congregation's Imagination," by Skye Jethani - "Preaching with VIM, Not Just Vigor," by Bryan Wilkerson - "Your Text Has Feelings," by Kenneth Quicke - "Allowing Emotion to Buttress Truth," by Gary Fenton - "Tune My Heart to Sing Thy Grace: Why We Preach from Psalms," by Lee Eclov - "5 Veins of Deep Preaching," by Scott Chapman - "Soul Deep Preaching," by Gordon MacDonald - "Preacher as Advocate," by John Koessler - "Preaching with Childlike Wonder," by Matt Woodley - "Last Sunday You Preached Your Final Boring Sermon," by Michael Quicke - "A Good Mystery," by Richard Hansen - "Red Pill Preaching," by Mark Batterson -" Leading and Preaching," by Paul Borden

La Caja de Herramientas Para los Líderes Pastorales de Hoy es una respuesta a los comentarios que hemos recibido en la Leadership Roundtable en los últimos años; la importancia de apoyar al siempre creciente clero hispanoparlante y líderes laicos en las mejores prácticas en el liderazgo parroquial. Hemos seleccionado varios temas del existente A Pastor’s Toolbox, Volúmenes 1 & 2, y hemos agregado nuevos trabajos para apoyar los líderes. Algunos de los temas incluyen Recursos Humanos, Visión, Gestión de Voluntarios, Pastoral Juvenil, Gestión de Riesgos y Administración y Recaudación de Fondos, por nombrar algunos. Todos estos capítulos han sido traducidos al español por el Padre Juan Molina y su equipo en el Mexican American Catholic College. En la Leadership Roundtable sentimos que esta obra será un gran complemento para la Iniciativa de Liderazgo Pastoral Latino, donde hemos facilitado muchas de nuestras capacitaciones de mejores prácticas de liderazgo en un formato bilingüe tanto para líderes clérigos como laicos. Aprende más sobre cómo la Leadership Roundtable ha apoyado la formación de clérigos y líderes laicos, en las mejores prácticas de liderazgo en www.LeadershipRoundtable.org.

What difference would Catholic Social Tradition make if it guided our personal and communal financial decision-making? The Sermon on the Mount reminds us of this fundamental decision-making when it comes to questions of faith and money: “No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth” (Matthew 6:24). In Counting the Cost, Clemens Sedmak and Kelli Reagan Hickey suggest a theological and spiritual discernment process for the everyday reality of budgeting and financial planning that explores the status of money and monetary values by reflecting on this gospel call. Counting the Cost explains how Catholic Social Teaching provides a framework for our thinking around finances by answering questions such as: What does this fundamental decision look like in times of financial scarcity and stewardship responsibilities? How do the attitudes that Jesus invites us into shape the ways we make financial decisions? And how can budgeting be and become a way of discipleship for individuals, parishes, and dioceses? The book includes a range of financial decision-making examples and reconstructs them as decisions about priorities, values, and commitments to respond to the world and its material realities in a gospel-inspired way. The Enacting Catholic Social Tradition series is dedicated to the systematic application of Catholic Social Teaching to real-world problems and issues. Written for both academics and pastoral practitioners who want to draw on and learn more about the rich resources of Catholic Social Tradition for the practical work of justice, the series aims to strengthen the capacity of the church to respond lovingly and well to the demands of the gospel.

A teenage boy faces an impossible choice in this brutally honest debut novel about family, faith, and the ultimate test of conviction, that was the winner of the Children's Choice Book Awards' Teen Choice Debut Author Award. Ten years ago, Braden was given a sign—a promise that his family wouldn't fall apart the way he feared. But Braden got it wrong: his older brother, Trey, has been estranged from the family for almost as long, and his father, the only parent Braden has ever known, has been accused of murder. The arrest of Braden's father, a well-known Christian radio host, has sparked national media attention. His fate lies in his son's hands; Braden is the key witness in his father's upcoming trial. Braden has always measured himself through baseball. He is the star pitcher in his small town of Ornette, and his ninety-four mile per hour pitch already has minor league scouts buzzing in his junior year. Now the rules of the sport that has always been Braden's saving grace are blurred in ways he never realized, and the prospect of playing against Alex Reyes, the nephew of the police officer his father is accused of killing, is haunting his every pitch.

The "Lutheran" in the title doesn't mean The Lutheran Toolkit is just for Lutherans. It's about a Lutheran witness for the whole church and for all sinners with ears to hear. It's a slender book about the big theological ideas the evangelical reformers of the 16th century used as a lens for understanding God's work in Christ. Starting with Philiip Melanchthon's 1530 Augsburg Confession, which was drafted to defend the preaching and teaching of Luther and his colleagues, Ken Sundet Jones sees its primary themes as a set of tools that God uses to build faith in us. He takes the reader beyond scholarly analysis and historical explanations and uses his own experience as a college professor, parish pastor, and sinner looking for mercy, to discover God's handiwork in our lives. Each chapter takes as its starting point one of the foundational ideas presented to the Holy Roman Emperor and representatives of the church, including Sin , God hidden and revealed, justification, ministry, the Christian life, the church, sacraments, and vocation. These are not simply theological categories for scholars to debate or historians to recount. They're the lived experience of the faithful from the first believers, to big thinkers like Augustine and Luther, to people in the pews, at the supper table, in their careers, and at their deathbeds throughout the ages. The tools in this kit continually point to Jesus as the one who promises mercy and abundant life — and who has the power to deliver them. This is a word for those who've not yet heard it and for those who desperately need to hear it again.

Offering solace and encouragement to those who grieve is a critical aspect of the church's ministry of mercy and love. To find your place within grief ministry and plan this important ministry from first response to spiritual guidance, there is no better mentor than Fr. Terence Curley. In this guide, Fr. Curley pays attention to all of the factors contributing to a grief minister's multifaceted work, including parish support and his or her own loss history. Symptoms of loss, trust, and hints for conversations with the grieving are topics touched by this detailed and sensitive guide. This book, a fully revised edition of Fr. Curley's earlier book The Ministry of Consolers, is a necessary tool for parishes, hospices, educational institutions, and all those attending to the bereaved.