One of the biggest challenges every leader faces is how to continue developing and growing as a leader while still getting things done and moving things forward.
With the ever-increasing demands on our time and energy, often the first thing that goes is investment in ourselves. We know that isn’t wise; it’s really very short-term thinking, but under the pressure of the moment we often make that choice.
One reason we do that is because we don’t see immediate consequences.
The consequences of not investing in ourselves now often show up later—a year or more later, when the challenges are even bigger and we aren’t ready for them.
One way to address that fact is to change our reading habits. We have all heard that “readers are leaders” and that “growing churches are led by growing leaders.” But the average reader takes 6-10 hours to read one book. It can be a challenge to find that time on a regular basis! Most of us end up with a bunch of unfinished (or unstarted) books that we know we should read but just don’t have time to get to.
Why don’t you check out Leaders Book Summaries? They summarize books for busy leaders, condensing them down to 12-15 pages, and then also providing a 2-page summary of the summary. An average reader can go through a whole summary in just 15-30 minutes. That’s a lot more efficient than 6-10 hours!
You’ll get summaries of the titles you should be reading. Leaders Book Summaries was started by pastors, for pastors. They are practitioners, not just theorists. They know what it’s like to be in the trenches, and they pick and summarize books that will help you make a difference.
They issue 30 summaries of leadership books each year. The books are written by both secular and religious authors. Recent examples include…
- Essentialism, by Greg McKeown
- The 12 Week Year, by Brian Moran and Michael Lennington
- The Circle Maker, by Mark Batterson
- The More With Less Church, by Eddy Hall and Ray Bowman
- The Art of Neighboring, by Jay Pathak and Dave Runyon
In addition, titles by Andy Stanley, John Maxwell, Henry Cloud, and other well-known leaders fill their library.
A subscription is normally about $7 a month, or $119/year if you want the archives (over 200 titles). Leaders Book Summaries is currently offering a special discount to blog readers, though. Instead of paying the full rate, you can get the monthly rate for just $5.95/month, or the Premium subscription, giving you access to their whole library, for just $99/year. And that also covers the new summaries coming out in 2017!
Click here to get the discounted rate.
The Challenge of Time Management
In a recent survey of pastors, time management was the #1 need expressed by pastors, by a long shot. I get that—I’ve planted three churches as a bi-vocational church planter, and now I’m pastoring while running a business. I’ve had to learn time management to survive!
Because of that, I’ve been a life-long student of the topic, and have tried to learn, and implement, every strategy, every tactic, every tip I can. Now I’ve put all that into a book.
When you subscribe to Leaders Book Summaries, you will also get—free—my new eBook, Time Management for Busy Pastors. In it I share everything I’ve learned about managing my time:
- How to save time on sermon preparation
- How to focus on what matters most
- How to organize days and weeks for greatest efficiency
Plus scores of tips that will help you save hours of time every week. Click Here to receive your eBook and get your discounted rate.
