Redeeming Administration, by Ann Garrido

“If you had to choose one book to help a person embarking on pastoral ministry, what would it be?” We posed that question to some pastors and professors. Here are their choices. —Ed.

Most spirituality books provide advice for cultivating the familiar set of spiritual disciplines. This book is different. Garrido helps people see how the ordinary lives of leaders opens the pathways to spiritual formation. In her words, “administration calls us” to a set of 12 spiritual values. It leads us to see our lives and the world broadly and systemically, puts us directly in touch with our need for generativity, confronts us with the absolute need to cultivate trust, and opens the path to humility and interdependence.

The book’s title misleads: I’m using it in a course called Spirituality for Public Engagement which I lead for Lutheran laypersons, many of whom are not professional administrators. We all fulfill multiple roles and in many cases we’re unclear as to how those roles relate to who we are before God. Garrido offers gracious wisdom for discernment.

Read all reflections.