Redeeming Administration

by Ann M. Garrido
Redeeming Administration
Author: Ann M. Garrido
Publisher: Ave Maria Press
Total Pages: 224
Release: 2013-09-23
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1594714290
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Ann Garrido’s 2009 article in America magazine on the spirituality of administration in Catholic settings created a wave of demand in this successful academic administrator’s already full speaking schedule. Garrido admits that she sometimes finds administration draining, even boring, as it fractures her days into “tiny shards of time” that make it impossible to focus on “the big ideas.” And yet she has found spiritual gifts in her many years as a theologian, parish minister, and administrator in higher education. In Redeeming Administration, she reveals those gifts by examining twelve spiritual habits for Catholic leaders in parishes, schools, religious communities, and other institutions—presenting a saint who embodies each habit—and showing readers how to experience their administrative work as a crucial ministry of the Church. A brief prayer and questions for personal reflection, group conversation, or spiritual direction complete each chapter. Free downloads to accompany Redeeming Administration include a small-group guide and prayer resources.

Redeeming Conflict

by Ann M. Garrido
Redeeming Conflict
Author: Ann M. Garrido
Publisher: Ave Maria Press
Total Pages: 288
Release: 2016-03-11
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1594716145
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It seems counterintuitive: conflict can be a blessing. But Catholic theologian and conflict mediator Ann M. Garrido identifies conflict as a potentially fruitful exchange that arises from living and working together in the diverse world God created. Garrido, author of the bestselling Redeeming Administration, offers twelve practical habits for responding to conflict, pairs each habit with a spiritual companion from history, and offers questions and prayers for growth. In Redeeming Conflict, Ann Garrido explains that conversion comes through conversation, that there is a difference between “the truth” and “my truth,” and that you should be curious and practice “Pentecost listening”—or empathic listening—even if you think something is way off base. Garrido will help Christian leaders discover how to speak directly with colleagues about tensions and about how to know themselves well enough to keep from becoming defensive in the face of negative feedback. She uses saintly examples to illustrate her points, calling upon stories of St. Francis and a Muslim sultan, Leo the Great, Archbishop Óscar Romero, and Our Lady, Undoer of Knots. Garrido also offers sample exercises and tools to work through conflict within an organization and provides self-assessment questions and a prayer at the end of each chapter to help apply it to your personal and professional life. A small group discussion guide and a parish resource guide, which features homily and bulletin aids are available as a free downloads for the book. Redeeming Conflict was a 2017 winner of the Association of Catholic Publishers Excellence in Publishing Award: Resources for Ministry (Second Place) and Honorable Mention in the 2017 Catholic Press Association Book Awards: Professional Books.

Law and Leviathan

by Cass R. Sunstein
Law and Leviathan
Author: Cass R. Sunstein
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 209
Release: 2020-09-15
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0674247531
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From two legal luminaries, a highly original framework for restoring confidence in a government bureaucracy increasingly derided as “the deep state.” Is the modern administrative state illegitimate? Unconstitutional? Unaccountable? Dangerous? Intolerable? American public law has long been riven by a persistent, serious conflict, a kind of low-grade cold war, over these questions. Cass Sunstein and Adrian Vermeule argue that the administrative state can be redeemed, as long as public officials are constrained by what they call the morality of administrative law. Law and Leviathan elaborates a number of principles that underlie this moral regime. Officials who respect that morality never fail to make rules in the first place. They ensure transparency, so that people are made aware of the rules with which they must comply. They never abuse retroactivity, so that people can rely on current rules, which are not under constant threat of change. They make rules that are understandable and avoid issuing rules that contradict each other. These principles may seem simple, but they have a great deal of power. Already, without explicit enunciation, they limit the activities of administrative agencies every day. But we can aspire for better. In more robust form, these principles could address many of the concerns that have critics of the administrative state mourning what they see as the demise of the rule of law. The bureaucratic Leviathan may be an inescapable reality of complex modern democracies, but Sunstein and Vermeule show how we can at last make peace between those who accept its necessity and those who yearn for its downfall.

Redeeming Productivity

by Reagan Rose
Redeeming Productivity
Author: Reagan Rose
Publisher: Moody Publishers
Total Pages: 134
Release: 2022-10-04
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0802474632
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Feeling overwhelmed and unproductive? The answer isn’t to do more. What image forms in your mind when you think of productivity? An assembly line? Spreadsheets? Business suits or workplace uniforms? In the ancient world, productivity didn't conjure images like these. Instead, it referred to crop yield and fruit bearing. This agrarian imagery helps us understand productivity through a biblical lens. Jesus taught, By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit (John 15:8). Who doesn’t want to have a truly productive life—to bear much fruit? But how does this happen in the places we hold dear—the home, workplace, and in our communities? We often feel overworked and overrun, defeated and discouraged. The world says be productive so that you can get all you can out of this life. The Bible says be productive so you can gain more of the next life. In Redeeming Productivity, author Reagan Rose explores how God’s glory is the purpose for which He planted us. And he shows how productivity must be firmly rooted in the gospel. Only through our connection to Christ—the True Vine—are we empowered to produce good fruit. This book shows how we can maintain the vitality of that connection through simple, life-giving disciplines. Readers will discover manageable applications like giving God the first fruits of our days. Additionally, Reagan discusses how our perspective on suffering is transformed as we see trials as God’s pruning for greater productivity.

Redeeming Power

by Ann M. Garrido
Redeeming Power
Author: Ann M. Garrido
Publisher: Ave Maria Press
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2024-02-16
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 164680273X
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Catholic theologian Ann M. Garrido—author of the bestselling and award-winning book Redeeming Administration—continues her work on Christian leadership by examining power not as a manipulative force in short supply but as Jesus understood it: an abundant good meant to be shared and put to use for the sake of harmony and holiness. In Redeeming Power, Garrido helps you develop a spirituality of power by considering the skills and personal qualities that will enable a healthy and holy use of power in your role as one who leads. Garrido explores key passages from the creation stories of Genesis where we find the roots of how Jesus understood power. She shows how God shares divine power with all humans and calls leaders to specific ways of exercising power that will benefit the people and institutions they serve. Joining these biblical lessons to her personal experience, and with help from nearly forty interviews of leaders in nonprofit organizations, business, and the Church, Garrido offers insight and guidance into many of the challenges contemporary leaders face, including how to set—and adapt as needed—healthy boundaries for yourself and within the institution or community you serve, honor confidentiality while seeking to be transparent, share power with others, use one’s power on behalf of justice, stay rooted in the everyday, hands-on work of those you serve, and discern why and organize how you spend time and energy in order to bring balance to your life and work. Garrido provides you with holy companions for your leadership journey, including Maria Montessori, Nicholas Black Elk, Benedict of Nursia, Kaloli Lwanga, Thea Bowman, Hildegard of Bingen, Mark Ji Tianxiang, Margaret of Scotland, and Jean Baptiste de La Salle. Questions for self-reflection or group study are included at the end of each chapter and a companion discussion guide is available to download for free at avemariapress.com.

The Gift of Administration

by Donald P. Senior
The Gift of Administration
Author: Donald P. Senior
Publisher: Liturgical Press
Total Pages: 200
Release: 2015-12-28
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0814647413
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In his First Letter to the Corinthians Paul cites “administrators” as one of God’s gifts to the Christian community (1 Cor 12:28). But many who serve in administrative service today have difficulty seeing how their everyday work is an expression of discipleship. This book, written by an experienced administrator and noted biblical scholar, shows how the various functions of institutional administration are deeply rooted in the Scriptures and are a genuine expression of our call to discipleship. Leadership, mission statements and planning, finances and fund raising, personnel issues, communications, and public relations—all of these seemingly “secular” activities serve to build up the Body of Christ and deserve to be recognized as authentic Christian ministry. To see administrative service as a biblically rooted gift can help those involved in this way of life to find deeper and more satisfying spiritual meaning in what they do.

Let's Talk about Truth

by Ann M. Garrido
Let's Talk about Truth
Author: Ann M. Garrido
Publisher: Ave Maria Press
Total Pages: 192
Release: 2020-03-06
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1594719624
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Winner of a second-place award in the church professional category from the Catholic Media Association. The mere mention of “truth” will often start arguments, even among the best of friends and the closest of family members. To avoid conflict, Church leaders often side-step the topic altogether. In Let’s Talk about Truth, Ann M. Garrido shares practical ways that preachers and others charged with moral and spiritual leadership in the Church can stop backing away from the topic and instead help Catholics recover the practice of truth as a way of life. In Let’s Talk about Truth, award-winning author and associate professor of homiletics Ann M. Garrido shows Catholic preachers, teachers, and other leaders ways to approach the contentious topic of truth with confidence that the Church’s intellectual and pastoral traditions are squarely on their side. She explores truth as a multifaceted reality that serves four foundational roles in the Christian life. Truth: equips us to see the world as it actually is informs our opinions and assists us with making judgments shapes the way we communicate with each other enables us to build long-lasting relationships with one another Garrido’s clarity and conviction inspire confidence and the practical homiletic tools she offers are readily applicable to teaching and other forms of Church leadership. Sample preaching texts illustrate key points and show readers how to understand truth as a way of life that the Christian must pursue. Each chapter includes a summary of key insights, a list of practical takeaways, and probing questions for self-reflection or group dialogue. Garrido also provides a five-point assessment tool for preachers in a brief appendix to facilitate their willingness and growth toward better preaching about the practice of truth in the Christian life.