A wonderful experience and a great book

The light posting this week is due to the fact that I have been in extreme "catch-up" mode. I am teaching six classes this semester, one of which is a graduate course in Servant-Leadership that starts this weekend. And a lot of the reason I am behind is because I spent this past weekend at Lutheran Church of Hope in West Des Moines, IA as part of an advisory board that is helping the church form a servant-leadership training center for the Des Moines area.

Two other members of the advisory group are Ken Jennings and John Stahl-Wert. You may recognize the names; they have a book titled The Serving Leader. Part of the Ken Blanchard series, the book is written in the same parable/story format as James Hunter's The Servant. Ken, senior partner at VentureWorks Consulting, and John, president of the Pittsburgh Leadership Foundation, (see bios here) presented a powerful workshop on Saturday for about 500 members of the church in which they explained the principles outlined in their book. The rest of the weekend was spent outlining a vision with the church's leadership board.

It was a great experience and well worth the stack of work that has challenged me this week. I encourage you to check out Ken & John's web site, as well as pick up and read a copy of The Serving Leader. You'll be glad you did.