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654 books
—
235 voters
Fr. Thomas Reeves
https://www.stmattsblm.org/about-us/staff-vestry/rector/
https://www.goodreads.com/fathertom
progress:
(page 26 of 307)
"Reading for potential class on the development and transformation of character." — Mar 12, 2026 08:21AM
"Reading for potential class on the development and transformation of character." — Mar 12, 2026 08:21AM
The East African Revival bears the hallmarks of American evangelical revivalism (Finney’s Revivals of Religion often accompanied Church and his team of evangelists on their journeys) and Keswick holiness.
“I want to stress that by well-differentiated leader I do not mean an autocrat who tells others what to do or orders them around, although any leader who defines himself or herself clearly may be perceived that way by those who are not taking responsibility for their own emotional being and destiny. Rather, I mean someone who has clarity about his or her own life goals, and, therefore, someone who is less likely to become lost in the anxious emotional processes swirling about. I mean someone who can be separate while still remaining connected, and therefore can maintain a modifying, non-anxious, and sometimes challenging presence. I mean someone who can manage his or her own reactivity to the automatic reactivity of others, and therefore be able to take stands at the risk of displeasing.”
― A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix
― A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix
“Leadership through self-differentiation is not easy; learning techniques and imbibing data are far easier. Nor is striving or achieving success as a leader without pain: there is the pain of isolation, the pain of loneliness, the pain of personal attacks, the pain of losing friends. That’s what leadership is all about.”
― A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix
― A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix
“The colossal misunderstanding of our time is the assumption that insight will work with people who are unmotivated to change. If you want your child, spouse, client, or boss to shape up, stay connected while changing yourself rather than trying to fix them.”
― A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix
― A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix
“A willingness to be exposed and vulnerable. One of the major limitations of imagination’s fruits is the fear of standing out. It is more than a fear of criticism. It is anxiety at being alone, of being in a position where one can rely little on others, a position that puts one’s own resources to the test, a position where one will have to take total responsibility for one’s own response to the environment. Leaders must not only not be afraid of that position; they must come to love it.”
― A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix
― A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix
“With families, I stopped creating encyclopedias of data about all their issues and began to search instead for the member with the greatest capacity to be a leader as I have defined it. That person generally turned out to be the one who could express himself or herself with the least amount of blaming and the one who had the greatest capacity to take responsibility for his or her own emotional being and destiny. I began to coach the “leader” alone, letting the rest of the family drop out and stay home. I stopped trying to get people to “communicate” or find better ways of managing their issues. Instead, I began to concentrate on helping the leader to become better defined and to learn how to deal adroitly with the sabotage that almost invariably followed any success in this endeavor. Soon I found that the rest of the family was “in therapy” whether or not they came into my office.”
― A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix
― A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix
Fr. Thomas’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Fr. Thomas’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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