Syndicated My Bookworm Sez Calls Call & Response, “A unique take on leadership skills”

New book links faith-based practices to modern leadership skills. #NewsismyBusiness

By Terri Schlichenmeyer

Your shoes are shined.

Wiped down, spiffed up, clean and looking great from head to toe. You’re wearing your finest outfit, a new hat or tie, and you’re confident that the Lord (and your fellow churchgoers) will look favorably upon you. But it doesn’t stop there. In the new book, “Call and Response: 10 Leadership Lessons from the Black Church” by L. Michelle Smith, you can have your Sunday best Monday through Friday.

Not long ago, while relaxing at her parents’ home for the holidays, Smith’s mother handed her a photograph that made her think. It was a picture of several young ladies near a church with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Smith says “it was apparent what was happening” in the photo. She recognized the scenario immediately: “The group had just finished preparing a meal for the congregation in honor of their guest…”

The photo astonished her. Surely other Black churches had similar tales of “leadership grounded in faith and purpose” to tell. As a business owner, she herself had enjoyed the guidance she received from the Black church growing up.

But she worried: Today’s faithful often looked for services online.

Read the entire review here.