Summer Reading for Next Generation Leaders
by Stephanie Wood

Isn’t summer the best? Summer means watermelon, iced tea, swimming, family vacations, and (most importantly) a break from homework and the routine of the school year. While most of us just want to kick back, relax, and enjoy our free time, summer is also a great opportunity to catch up on some reading that the chaos of the school year doesn’t allow time for. And I’m not only talking about your favorite novel or sports magazine (although we’ll cover fiction in next month’s article). Summer is a perfect time to pick up one of the great non-fiction works that form leaders, heroes, and saints.  

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Don’t settle for good, when you can be great 

When I began working for NextWave Faithful, the very first assignment my boss gave me was to read the book Good to Great – Why Some Companies Make the Leap…and Others Don’t, by Jim Collins (Harper). At first I thought it strange that my boss would have a fledgling youth leader read a book written about Fortune 500 companies and what makes a CEO great instead of merely status quo. Until I read the book, that is. 

Good to Great became one of the most valuable tools of my new job, because it taught me the qualities and characteristics of real leaders, successful companies, and great teams. 

Jim Collins (also best-selling author of Built to Last) gathered a team of research specialists who spent five years analyzing Fortune 500 companies and asking “How can good companies, mediocre companies, even bad companies achieve enduring greatness?” In other words, Collins set out to find the answer to the question: “what are the universal distinguishing characteristics that cause a company to go from good to great?” 

What made Walgreen’s the most successful drug store instead of Eckerds, who previously lead the industry? The answer is what Collins calls Level 5 Leadership. He found that the attributes of a Level 5 Leader are humility, a willingness to constantly learn and try new things, diligence, striving for the success of the company (instead of personal recognition and gain), and knowing what NOT to do as well as what should be on your “to do” list.  

Collins also found that a key determinate between an average and truly great company is the right people: “Get the wrong people off the bus, the right people in the right seats, and then decide where to drive.” Good to Great made Amazon’s “Best of 2001” list. They wrote: “Making the transition from good to great doesn't require a high-profile CEO, the latest technology, innovative change management, or even a fine-tuned business strategy. At the heart of those rare and truly great companies was a corporate culture that rigorously found and promoted disciplined people to think and act in a disciplined manner.”  

Good to Great will teach you the attributes of a truly great leader. It will help you recognize your own strengths and weaknesses and focus your efforts on becoming great at what God has called you to accomplish in this life.  

The king’s good servant, but God’s first 

He’s been called “a man for all seasons” because his life as a husband, father, teacher, successful lawyer and businessman, politician, friend, counselor, apologist, and scholar has enabled people of every time and place to identify with him.  

St. Thomas More is truly a saint for leaders of the next generation, because he shows us that faith and reason are compatible, and when matters of politics, business, and culture rise up in opposition to the Faith, we must never waver in our defense of the one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic Church. 

In his book entitled The King’s Good Servant, But God’s First (Ignatius), James Monti investigates the life and writings of St. Thomas More. However, Monti’s volume isn’t just another biography. It is an in-depth investigation into the man, the leader, and the saint that incorporates many of More’s own writings.  

Any young person desiring to be a next generation leader will gain priceless wisdom from this man for all seasons. The great 20^th century author G.K. Chesterton had this to say about Thomas More: 

“Blessed Thomas More is more important at this moment than at any moment since his death, even perhaps the great moment of his dying; but he is not quite so important as he will be in about a hundred years time. He may come to be counted the great Englishman, or at least the greatest historical character in English history. For he was above all things historic; he represented at once a type, a turning point, and an ultimate destiny. If there had not happened to be that particular man at that particular moment, the whole of history would have been different.”

- G.K. Chesterton. “A Turning Point in History” 

A Bishop Speaks to Teens

It’s not often that you find a bishop willing to write an 800-plus page book to teenagers and young adults. It’s probably rarer that such a book is written to explain the Bible to young people. But that’s just what Bishop Frederick Justus Knecht did with his book A Practical Commentary on Holy Scripture (TAN).  

I can hear your thoughts right now. “Is she crazy? Does she really think we’d pick up an 800 page book on our summer vacation?!?”  

I know it sounds nuts, but hold on! Can you spare just 5 minutes a day for a week? If you read just 5 minutes worth of Bishop Knecht’s Commentary every day, I guarantee you’ll be hooked on this amazing book.  

The German Bishop’s Commentary is deep, but it’s also exceptionally clear and easy to understand. This book hits both your head and your heart. It makes the Scriptures come alive in easy bite-size chunks.  

Besides its easy-to-understand language, insightful pictures, diagrams, maps, and a concordance worth its weight in gold, one of the major bonuses of this Commentary is that it was written before modernism entered Scripture scholarship. You won’t find a lot of mumbo-jumbo that belongs in your trash and not on your shelf in this book. Bishop Knecht’s Commentary provides solid, orthodox explanations of the Scriptures, and draws pastoral lessons and insights that will have a deep impact on your life as you strive for holiness.  

St. Jerome said “ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ,” and the reverse is also true: knowledge of Scripture is knowledge of Christ. If we are going to be radical followers of Jesus Christ in the modern world, we need the Word of God planted deep within our souls. Bishop’s Knecht’s Practical Commentary on Holy Scripture is the perfect place to start.  

[Note: the Practical Commentary is available from the NextWave Online Store.]

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