Confessions of an Amateur Saint: The Christian Leader’s Journey from Self-Sufficiency to Reliance on God
Ebook
Confession Is Good for the Soul . . . and for Your Leadership
Why are so many Christian leaders burning out, losing faith, and abusing power? Rather than relying on our self-sufficiency and toughing our way through the tension, Mandy Smith invites us to confess it. As a pastor who also equips and encourages other pastors, Mandy feels the pain. Instead of offering more strategies to fix our problems, she reminds us of the call that first captured our imagination, directing our passions back to God and God’s people. In her book you will:
- experience the surprising freedom of grappling with a loving God
- be released from illusions of control into a lifestyle of healing hope
- rediscover your passion for ministry and your love for God and God’s people.
Confessions of an Amateur Saint is a different kind of leadership book for a different kind of leader. And different is what we need these days—spiritual leadership refined by fire rather than burned out by it, a leadership unencumbered by unrealistic expectations, a leadership reconnected to the God who receives our confession with love and restores our soul for the task ahead.
In a time where all Christian leaders are required to be pioneers, let Mandy skillfully guide you to a fresh, spiritually-fueled integrity, not weighted by false expectations but leading your people as your faith is increasingly shaped like Christ.
If you’re a leader who’s weary of bluster and preening and you long for an honest, faithful voice to name the ache in your soul, you’ve found a friend in Mandy Smith. These pages take us deep into our story, into our fear and hope, into the places where God waits for us with open arms.
Like Mandy Smith’s previous books, this is a searingly honest confession by a truly vulnerable pastor. Dr. Smith acknowledges her impulse to desire success, certainty, and comfort but shares how she has come to yearn for a different perspective—one that sees what God sees, glimpses what God is doing, and tries to follow the prompts of the Spirit. If you’re like me, you’ll be deeply disquieted by Confessions of an Amateur Saint. It’s scary. Scary good.
What Mandy offers here ought to be self-evident among those who work in churches or in positions of spiritual influence, but sadly it is not. We have lost the art of true spiritual leadership, of what it means to be an elder in the church. We lean too heavily on secular skills and perspectives in our work of ministry and not enough on the sheer act of faith. Mandy challenges us to return to the vulnerable, messy, courageous work of real leadership after the pattern of Jesus. It is a call worth hearing and leaning into because the world starves for more truly spiritual leaders.
Mandy Smith has done it again. She has honestly, creatively, and faithfully drawn us into things that matter most. Her searching self-examination as a pastor and as a woman leader during these turbulent days is itself richly reflective as she names and explores the familiar and the mysterious about the church and beyond. All this occurs as her undergirding sense of hope grounds her wisdom and faith. Mandy Smith is such a gift, and I consider myself her student. I commend you to do the same.
This book is for those of us who love doing God’s work but who also struggle with the tension of living in our own messy stories. In a natural, relational style, Smith invites us to be real and to own and name the difficulties of leadership, whether we’re struggling with unbelief, the desire to succeed, or other challenges. But she doesn’t leave us there. She reminds us to return to our faith by confessing and choosing God rather than relying on ourselves. A wonderful, helpful book for strengthening and discipling Christian leaders.
We live in a world that teaches, “Blessed are the self-confident, for they will bring about the Kingdom of Heaven.” But what if as we grow in ministry competencies, we become less self-reliant? Mandy shares her struggle to trust God in the daily grind of ministry and invites us on a journey to discover the countercultural truth that Jesus pronounced: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.”
This beautiful book is a gift to us all! Mandy Smith writes with a tender vulnerability as a fellow believer who doesn’t always fully believe but who chooses to keep trusting in God over and over through the practice of confession. She models this honest confession through personal stories, reflective exercises, and prayers that open us up to the transformative power of God in our lives and ministry. I believe this way of confession is the way of God-reliance and the way to abundant life!
Thousands of pastors are discouraged and burned out. Many are looking for a way out. But what if there is a way in, a way to do ministry as a divine partnership marked by faith, confidence, and soul rest? In Confessions of an Amateur Saint, Mandy Smith shows us how. She reveals the practical benefit and joy of doing ministry through renewing our faith and refreshing our relational reliance on the presence and power of God.
Mandy Smith is right; our world has shifted, and pastors are left in an “empty space, holding tools that no longer work, speaking words that have lost all meaning.” If you’re in this place and want out, follow her honest and creative lead as she models a way back to a faith that is authentic, empowered, and free.
A courageous journey into the depths of the human soul. With profound vulnerability, Mandy Smith reveals the struggles and doubts that often accompany Christian leadership. Through her own confessions, she dismantles the barriers that separate us from God and invites us to join her in embracing our own vulnerability before the One who brings light in the darkness. If your soul feels burdened by the weight of trying to be more than an amateur saint, delve into this book and join the chorus of confession to discover the freedom that comes from embracing reliance on God.
How can our sincere efforts as Christian leaders to be good at ministry make us very bad at ministry? Mandy Smith gently asks us to consider how we became so good at our jobs that we can do them without the enlivening work of God. Confessions of an Amateur Saint invites us to exchange professional competence for the practices of a robust, personal, and messy faith that reveals the work of God in the world. Even better, Mandy lives the life she describes and is an authentic guide.
Mandy Smith is a necessary gift to us all because she generously invites us into her inner world and helps us feel seen and understood by making her own confessions. I find following an invisible God difficult, but Mandy has become a trusted guide for my own faith, and Confessions of an Amateur Saint is vintage Mandy Smith, one of the rare pastor-artists writing today.
Mandy Smith is one of the wisest writers on church leadership today. Building on her previous books, Confessions of an Amateur Saint overflows with a keen sense of what it means to be human and to lead a church in these tumultuous times. Every pastor should read this book!
In this somewhat autobiographical book, our friend Mandy manages to communicate not just ideas that are helpful but something of her very precious self. Her Confessions are painfully honest, spiritually insightful, and pastorally authentic—the (in)credible witness of the quintessential amateur saint that is Mandy Smith.
Good night. Mandy Smith has done it again. Few have the power to read my mail the way that Mandy does. This book invites the reader into a form of vulnerability and frailty that is almost uncomfortable. Through that vulnerability is the power of Christ. But we don’t get to Christ by puffing ourselves up. We can only come broken. Mandy has shown us the way.
Years ago Mandy Smith wrote an exceptionally important book called The Vulnerable Pastor about ministers being real—honest about their fears and doubts and weakness. Here in Confessions of an Amateur Saint she shows us exactly what she means and how it is done, modeling a painful vulnerability that is rare, especially among professionally trained clergy. I came away stunned, amazed, a bit disturbed, and very, very grateful. I promise you have never read a book like this. Her creatively written meditations, laments, questions, and prayers reveal a deep longing for God and candor about the hard stuff of life and ministry. Confessions invites you to own up to your own struggles that, when named, will lead to healing and hope. Vital for pastors and truly useful for all.
- Title: Confessions of an Amateur Saint: The Christian Leader’s Journey from Self-Sufficiency to Reliance on God
- Author: Mandy Smith
- Publisher: NavPress
- Print Publication Date: 2024
- Logos Release Date: 2024
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Ebook
- ISBNs: 9781641588393, 9781641588379, 1641588373, 164158839X
- Resource ID: LLS:9781641588393
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2024-10-09T07:18:48Z