Michael Fletcher

Leaving the raw battlefields of Vietnam, To Hunt a Holy Man, cuts across the rich cultural landscape of Buddhist Thailand. Its characters are enmeshed in war-born adventure, danger, sexual encounters, and spiritual quests. Both Hunter and Holy Man have everything to win-but someone has to lose. The Holy Man is a US Army Catholic priest who flees Vietnam. Longing to complete his spiritual journey, he disappears into Thai Buddhist monastic life. The Hunter is a God-hating, lone-wolf antihero. His plan to claim his trophy is thwarted by an alluring Thai policewoman, and a jolting religious experience. He is staggered, but is he redeemed? Or will he claim his prize and bring the priest back to Vietnam in shackles? Much more than just a hunt, Fletcher skillfully presents the reader with an exotic and fascinating spiritual journey through Southeast Asia. He shows that, 50 years on, there are still powerful lessons to be learned from that infamous war. To Hunt a Holy Man uses edgy language and noir images, but any flinching by the fainthearted will be salved by the story's redemptive ending. Buy this book. A compelling read, it will beat with the spiritual yearnings of your heart.

A major problem in the local church today is lack of leadership. Simply put, we have more needs than we have leaders to meet those needs. So, how do we train better leaders faster? The truth is, very few churches really have a well-thought-out leadership development plan. Growth requires continually adding healthy new leaders, who carry the church culture forward and embody its core values. Everyone knows it, but how do we achieve it? In Empowering Leadership author and leadership consultant Michael Fletcher says leaders like this can't simply be bought, nor can they be hired from someone else's leadership assembly line. Developing leaders at every level, to create an environment that attracts potential leaders, and to build better leaders faster, an organization needs more than a pipeline. It needs a culture that develops leaders organically. Finding the right kind of leaders to guide your church on a path of continual growth comes out of keeping the right focus, and that focus is not just on the leaders. In fact, as Fletcher says,It isn't about the leader. It never was about the leader. It will never be about the leader. It will always and only be about Jesus and his people. It's about the people. True leadership development includes the often messy, but necessary, interaction of life upon life. So hiring pastors and key staff roles from within the church is the very best policy—people who "breathe" the culture of the church and who have helped create the culture you want to maintain. If your church or organization needs a good leadership development structure, then you're holding the right book. Empowering Leadership details Michael's greatest insights on how to build better leaders faster by creating a leadership development culture in your church or organization—naturally, organically, continually. Empower your church or organization through great leadership. This book will show you how!

" An] impeccably researched and probing biography . . . invaluable for any understanding of the court's most controversial figure."--The New York Times Book Review A sweeping, compelling portrait of Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas and "an unflinching look at success and race in America" (Kirkus Reviews, starred review), from two Washington Post journalists There is no more powerful, detested, misunderstood African American in our public life than Clarence Thomas. Supreme Discomfort is a haunting account of an isolated and complex man, savagely reviled by much of the Black community, not yet entirely comfortable in white society, internally wounded by his passage from a broken family and rural poverty in Georgia to elite educational institutions and finally to the pinnacle of judicial power. His staunchly conservative positions on crime, abortion, and, especially, affirmative action have exposed him to charges of heartlessness and hypocrisy. Supreme Discomfort is a superbly researched and reported work that features testimony from friends and foes alike who have never spoken in public about Thomas before--including a candid conversation with his fellow justice and ideological ally, Antonin Scalia. It offers a long-overdue window into a man who straddles two different worlds and is uneasy in both--and whose divided personality and conservative political philosophy will deeply influence American life for years to come.