Heart, Hands
& Hope

Written for the
Aftermath Era

Something broke in March of 2020. Not just routines and rhythms of congregational life — something deeper. The assumption that the tools of leadership we had spent careers developing were adequate to the moment we now inhabit. They were not.

This book is structured around the book of Nehemiah — one of Scripture's most complete portraits of leadership in the aftermath of devastation. Nehemiah arrives not during the emergency, but decades later, when the ruins have become routine and survival has replaced vision.

The argument is simple and urgent: the leadership need of our era is not crisis management. It is aftermath leadership — the capacity to grieve before acting, build together rather than alone, confront injustice, sustain vision through fatigue, and build for a future beyond your own tenure.

Drawing on voices including Walter Brueggemann, Bryan Stevenson, Chanequa Walker-Barnes, Jemar Tisby, and Miroslav Volf — this book functions simultaneously as a leadership manual, spiritual formation resource, justice theology text, and pastoral memoir.

Designed to be read alone and studied in groups, preached from and prayed over, assigned in seminary courses and carried in a back pocket during a hard season of ministry.