Canter Bridge

If you’ve never stood and gaped at the periodicals section of a well-stocked Borders store or scanned an on-line list of periodicals, you may not be aware how astonishingly prolific is the publishing of niche magazines and journals. It is one of the too little celebrated marvels of the English-language editorial industry.

One example of such hidden riches is the Christian Management Association’s Christian Management Report. Now twenty-five years, the CMA pulls off a splendid annual conference that simply overflows with instruction, networking possibilities, and resources for Christian managers of all kinds. Along the way, this association somehow manages to toss off this gem of a magazine.

If you work in this sector, you should not do without CMR.

The flourishing of parachurch organizations since the midpoint of the twentieth century has more recently produced a cadre of highly-trained managers and leaders, to say nothing of faith-based management programs like those offered by Regent University and a host of seminary-based Doctor of Ministry programs. Some of the resulting research and know-how finds its way into the pages of the Christian Management Report.

A recent themed issue of ‘Managing Across Generational Boundaries’ is a case in point (August, 2006). You get dirty-hands input from middle-aged leaders in the thick of learning to empower a generation of employees that chills out when their leader yells ‘Charge!’. Plus, you get this younger generation’s take on the same phenomenon.

When I moved to a leadership position in the USA two years ago after a decade and a half in Latin America, I began to wake up the existence of CMR and other resources like it. An embarrasment of riches is what it is. And more.