“The Courageous Ask” by Brian Kreeger

The Courageous Ask: A Proactive Approach to Prevent the Fall of Christian Nonprofit Leaders

Brian Kreeger
TUBA Publishing, LLC (2021)
ISBN 9781737039914
Reviewed by Tammy Ruggles for Reader Views (01/2022)

“The Courageous Ask: A Proactive Approach to Prevent the Fall of Christian Nonprofit Leaders” is a powerfully inspiring book focusing on Christian leadership, told from one of the former “fallen.” If this were a self-help or motivational book dishing out advice on how to maintain integrity in non-profit leadership, readers would gloss over it, agree with it, and move on. But this book goes a step further, in that the author personally experienced a fall from grace and lived to tell the story so that other leaders may benefit, ask the right questions, and avoid the pitfalls. He doesn’t sugarcoat his mistakes, and this is the main reason I like what he has to say. Leaders are human, too; if they aren’t careful, they can fall sway to temptation and impulsive decisions.

Is it possible for fallen leaders to pick themselves back up and begin again? This is the main question, but there are others. Do disgraced leaders deserve a second chance? How can they repair the damage they’ve done and restore their reputation? This award-winning author speaks the truth (and sometimes that can hurt), but in the end, restoration can come under the right circumstances.

Kreeger explores all angles of the issue, from leadership on a national scale to smaller, community-based levels. But the main takeaway strategy is to be proactive, and the author goes into detail about how you can prevent a fall from happening. It involves seeing the signs and doing something about it immediately—not waiting until it’s too late.

I love the buzzwords in this book and I think you will, too, when it comes to non-profit leadership: accountability, community, integrity, strength, truth, honor, humility. As well as other key factors involved in Christ-centered leadership: love, compassion, relationships. If restoration is your goal, there are principles in this book to help guide you toward that goal—so…yes, this book is about second chances. You may not hear the terms “faith,” “prayer,” and “forgiveness” associated with leadership, even in Christian organizations, but this book shows that those are things that need to be addressed when it comes to leaders, fallen leaders, or restoring leaders.

It takes a lot of courage to own up to mistakes, yet this author has done just that. “The Courageous Ask” is a book any Christian or Christian leader can benefit from.