| | | | | | | | | | | | PRACTICAL WISDOM FOR LEADING CONGREGATIONS |
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| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Frederick Buechner is a theologian, ordained Presbyterian minister and writer. He's also an unlikely social media sensation, with more than 1.5 million followers.
On July 11, 2016, he turned 90, an occasion marked by the publication of Buechner 101: Essays and Sermons by Frederick Buechner.
Edited by writer Anne Lamott, the volume features a selection of Buechner's essays and sermons, as well as excerpts from his memoirs and novels. It also offers tributes by others, including Barbara Brown Taylor and Brian McLaren.
In the introduction, Lamott says that Buechner "writes of the truth, both of the Gospel, and of his own damaged family, and of our truth, sight unseen, ... in a way that is so precise, revelatory and profound, that it makes me experience an awakening to spiritual reality all over again, each time."
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| IDEAS THAT IMPACT: MEMOIRS OF MINISTRY
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The pastoral memoir allows us to overhear the sounds of the gospel reverberating through the life of another minister. It clarifies or challenges our own reckonings of ministry and provides clues as to where in our lives God may be found, or better yet, where God may find us. This is what makes the pastoral memoir so engaging.
But, at the level of Christian practice, what do pastoral memoirs offer to the busy pastor and layperson active in Christian ministry? How can this particular expression inform the life and work of those who minister in the name of Jesus Christ? How does the pastoral memoir help shape the way a pastor sees the world and everything he or she does?
Read more from Lee Ramsey » |
In the past several months, I have had close to a dozen current or recent seminarians reach out to me asking for counsel on what to do with their desire to write.
Engaging in the craft of creative writing is where they feel most alive and the means by which they feel most passionate about witnessing to "the things about which [they] have been instructed" (Luke 1:4 NRSV).
Read more from Enuma Okoro »
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Becoming the Pastor You Hope to Be unapologetically urges clergy readers to develop practices that will help them become more excellent ministers.
A long-time field educator, now serving as a denominational staff person responsible for ministerial formation, Barbara Blodgett believes excellence is a matter of doing simple things with care and consistency. Ministers who commit themselves to excellence will grow and flourish, and even become happier in ministry. Blodgett urges ministers to resist praise and instead to ask for feedback, to seek the company of mentors who are better than the reader is at what he or she does, to be vulnerable before their peers in order to learn from them, and to define themselves as a leader who does not merely take activist stances but risks entering into deep, transformative relationships. Improvement in ministry, Blodgett argues, comes about not through extraordinary leaps and bounds but rather through adopting simple habits and carrying through on small but thoughtfully made choices.
Addressed to ministers, Becoming the Pastor You Hope to Be is also a valuable resource for discernment committees, Christian educators, leaders of continuing education and lay education programs, and all those who partner with theological schools to help form ministers, both lay and ordained.
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