This collection of true stories is written by Mihee Kim-Kort and Andy Kort, a married clergy couple who met while they were in seminary. They share their unique perspective on the joys and challenges of ministry in alternating segments, forming a collective narrative that illuminates the inner-workings of a clergy marriage, even as it inspires with heartfelt tales of life in ministry. Throughout the book Mihee and Andy relate their respective impressions of shared experiences, revealing inherent differences and potential sources of conflict, but also demonstrating how they work through their differences, communicate, and collaborate to make the most of their strengths. With twenty years of ministry experience between them, a blue Subaru Outback crammed full of child carseats, a tired boxer dog named Ellis, and life experience in three states, Andy and Mihee have struggled with infertility, survived the threat of foreclosure, travelled abroad and led mission trips together, and through it all remain yoked together. This tale of endurance is only made possible by hard work, sympathetic friends, endless conversations, countless cups of coffee and bottles of beer, and the grace of God.

The first year or so of a pastor's tenure in a new congregation is precarious; many pastors stay at a new congregation for fewer than five years. This handbook helps both experienced and new pastors enter a new congregation effectively. Drawing from organizational systems leadership material in religious and secular worlds, it offers nearly 50 tips and tools designed to help new pastors analyze their congregation's system and then to lead leaders within the congregation to affect positive change. Using imagery from Alice in Wonderland to clarify various archetypal roles within the church community, Harris provides concrete suggestions for facilitating communication and dealing with difficult behaviors within the congregation. He provides a coaching approach to ministry, in which the pastor reframes issues and asks provocative questions a powerful strategy to maximize a new pastor s chances for success. Readers will find tools to help them uncover critical information about their new congregation regarding: .congregational norms, particularly regarding the office of pastor, conflict, and holy objects; .their history and sense of God's call; .the true leaders among the congregation; .mutual accountability."

Are you a current or emerging Christian leader who yearns to make a significant long-term difference?
Do you sometimes wonder how to distinguish what is imperative from what is important?
Are you a board member who wants your church or parachurch leadership team to become more intentional and on-target about doing the right things the right way?
"The Leader's SEEcret" is a parable that explores and applies God's Word to today's world of leadership diversions. It delves underneath the surface issues of a leader's or manager's knowledge and skills.
"The Leader's SEEcret" will help you discover, understand, and apply ten core features of one ancient principle. You will understand how to infuse the situations you face as a leader or manager with that timeless reality. And you will learn how you can inspire your staff to do so, too.
Along the way, "The Leader's SEEcret" shows the failure and regret a leader causes when his or her current leadership priorities conflict with lifetime purposes.
This story comes in a concise, get-to-the-point writing style, making it very helpful for individual or group study.
One warning: The principle undergirding LeaderSlip is simple---but not necessarily easy. If you take the challenge, you will become a more effective leader and---perhaps even more crucial---you will protect yourself from eventual failure.

Pastors today are overwhelmed by the perfect storm of too many responsibilities, too few resources, and too rapid congregational, cultural, and technological changes. Many of them confess that the cares of modern ministry have nearly choked the life out of their holy service. Here is a resource for integrated personal and professional transformation and healing for pastors; better equipping them to be effective spiritual leaders for the long haul of professional ministry. We are in a time of great spiritual awakening among Christians, people of other faiths, and self-described spiritual but not religious seekers. Insightful spiritual leadership is needed now more than ever to navigate the waves of pluralism, postmodernism, and globalism. Spiritual leaders need to sharpen their mission, administration, outreach, and preaching skills, but they also need to deepen their commitments to spiritual growth and self-care practices to insure healthy and effective ministry over the long haul.

At one point in her life, author and co-founder of Redeemer Presbyterian Church Kathy Keller sought pastoral ordination. Yet she came to adopt the view that men and women have different roles in marriage and ministry, and that fulfilling such roles pleases God and leads to greater personal fulfillment.

In this unapologetic but nuanced piece, Keller presents a caring and careful case for biblical gender differences and the complementarian view of women in ministry. At the same time, she encourages women to teach and lead in the church in ways that may startle some complementarians. Readers on both sides of this hot-button topic will be challenged by her ministry-tested and thoroughly Scriptural perspective.

The general decline of American mainline Protestant churches today is well documented. Church redevelopment imagining and actualizing new life for dying churches is a productive and vital response to congregational decline, but it can be daunting. Here is guidebook for church leaders, to help them reinvigorate their churches with both practical advice and tested theory. A comprehensive case study of Beneficent Congregational Church, which successfully turned the tide and quadrupled its worship attendance, provides inspiration as well as concrete strategies for church redevelopment. The study indicates that successful and faithful church redevelopment involves a shift from a modern-patronage ministry model to a postmodern-plural ministry model. Building on current church redevelopment literature by bringing selected Biblical and theological texts into conversation with leadership concepts, systems theory, social sciences, and congregational studies, this book creates a multidisciplinary transformative conversation. The result is both strategic proposals for growing your church and a model for doing practical theology in your own ministry context. Dedicated, trained leadership in cooperation with the power of the Spirit can create the possibility of new life in dying congregations."

Over the past ten years, the North American mission field has experienced dramatic changes, which in turn have required congregations, middle judicatories, and denominations to adapt. Among these adaptations is an expectation for clear goals and quantified progress towards those goals. Church leaders who have never needed to measure their goals and progress with metrics may find this change daunting. The use of metrics denominational and middle judicatory dashboards, and the tracking of congregational trends has become an uncomfortable and misunderstood practice in this search for accountability. Doing the Math of Mission offers theory, models, and new tools for using metrics in ministry. This book also shows where metrics and accountability fit into the discernment, goal setting, and strategies of ministry. While there are resources for research on congregations, tools on congregational studies, and books on program evaluation, there is a gap when it comes to actual tools and resources for church leaders. This book is intended to help fill that gap, giving leaders a toolbox they can use in their own setting to clarify their purpose and guide their steps."

This vital revised and expanded update to How to Thrive in Associate Staff Ministry (Alban, 2000) provides guidance to the growing population of staff members employed by churches. Churches are expanding their staffs, but the turnover rate remains high, often due to stress, isolation, and conflict on the job. Lawson and Boersma address what it takes to thrive personally, professionally, and relationally within associate staff ministry. Based on updated research and interviews with over 600 veteran associate staff members from many different denominations, Lawson and Boersma describe the priorities, attitudes, and practices that can help associate staff members thrive in their ministry roles. They present, explain, and illustrate a four-part Model for Thriving in Associate Staff Ministry, a concrete framework that readers can use to help achieve satisfaction and balance in their own lives. In addition to addressing those in associate staff roles, the book also includes chapters to help supervising pastors and church boards support their associate staff members. Each chapter includes questions for personal reflection or discussion with others to help readers engage with the material and determine what steps they might take to improve their own experience in associate staff ministry."

Arising out of consultations under the auspices of the Centre for the Study of the Christian Church, this book examines the Church of England's decision to ordain women to the priesthood and to make pastoral provision for those opposed. It attempts to discover and define the theological principles underlying both the ordination of women and the determination of the Church to maintain communion when these developments provoke fundamental disagreements. The book also considers the role of the so-called "flying Bishops", set in place by the Episcopal Ministry Act of Synod (1993). All the contributors support, with varying degrees of enthusiasm, the Act of Synod, but they are divided in their view of the ordination of women.

He loves the tango, was trained as a Chemist, and in his youth he had a regular girlfriend whom he planned to marry. For a pope, Francis has an unusual life story. Drawing on conversations, interviews, inside information and the Pope's own writings and talks, A Call to Serve offers first-hand information, moving reflections, and profound insights into the life and character of Jorge Bergoglio, his ministry in Buenos Aires, the challenges he faces in Rome, and his vision for renewing the church and serving the world. Over one hundred and fifty full-colour photographs accompany the Pope's remarkable story, capturing key moments and people in his upbringing and former life in Argentina. They also chronicle the historic events surrounding the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI and the extraordinary series of surprises that followed the election of the first pope from the Americas.

The eleventh-century papal reform transformed western European Church and society and permanently altered the relations of Church and State in the west. The reform was inaugurated by Pope Leo IX (1048-54) and given a controversial change of direction by Pope Gregory VII (1073-85). This book contains the earliest biographies of both popes, presented here for the first time in English translation with detailed commentaries. The biographers of Leo IX were inspired by his universally acknowledged sanctity, whereas the biographers of Gregory VII wrote to defend his reputation against the hostility generated by his reforming methods and his conflict with King Henry IV. Also included is a translation of Book to a Friend, written by Bishop Bonizo of Sutri soon after the death of Gregory VII, as well as an extract from the violently anti-Gregorian polemic of Bishop Benzo of Alba (1085) and the short biography of Leo IX composed in the papal curia in the 1090s by Bishop Bruno of Segni. These fascinating narrative sources bear witness to the startling impact of the papal reform and of the 'Investiture Contest', the conflict of empire and papacy that was one of its consequences. An essential collection of translated texts for students of medieval history. -- .

Modern church leaders need to cultivate innovative and creative leadership skills, as they navigate today s post-Christian world, and as their congregations look to them for insight and guidance. Gil Stafford takes a fresh look at this vital need, drawing upon his experience as a college coach, university president, and parish priest, and interweaving them with ancient spiritual practices found within the discipline of spiritual direction. Personal anecdotes help the reader envision their own life-transforming pilgrimage, as they develop into the type of adaptive leader that churches need in today s rapidly changing world. This book challenges church leaders to foster sacred safe space, holy listening, silence, and wisdom storytelling, in order to create a discerning church community. These techniques of spiritual direction can be applied to every aspect of the church, from small group studies to conducting parish business. Gradually the leader will be able to delegate some of his responsibilities to the congregation, liberating them to be leaders, and rescuing him from trying to be all things to all people."

This book assembles a knowledge base of the cross-cultural congregation-to-congregation relationship of two local churches: Madison square Christian Reformed Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and the Providence Baptist Church in Monrovia, Liberia.

According to George Barna, uncovering God's vision for your ministry is not an option. It's essential for the most productive ministry that will accomplish God's goals for building his kingdom. Ministry leaders with a clear picture from God of where they are headed are much more likely to experience a successful journey. In this book, Barna uncovers how God has shared his vision throughout history, how vision is different from mission, common practices and beliefs that inhibit true vision, practical steps toward experiencing and carrying out God's unique vision for them, and ways to share and promote congregational ownership of the vision.

Lesslie Newbigin was a figure of patristic proportions in the twentieth-century history of the Church. In this intellectual and spiritual biography Geoffrey Wainwright displays the theological character of his subject's multifarious engagement in the search for Christian unity, the practice of evangelism and the strategy of mission, the compassionate service of society, and the responsible statement of the scriptural and traditional faith amid the complexities of late modern culture. Himself a distinguished ecumenist and theologian, Geoffrey Wainwright draws on thirty-five years of personal and literary acquaintance with his subject and on a thorough examination of the Newbigin archives in crafting this rich and varied portrait of an outstanding figure in the ecumenical movement.

Kingdom leadership does not begin and end at the church door. Christians are called to conduct leadership in government, commerce, schools, neighborhoods, families, para-church ministries and a myriad other contexts. God has given us many gifts, and our responsibility is to be stewards of those gifts, and use them to do the King's work. In that context, this comprehensive text explores key facets of leadership from a Christian worldview so as to equip people to conduct leadership more authentically than would be possible under alternative paradigms. The book begins with the seldom considered theological foundations of leadership while also tracing the historic roots of management, organization and leadership theories. All of this leads to a robust discussion of five essential challenges and practices--communication, negotiation, decision-making, financial stewardship and personal development. The combined efforts of these experts in the field provide a practical theology of leadership from a Christian worldview for emerging and established leaders. Here is the foundation needed for those who want to conduct leadership in a manner consistent with their faith in both religious and nonreligious organizational contexts.

John Wesley has arguably influenced more English-speaking Christians than any other Protestant interpreter. One reason for this wide influence is that Wesley often spoke about the "heart" and its "affections"-that realm of life where all humans experience their deepest satisfactions, as well as some of their deepest conundrums. However, one of the problems of interpreting and appropriating Wesley is that we have been blinded to Wesley's actual views about "heart religion" by contemporary stereotypes about "affections" or "emotions." Because of this, it is rare that either Wesley's friends or his critics appreciate his sophisticated understanding of affective reality. To make clear what Wesley meant when he emphasized the renewal of the heart, Gregory S. Clapper summarizes some recent paradigm-changing accounts of the nature of "emotion" produced by contemporary philosophers and theologians, and then applies them to Wesley's conception of the heart and its affections. These accounts of emotion throw new light on Wesley's vision of Christianity as a renewal of the heart and make it possible to reclaim the language of the heart, not as a pandering or manipulative rhetoric, but as the framework for a comprehensive theological vision of Christian life and thought. The book closes with several practical applications that make clear the power of Wesley's vision to transform lives today.

12th Annual Outreach Resource of the Year Recommendation (Leadership) Pastors and church leaders often fall into the trap of people-pleasing. Charles Stone?s research on thousands of pastors and ministry leaders demonstrates the dangers of approval-motivated leadership. Bringing together biblical insights and neuroscience findings, Stone shows why we fall into people-pleasing patterns and what we can do to overcome these tendencies. With practical tools for individuals and teams, Stone offers concrete resources to help you and your leadership minimize people-pleasing and have more effective ministry.

In 1214, King John issued a charter granting freedom of election to the English Church; henceforth, cathedral chapters were, theoretically, to be allowed to elect their own bishops, with minimal intervention by the crown. Innocent III confirmed this charter and, in the following year, the right to electoral freedom was restated at the Fourth Lateran Council. In consequence, under Henry III and Edward I the English Church enjoyed something of a golden age of electoral freedom, during which the king might influence elections, but ultimately could not control them. Then, during the reigns of Edward II and Edward III, papal control over appointments was increasingly asserted and from 1344 onwards all English bishops were provided by the pope. This book considers the theory and practice of free canonical election in its heyday under Henry III and Edward I, and the nature of and reasons for the subsequent transition to papal provision. An analysis of the theoretical evidence for this subject (including canon law, royal pronouncements and Lawrence of Somercote's remarkable 1254 tract on episcopal elections) is combined with a consideration of the means by which bishops were created during the reigns of Henry III and the three Edwards. The changing roles of the various participants in the appointment process (including, but not limited to, the cathedral chapter, the king, the papacy, the archbishop and the candidate) are given particular emphasis. In addition, the English situation is placed within a European context, through a comparison of English episcopal appointments with those made in France, Scotland and Italy. Bishops were central figures in medieval society and the circumstances of their appointments are of great historical importance. As episcopal appointments were also touchstones of secular-ecclesiastical relations, this book therefore has significant implications for our understanding of church-state interactions during the thirteenth and fourteenth centu

From 1807, when the first Protestant missionary arrived in China, to the 1920s, when a new phase of growth began, thousands of missionaries and Chinese Christians laboured, often under very adverse conditions, to lay the groundwork for a solid, healthy, and self-sustaining Chinese church. Following an Introduction that sets the scene and surveys the entire period, 'Builders of the Chinese Church' contains the stories of nine leading pioneers: seven Western missionaries and two Chinese. Here we meet Robert Morrison, the heroic translator; Liang Fa, the first Chinese evangelist; missionary-scholar James Legge; J. Hudson Taylor, founder of the China Inland Mission; converted opium addict Pastor Hsi, Overcomer of Demons; Griffith John and Jonathan Goforth, both indefatigable preachers; and the idealistic advocates of education and reform, W.A.P. Martin and Timothy Richard. Readers will be inspired by their courage, devotion, and sheer perseverance in arduous work, and will gain a better understanding of the origins of the two 'branches' of today's Chinese Protestantism.

Some churches grow rapidly, only to hit a ceiling. Other churches have experienced declining or static attendance--many of them for decades. Frustrated pastors and church leaders want growth methods that work, but without adding to pastoral fatigue. How to Break Growth Barriers argues that growth comes when effective leadership and lay-empowerment skills work hand in hand. This requires a shift of focus from the shepherd as the primary caregiver to shepherd as developer and coach of many caregivers. The authors show pastors how to communicate a vision for the future and then how to lead the congregation into the paradigms necessary for potentially limitless growth. The strategies found in this book are not only tried and true, and taken from a biblical perspective of a "harvest" vision. They're also newly updated to reflect our changing culture, including helpful charts and checklists for self-evaluation.

Published in 1998, these essays focus on Rome and the curia in the 11th and 12th centuries. Several relate to Cardinal Deusdedit and his canonical collection (1087) and to the pontificate of Paschal II (1099-1118). Both personalities and their ideas are presented within the larger setting of contemporary problems, highlighting divergent currents among ecclesiastical reformers at a time of the investiture controversies. A third common theme is formed by discussions of the organization and archival practices of the curia, which were of fundamental importance for the growth and codification of canon law, not to mention papal control of the Church.

"The first thing to say in our exploration of priesthood is this: priesthood is a fundamental and inescapable part of being human. All human beings, knowingly or not, minister as priests to one another. All of us, knowingly or not, receive priestly ministrations from one another. Unless we begin here, we are not likely to understand the confusions and uncertainties and opportunities we have been encountering in the life of the church itself in recent years. We shall be in danger, in fact, of creating makeshift solutions to half-understood problems, easy answers to misleading questions, temporary bandages for institutions that need to be healed from the ground up." - L. William Countryman There is a lot of tension in churches today about whose ministry is primary-that of the laity or of the clergy. L. William Countryman argues that we can only resolve that problem by seeing that we are all priests simply by virtue of being human and living, as we all do, on the mysterious and uncertain border with the Holy. Living on the Border of the Holy offers a way of understanding the priesthood of the whole people of God and the priesthood of the ordained in complementary ways by showing how both are rooted in the fundamental priestly nature of human life. After an exploration of the ministry of both laity and ordained, Countryman concludes by examining the implications of this view of priesthood for churches and for educating those studying for ordination.