From the beginning of my life, my home congregation loved me into the faith. As a preschooler in the nursery, I felt so very safe with “church.” A few years later, in the primary department, I remember standing at the…

Few projects excite and galvanize a congregation more than a new building or a major renovation. People complain about construction delays, capital campaigns, and the general din and dust, but their blood pumps, their wallets loosen, and their enthusiasm rises….

Seventy-two e-mails. Fourteen phone calls, not counting the telemarketers who ignore the “no call” list. Six people stop by in addition to your scheduled appointments. The daily paper. The audio information and book service subscription. One hundred and forty-five satellite…

As you begin to explore your own prayer life, a good place to begin is with how you learned to pray. Those early lessons, whether in childhood or later, are the foundation on which your present prayer life rests. You…

Not long ago it became official. After eight years at Alban, I am accepting a call to a new ministry. I will soon leave my work as Alban’s Director of Research and become a regional staff person for the Unitarian…

Listening is the primary and essential way that pastors plumb the depths of the lives of people both within the congregation and in the greater community. In pastoral ministry listening is a given; pastors are expected to be good listeners….

When I ask people what church they go to and to tell to me in one phrase what distinguishes their church from others, I get a wide range of answers. People mention location, history, denomination, size, architecture, cultural stance, ethos,…

A pastor who sows his or her energy in community leadership often discovers that the work returns a harvest of benefits to the congregation, community, and pastor. We do not give, one would hope, so that we might get in…

“Words, words, words . . . !” That’s what I overheard a female student sigh to no one in particular as everyone filed out of the seminary chapel service. I wish now that I had asked her exactly what she…

The most frequent mistake clergy search committees make is to focus too much on the perceived weaknesses of the previous clergyperson. If the predecessor was personable but poorly educated, the search committee scours the world for a Ph.D. and takes…