It happened one morning during the sermon. Joe Duggan, a church leader participating in an initiative exploring ways to incorporate recent confirmands into the ongoing life of the parish, suddenly knew what he wanted to provide for them: a program…
Read MoreMaking Sundays Relevant to Mondays
When I asked my supervisor a question about funerals during my student ministry placement, he picked up the phone and arranged for me to spend a day with the local funeral director. As a new ordinand visiting a family a…
Read MoreProclaiming Passion: The Theological Challenge of Youth Ministry in the 21st Century
Teenagers are heat-seeking missiles. They’re drawn to fire. They yearn for experiences that will channel their passions. And by and large they are not detecting many signs of life in the church. —Cuyler Black, youth pastor, in Fellowship Magazine, June…
Read MoreExpressive Communalism: The Embodied Spirituality of the Post-Boomer Generations
Today we are bombarded with visual symbols virtually every minute of the day. Our relationship to technology is far more interactive than it once was, and the ease of access created by modern technology has created a global market culture….
Read MoreThe Leading Edge: Reading the People in the Pews
In my parish ministry days, preaching and leading worship were central elements in a weekly rhythm. I found that those leadership roles gave me a distinct vantage point from which to view the congregation. From pulpit or communion table I…
Read MoreAsk Alban: When Not To Do a Congregational Survey
Q: Our church is experiencing conflict between the pastor and several lay members. Should we conduct a congregation-wide survey to evaluate the pastor? A: Now is probably not a good time for a congregation-wide survey to evaluate the pastor. Let…
Read MoreFaith and the Workplace: Making the Connection in Lenten Sermons
When Sharon Wilson, pastor of Windsor Park United Church in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, returned from a sabbatical exploring the relationship between work and faith (see page 27 of the Fall 2004 issue of CONGREGATIONS), she and her ministerial partner Rev….
Read MoreThe Stresses of Size: One Minister’s Journey to the Land of the Large Church and Back
My ministerial resume can be summed up fairly well in three phrases: a suburban church, an inner-city church, and a small-town church. As dizzying as that varied list may sound, I feel fortunate to have had such a variety of…
Read MoreWelcoming the "Other": What Pastors and Congregations Can Do to Support Ecumenical Marriages
In American religious life today there is an upsurge of “church-hopping”—laity moving their membership from one denomination to another. Married couples do not always make this move together, however. A couple who began their marriage within the same denomination may…
Read MoreThe Leading Edge: Pastors' Untold Stories: A Silence that Begs to Be Broken
A new book by Dean R. Hoge and Jacqueline E. Wenger probes a painful topic that touches many American congregations. Pastors in Transition: Why Clergy Leave Local Church Ministry (Eerdmans, 2005) seeks to shed some light on a situation that…
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