Most pastors are good listeners. They know how to open up a conversation and invite people to share the pain, struggles, and signs of growth in their lives. Many pastors stop there, and fail to help the members of the…
Read More(Weddings that are more than) One Perfect Day: Helping Couples Create Something Inspiring
We all have our wedding stories. We who officiate at weddings have all experienced our share of obsessive brides and grooms, fanatical family members, and theologically challenged wedding coordinators. We have witnessed wedding preparations that can only be described as…
Read MoreThe Sacred Responsibility: Supporting the Pastor We Have Called to Serve Us
Responsibility for congregational health lies with both congregation and pastor, but many congregations fail to recognize the sacred responsibility they have to the pastor called to shepherd them. Evidence of this failure can be seen in the alarming number of…
Read MoreGood-Enough Self-Care
Clergy self-care requires spending enough time to build and maintain transparent, truthful, and loving relationships with God, with those we love, and with ourselves. It is Monday morning, and she is exhausted. She had planned to take the day off,…
Read MoreThe First Five Years: Four Programs Offering Support to New Pastors
The first five years of parish ministry set an entire ministry. The habits, the inclinations, the dispositions, the way of understanding vocation is set in those first five years, and it lasts.1 That core belief—or a similar variation—is at the…
Read MoreClergy Self-Care Strategies for Good Times and Bad
Even as spring fills our senses and renews our spirits, this we know: clergy emergencies happen in all seasons. As I write I picture the faces of clergy that I know are currently in the struggle of their life—family emergencies,…
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 MoreAnswering in Unison: How Six Congregations Supported the Called
The Alban Institute has been interested for some time in the connections that exist between active participation in a congregation and what people do in the world. Specifically, we wanted to know how participation in a congregation assists people in…
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