For many of us, the most serious challenge in competent time management is neither finding a block of time to take a sabbatical nor making the effort to create a healthy daily schedule on paper. The most serious challenge is…
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 MoreThe Need for Clergy Renewal
As pastor of a 150-member church that averages about 80 for Sunday worship, I am typical of many clergy: we work long hours for many years without relief. Like people in many other professions, we have difficulty drawing appropriate boundaries…
Read MoreNew Research on Raising the Roof
Since the Spring of 2000, the Alban Institute has been creating new resources for churches struggling with the transition between pastoral and program size. We are clearer than ever that life in the zone between 150 and 250 (average Sunday…
Read MoreStaying Put: A Look at the First 10 Years of Ministry
During my years in parish ministry I offered spiritual direction for clergy in the area. In the span of two years, four pastors came to me with what seemed to be the same symptoms. Each felt a sense of restlessness,…
Read MoreWhat Matters in Ministry
Louisville Institute associate director William Brosend II discusses the five elements of ministry that are more important than anything else I quit my job. It’s a long story, and I did not stay unemployed for long. The point is that…
Read MorePracticing Our Faith in a Digital Age
One Sunday afternoon, a teenager in my congregation woke up terribly depressed. She decided to end her life. She wrote a simple will, but it was not on a piece of paper. Instead, she e-mailed it to her friends. She…
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 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 MoreA Matter of the Heart: Pastor John Wimberly Shares How His Passions Have Shaped His Lifelong Learning Agenda
Over the past 22 years, continuing education has been a big part of my life: I earned a Ph.D. in systematic theology, mastered the art of creating wheelthrown ceramic pots, and completed an Executive MBA program. During that time, I…
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