Download or read book What Clergy Do written by Emma Percy and published by SPCK. This book was released on 2014-04-17 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Clergy have a pivotal role in creating and nurturing church communities in which all people can grow up into Christ. This book explores the nature of that role by considering key similarities with the essential but often conflicting demands of motherhood. Like mothers, clergy need to preserve and hold people faithfully, while encouraging them to grow, take initiatives and become more confident and self-supporting. This book will help clergy to think about how this is achieved through the myriad of 'small' things they do from day to day, highlighting skills such as comforting, cherishing and multi-attending - skills that are centrally important but often unarticulated and undervalued.

Download or read book Stuck written by Todd W. Ferguson and published by Fortress Press. This book was released on 2022-05-10 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Stuck is a guide for understanding how and why a traditional approach to ministry does not align with the modern realities facing pastors, congregations, and seminaries. More than simply describing findings from their firsthand research, however, Todd W. Ferguson and Josh Packard offer a new understanding of why professional ministry can be so alienating today. Stuck shifts the dominant narrative around calling, vocation, and ministry away from a focus on individual traits and characteristics of pastors and congregational leaders and toward a more structural understanding of the social forces that impact modern ministry. The authors focus on the nature of calling; the need for modern, flexible congregational supports; and a different approach to training professional clergy. Stuck lets pastors who feel stuck know that they're not alone, they're not crazy, and it's not their fault. It helps congregations be more supportive of their clergy. And it participates in the conversation for reshaping seminary training and professional development.

Download or read book On the Duties of the Clergy written by St Ambrose and published by . This book was released on 2010-10 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In "On the Duties of the Clergy" St. Ambrose gives a detailed and definitive instruction on how the early leaders of the Church should behave and how they should lead their flock. An important read for all of those called to become spiritual leaders. -- Amazon.com

Download or read book Christian Clergy in American Politics written by Sue E. S. Crawford and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2003-05-06 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In recent decades, Christian clergy have ever more frequently had to decide whether to become involved in politics. When they do become involved, their influence can be substantial. In this book Sue E. S. Crawford, Laura R. Olson, and their coauthors explore the political choices clergy make and the consequences of these choices. Drawing on personal interviews and statistical data to place the actions of clergy in both their religious and secular contexts, the authors study mainline and evangelical Protestant, Catholic, and Mennonite communities. They examine the role of white, African American, and female religious leaders. And they address issues of local development, city government, and national and international politics. Contributors: Christi J. Braun, Boston University School of Law • Timothy A. Byrnes, Colgate University • James C. Cavendish, University of South Florida • Sue E. S. Crawford, Creighton University • Katie Day, Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia • Melissa M. Deckman, Washington College • Paul A. Djupe, Denison University • Joel S. Fetzer, Central Michigan University • James L. Guth, Furman University • Ted G. Jelen, University of Nevada-Las Vegas • Laura R. Olson, Clemson University • James M. Penning, Calvin College • Mary R. Sawyer, Iowa State University • Corwin E. Smidt, Calvin College

Download or read book Clericalism written by George B. Wilson and published by Liturgical Press. This book was released on 2017-06-15 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Searching for answers in the midst of the sexual abuse crisis in the church, many blamed the clerical culture. But what exactly is this clerical culture? We may know it when we see it, but how can we 'whether clergy or laypeople 'go about dismantling it and putting in place a new, healthy culture? George Wilson has spent decades working with organizations to help them discover, and often recover, their foundational calling. He is also a Jesuit priest engaged in the lives of congregations. In Clericalism: The Death of Priesthood he brings together both capacities and gives his sense of the challenges facing the church. As members of the church, Wilson maintains, we are all responsible for creating a clerical culture. And we are also responsible for that culture's transformation. Clericalism aids this transformation by helping us examine some underlying attitudes that create and preserve destructive relationships between ordained and laity. After looking at the crisis and establishing where we are now, this book challenges us with concrete suggestions for changing behaviors. We are lay and ordained, but all baptized into the royal priesthood of 1 Peter 2:9, all called to spread the Gospel and do the work of God's love in the world. Ultimately, this is a hopeful book, looking for the restoration of a genuine priesthood, free of clericalism, in which we become truly united in Christ..

Download or read book Jane Austen and the Clergy written by Irene Collins and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 1994-01-01 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jane Austen was the daughter of a clergyman, the sister of two others and the cousin of four more. Her principal acquaintances were clergymen and their families, whose social, intellectual and religious attitudes she shared. Yet while clergymen feature in all her novels, often in major roles, there has been little recognition of their significance. To many readers their status and profession is a mystery, as they appear simply to be a sub-species of gentlemen and never seem to perform any duties. Mr Collins in Pride and prejudice is often regarded as little more than a figure of fun. Astonishingly, Jane Austen and the Clergy is the first book to demonstrate the importance of Jane Austen's clerical background and to explain the clergy in her novels, whether Mr Tilney in Northanger Abbey, Mr Elton in Emma, or a less prominent character such as Dr Grant in Mansfield Park. In this exceptionally well-written and enjoyable book, Irene Collins draws on a wide knowledge of the literature and history of the period to describe who the clergy were, both in the novels and in life: how they were educated and appointed the houses they lived in and the gardens they designed and cultivated; the women they married; their professional and social context; their income, their duties, their moral outlook and their beliefs. Jane Austen and the Clergy uses the facts of Jane Austen's life and the evidence contained in her letters and novels to give a vivid and convincing portrait of the contemporary clergy.

Download or read book Priests of the French Revolution written by Joseph F. Byrnes and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2015-02-05 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 115,000 priests on French territory in 1789 belonged to an evolving tradition of priesthood. The challenge of making sense of the Christian tradition can be formidable in any era, but this was especially true for those priests required at the very beginning of 1791 to take an oath of loyalty to the new government—and thereby accept the religious reforms promoted in a new Civil Constitution of the Clergy. More than half did so at the beginning, and those who were subsequently consecrated bishops became the new official hierarchy of France. In Priests of the French Revolution, Joseph Byrnes shows how these priests and bishops who embraced the Revolution creatively followed or destructively rejected traditional versions of priestly ministry. Their writings, public testimony, and recorded private confidences furnish the story of a national Catholic church. This is a history of the religious attitudes and psychological experiences underpinning the behavior of representative bishops and priests. Byrnes plays individual ideologies against group action, and religious teachings against political action, to produce a balanced story of saints and renegades within a Catholic tradition.

Download or read book Clergy Killers written by G. Lloyd Rediger and published by Westminster John Knox Press. This book was released on 1997-01-01 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Clergy Killers offers remedial strategies for pastors and congregations who want to protect themselves against the abuse of parishioners with personality disorders, mental illnesses, and mean streaks in situations that go well beyond mere church conflict.

Download or read book Clergy Renewal written by Richard Bullock and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2000-04-01 with total page 105 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Planned time away from the parish for study, rest, and spiritual renewal can be beneficial-and often necessary-for any pastor, as well as for the congregation. In this thoroughly revised and expanded edition of Alban’s popular Sabbatical Planning for Clergy and Congregations, Bullock and Bruesehoff provide the definitive guide to putting together refreshing pastoral sabbaticals that can help keep ministry vital and growing for the long term

Download or read book Creating Christian Indians written by Bonnie Sue Lewis and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Creating Christian Indians takes issue with the widespread consensus that missions to North American indigenous peoples routinely destroyed native cultures and that becoming Christian was fundamentally incompatible with retaining traditional Indian identities"--from jkt.

Download or read book Sinner written by Sierra Simone and published by Sierra Simone. This book was released on 2018-03-15 with total page 399 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An Entertainment Weekly Top 10 Romance of 2018! I'm not a good man, and I've never pretended to be. I don't believe in goodness or God or any happy ending that isn't paid for in advance. In fact, I've got my own personal holy trinity: in the name of money, sex, and Macallan 18, amen. So when the gorgeous, brilliant Zenny Iverson asks me to teach her about sex, I want to say yes, I really do. Unfortunately, there are several reasons to say no--reasons that even a very bad man like myself can't ignore. 1. She's my best friend's little sister. 2. She's too young for me. Like way too young. 3. She's a nun. Or about to be anyway. But I want her. I want her even with my best friend and God in the way, I want to teach her and touch her and love her, and I know that makes me something much worse than a very bad man. It makes me a sinner. And it's those very sins that are about to save me... ***Sinner is a standalone companion to Priest about Father Bell's brother Sean. You do not have to read Priest or Midnight Mass to read Sinner***

Download or read book Being a Chaplain written by Miranda Threlfall-Holmes and published by SPCK. This book was released on 2012-04-10 with total page 117 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book combines theological reflection on key issues in chaplaincy with a collection of stories from those engaged in chaplaincy in a wide variety of contexts. The essays cover issues, skills and tensions - discussing what chaplaincy is and how to do it.

Download or read book God s Ambassadors written by E. Brooks Holifield and published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. This book was released on 2007-09-25 with total page 367 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In God's Ambassadors E. Brooks Holifield masterfully traces the history of America's Christian clergy from the seventeenth to the twenty-first century, analyzing the changes in practice and authority that have transformed the clerical profession. Challenging one-sided depictions of decline in clerical authority, Holifield locates the complex story of the clergy within the context not only of changing theologies but also of transitions in American culture and society. The result is a thorough social history of the profession that also takes seriously the theological presuppositions that have informed clerical activity. With alternating chapters on Protestant and Catholic clergy, the book permits sustained comparisons between the two dominant Christian traditions in American history. At the same time, God's Ambassadors depicts a vocation that has remained deeply ambivalent regarding the professional status marking the other traditional learned callings in the American workplace. Changing expectations about clerical education, as well as enduring theological questions, have engendered a debate about the professional ideal that has distinguished the clerical vocation from such fields as law and medicine. The American clergy from the past four centuries constitute a colorful, diverse cast of characters who have, in ways both obvious and obscure, helped to shape the tone of American culture. For a well-rounded narrative of their story told by a master historian, God's Ambassadors is the book to read.

Download or read book The Care of Souls written by Harold L. Senkbeil and published by Lexham Press. This book was released on 2019-06-26 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on a lifetime of pastoral experience, The Care of Souls is a beautifully written treasury of proven wisdom which pastors will find themselves turning to again and again. Harold Senkbeil helps remind pastors of the essential calling of the ministry: preaching and living out the Word of God while orienting others in the same direction. And he offers practical and fruitful adviceâ€"born out of his five decades as a pastorâ€"that will benefit both new pastors and those with years in the pulpit. In a time when many churches have lost sight of the real purpose of the church, The Care of Souls invites a new generation of pastors to form the godly habits and practical wisdom needed to minister to the hearts and souls of those committed to their care.

Download or read book Behavioral Covenants in Congregations written by Gil Rendle and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 1998-07-01 with total page 149 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This down-to-earth workbook gets to the heart of modern congregational life: how to live creatively together despite differences of age, race, culture, opinion, gender, theological or political position. Alban Senior Consultant Gil Rendle explains how to grow by valuing our differences rather than trying to ignore or blend them. He describes a method of establishing behavioral covenants that includes leadership instruction, training tools, resources (visual models, examples of specific covenants), small-group exercises, plans for meetings and retreats.

Download or read book Faithful and Fractured written by Rae Jean Proeschold-Bell and published by Baker Books. This book was released on 2018-05-01 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Clergy suffer from certain health issues at a rate higher than the general population. Why are pastors in such poor health? And what can be done to help them step into the abundant life God desires for them? Although anecdotal observations about poor clergy health abound, concrete data from multiple sources supporting this claim hasn't been made accessible--until now. Duke's Clergy Health Initiative (CHI), a major, decade-long research project, provides a true picture of the clergy health crisis over time and demonstrates that improving the health of pastors is possible. Bringing together the best in social science and medical research, this book quantifies the poor health of clergy with theological engagement. Although the study focused on United Methodist ministers, the authors interpret CHI's groundbreaking data for a broad ecumenical readership. In addition to physical health, the book examines mental health and spiritual well-being, and suggests that increasing positive mental health may prevent future physical and mental health problems for clergy. Concrete suggestions tailored to clergy are woven throughout the book.

Download or read book Priests and Their Books in Late Anglo Saxon England written by Gerald P. Dyson and published by Boydell Press. This book was released on 2021-09-16 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fresh perspectives on the English clergy, their books, and the wider Anglo-Saxon church.