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Author: Celia Allison Hahn
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Published: 1994-06-01
Total Pages: 213
ISBN-13: 156699540X
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Contents include: I. What is authority? and Where do you get it? II. Patterns of Growth in Authority III. Practical Dilemmas in the Exercise of Authority IV. Authority in Different Voices V. The Paradoxical Authority of Laity and Clergy VI. Growing in Authority, Being the Church
Author: Charles H. Cosgrove
Publisher: Abingdon Press
Published: 1994
Total Pages: 185
ISBN-13: 0687081521
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →If church is like a family, it fights like one too! As in any family, conflict in the church family is natural and inevitable. But the way the church family handles its fights can make or break ministry. By using stories and examples of real problems at actual churches, Cosgrove and Hatfield have applied family-systems theory to help us identify the hidden structural boundaries in any group relationship. They show how the dynamics and 'family rules' operating in the informal family-like church system powerfully influence how church members relate to each other.
Author: Norma Cook Everist
Publisher: Abingdon Press
Published: 2004
Total Pages: 172
ISBN-13: 0687038014
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →You love your work. You love the people--most of the time. They respect you, most of the time. You work together with colleagues, staff, and laity, with energy and enthusiasm, most of the time. But then something goes wrong: a word spoken in anger, a misunderstanding, and things turn sour. What do you do? How do you deal with conflict, whether it be long or short-term, low or high intensity? Conflict is a part of the human predicament, yet it need not define or control your ministry. This book is designed to help the reader ask certain key questions about the nature and scope of the conflict they are experiencing and, based on the answers to those questions, move beyond conflict. The author lays out the variety of responses to conflict, running the gamut from avoidance to accommodation to compromise to collaboration. Written with the real needs of congregations in mind, this book will serve as a reliable guide to all who wish to move through conflict into a more effective and authentic fulfillment of their calling.
Author: Eunjoo Mary Kim
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Published: 2012-04-06
Total Pages: 217
ISBN-13: 1608999017
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →This book is about leadership, a scholarly and pastoral response to the urgent demand for the renewal of the contemporary Christian church. It challenges readers to articulate the identity and vision of the church in new ways, and encourages them to revitalize their ministry with fresh insight and passion from women's perspectives. The eight essays written by female scholars in relation to various areas of theological study and the nine pastoral responses to the essays written by ministers from seven different denominations, based on their experiences of actual ministerial settings, provide new paradigms of church leadership--theologically profound, practically relevant, and historically timely. This volume, a product of a collaborative process between academia and church, promises to be a most useful resource to renew the leadership of the church and its vocational commitment to the transformation of the church and society.
Author: Emma Percy
Publisher: SPCK
Published: 2014-04-17
Total Pages: 222
ISBN-13: 0281070253
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →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.
Author: Mary Todd
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
Published: 2000
Total Pages: 360
ISBN-13: 9780802844576
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Like other major Protestant denominations in the United States, the 2.6-million-member Luther Church-Missouri Synod (LCMS), founded in 1847, has struggled with issues of relevance and identity in society at large. In this book Mary Todd chronicles the history of this struggle for identity in the LCMS, critically examining the central--often contentious--issue of authority in relation to Scripture, ministry, and the role of women in the church. In recounting the history of the denomination, Todd uses the ministry of women as a case study to show how the LCMS has continually redefined its concept of authority in order to maintain its own historic identity. Based on oral histories and solid archival research, Authority Vested not only explores the internal life of a significant denomination but also offers critical insights for other churches seeking to maintain their Christian distinctives in religiously pluralistic America.
Author: Jackson W. Carroll
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Published: 2011-05-11
Total Pages: 234
ISBN-13: 1621892883
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Congregations today face both old and often new, unprecedented challenges--spiritual, moral, technological, and economic--for which there are no easy solutions. Facing such challenges calls for pastors able to lead with authority in ways at the same time faithful to the gospel and appropriate to the congregation's setting and the issues at hand. Yet many pastors are unsure of their authority, often experiencing conflict as they attempt to lead. Others have abused their authority and brought mistrust and suspicion to ordained ministry, making it difficult for other clergy to lead. In this book, a new and revised edition of his earlier, highly regarded work on pastoral authority and leadership, Jackson Carroll brings together theological and sociological perspectives to provide an interpretation of pastoral authority as reflective leadership, a style of leadership that involves vision and discernment, and that is appropriate for the many roles in which pastors engage--preaching, worship leadership, teaching, counseling, and shaping the congregation's corporate life. In this new edition Carroll draws on what he has learned from many conversations with pastors and lay leaders since the book's initial publication as well as insights from others. He also introduces helpful new case material from practicing pastors and incorporates the perspectives of several recent leadership theorists and practitioners to deepen and enhance the discussion of pastoral authority as reflective leadership.
Author: Paul Beasley-Murray
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Published: 2005-08-18
Total Pages: 209
ISBN-13: 1597523399
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →How can churches be empowered, not overpowered, by individuals? Power is a dangerous reality in ordinary church life. But when people bring God into the issue and power for my sakeÓ becomes power for God's sakeÓ the danger is even greater. This expose of power abuse in churches today draws on a survey of churches within mainline Protestant denominations. Turning to the kind of power-modelÓ Jesus gives the would-be church leader, the author explores how power can be handled positively when power for God's sake is, in fact, power surrendered in the service of others. An important book for all involved in leadership within the church.
Author: Andrew R. Hardy
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Published: 2015-10-12
Total Pages: 196
ISBN-13: 1625647794
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Missio Dei by its very nature requires the church to come to terms with the exercise of power, both internally and externally, as it confronts the world. Tune in to any newscast or glance at the daily newspaper and it immediately becomes clear that the use and abuse of power is a live issue. The more we focus on the twists and turns of current events, the more it appears that uncorrupted exercise of power eludes the human race. All too often we become uneasily aware that there are powers lying behind the power that any of us wields, whether it is in the family, the classroom, on the shop floor, in the boardroom, or in churches. Effective missional leadership involves creative engagement with the powers at work in the world without being debased by them. This book sets out to address the issue of the use and misuse of power from biblical, theological, and practical perspectives. The authors bring their theological, pastoral, missionary, and personal experience to their task in order to inform, challenge, and invite readers into a responsible use of the powers that God has put into the hands of each one of us to achieve his purposes in the world.
Author: Bruce G. Epperly
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Published: 2010-12-21
Total Pages: 204
ISBN-13: 1566996392
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Starting with Spirit is a spiritual and professional resource for new pastors, their family members, and congregations, as well as ministers in every season of ministry who seek to grow in vitality and skill in the ongoing adventure of ministry. For more than thirty years, Bruce Epperly has followed the call of the spirit, moving through his vocations as a congregational pastor, university chaplain, seminary and university professor, and seminary administrator. Drawing on these experiences, he addresses the new pastor's transition from seminary student to congregational leader; pastoral authority; the 'honeymoon;' boundaries; death; the pastor's spiritual life, health, and relationships; the role of the associate pastor; and continuing education.
