The Pastor S Personal Friendships Conflicts Boundaries And Benefits

This book examines the pastor's friendships as they impact a pastor's effectiveness in ministry and his or her personal well-being. Because friendships require high levels of self-disclosure, friendships introduce potential conflict for the pastor as personal self-disclosure may conflict with the pastor's expected role. Taking a qualitative approach, this study looks at how pastors navigate the areas of friendship both inside and outside their congregations. The research involved interviews with ten congregational pastors and reports themes that emerged from the interviews. The researcher developed four friendship types that assist the pastor in balancing pastoral role expectation with expression of vulnerability.

When it comes to talking about the activity of directing the church, the language of leadership and leaders is increasingly popular. Yet what is leadership – and how might theological narratives better resource the discourse and practice of leadership in ecclesial contexts? In identifying and critiquing managerialism as a dominant narrative of leadership in the Western church, this book calls for an alternative approach founded on the concept of friendship. Engaging with the wider field of leadership studies, the book establishes an understanding of leadership activity and brings it into conversation with an incarnational ecclesiology. The result is a prophetic reimagining of ecclesial leadership in terms of a relational, kenotic praxis. This praxis of mutuality and love is framed here in the rich language of Christian friendship. The book also wrestles deeply with the embodiment of such a praxis, making explicit the power behaviours typical of friendship-leadership and offering constructive guidance for practitioners in the task of implementation within a complex and fractured world. This book offers a new vision of the centrality of friendship to leadership of a healthy church community. As such, it will be of great use to scholars of practical theology, ecclesiology and leadership, as well as practitioners in church ministry.

Boundaries are healthy and necessary parts of life and ministry. Staying in Bounds provides straight-talk guidance to ministers and other leaders of churches and faith-based organizations on the what, why, and how of relational boundaries. Provides guidance on identifying, implementing, and enforcing healthy boundaries, with a special focus on ministry settings. The author develops the concept of boundaries from psychological and theological perspectives, discusses the benefits of boundaries, and then explains the importance of healthy boundaries in the church.

“A perceptive and practical book about why our calendars so rarely reflect our priorities and what we can do to regain control.”—ADAM GRANT “Carey’s book will help you reorganize your life. And then you can share a copy with someone you care about.”—SETH GODIN You deserve to stop living at an unsustainable pace. An influential podcaster and thought leader shows you how. Overwhelmed. Overcommitted. Overworked. That’s the false script an inordinate number of people adopt to be successful. Does this sound familiar: ● Slammed is normal. ● Distractions are everywhere. ● Life gets reduced to going through the motions. Tired of living that way? At Your Best gives you the strategies you need to win at work and at home by living in a way today that will help you thrive tomorrow. Influential podcast host and thought leader Carey Nieuwhof understands the challenges of constant pressure. After a season of burnout almost took him out, he discovered how to get time, energy, and priorities working in his favor. This approach freed up more than one thousand productive hours a year for him and can do the same for you. At Your Best will help you ● replace chronic exhaustion with deep productivity ● break the pattern of overpromising and never accomplishing enough ● clarify what matters most by restructuring your day ● master the art of saying no, without losing friends or influence ● discover why vacations and sabbaticals don’t really solve your problems ● develop a personalized plan to recapture each day so you can break free from the trap of endless to-dos Start thriving at work and at home as you discover how to be at your best.

Great ministers don't just happen. Great falls from ministry don't just happen either. A complex mix of factors both internal and external test the limits of your ability to minister wholeheartedly over the long haul. Senior pastor Brad Hoffmann and licensed professional counselor Michael Todd Wilson work with pastors removed from their place of service. The common experiences of these pastors revealed patterns that consistently contributed to burnout, ineffectiveness and moral failure. If such patterns can be predicted, the authors reasoned, can they be prevented?Preventing Ministry Failure is a personal guidebook for pastors and other caregivers to prepare them to withstand common pressures and to flourish in the ministry God has called them to. Work through the exercises and reflections individually or in conversation with your peers, and you'll find yourself better equipped for the challenges of vocational ministry, and more conscious of the presence of God leading you on and restoring your soul.

An unfettered, probing dialogue between Mexican and American political analysts on the complex relationship between their countries. Few nations are as closely interrelated as the United States and Mexico. Few relationships between nations are so prickly. America's inveterate problem-solving strikes Mexicans as clandestine imperialism. Mexicans are accused of ignoring the flow of drugs through their country; Americans are accused of saddling Mexico with their drug problem. Americans brood over the influx of Mexican immigrants; Mexicans worry that their culture and traditions are being diluted from the north. These differences are now aired−and their origins made clear−in this landmark book by a former official in the Carter administration and one of Mexico's most respected political scholars. In alternating chapters on foreign policy, economic relations, immigration, and social influence, Robert A. Pastor and JorgeC. Castañeda offer a multifaceted view of the ties and conflicts between their countries.

ContentsPart I The Grave New World of Christian Counseling LiabilityPart II Sexual Misconduct in Christian CounselingPart III Confidentiality and Its Many ExceptionsPart IV The Counseling Process: Managing Liability RiskPart V Special Counseling Modes and Controversial CasesPart VI Corporate Risks and Counseling CredentialsPart VII The Maturation of the Christian Counseling Profession

The clergy today faces mounting challenges in an increasingly secular world, where declining prestige makes it more difficult to attract the best and the brightest young Americans to the ministry. As Christian churches dramatically adapt to modern changes, some are asking whether there is a clergy crisis as well. Whatever the future of the clergy, the fate of millions of churchgoers also will be at stake. In Who Shall Lead Them?, prizewinning journalist Larry Witham takes the pulse of both the Protestant and Catholic ministry in America and provides a mixed diagnosis of the calling's health. Drawing on dozens of interviews with clergy, seminarians and laity, and using newly available survey data including the 2000 Census, Witham reveals the trends in a variety of traditions. While evangelicals are finding innovative paths to ministry, the Catholic priesthood faces a severe shortage. In mainline Protestantism, ministry as a second career has become a prominent feature. Ordination ages in the Episcopal and United Methodist churches average in the 40s today. The quest by female clergy to lead from the pulpit, meanwhile, has hit a "stained glass ceiling" as churches still prefer a man as the principal minister. While deeply motivated by the mystery of their "call" to ministry, America's priests, pastors, and ministers are reassessing their roles in a world of new debates on leadership, morality, and the powers of the mass media. Who Shall Lead Them? offers a valuable snapshot of this contemporary clergy drama. It will be required reading for everyone concerned about the rapidly shifting ground of our churches and the health of religion in America.