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Becoming the Pastor You Hope to Be: Four Practices for Improving Ministry
Becoming the Pastor You Hope to Be unapologetically urges clergy readers to develop practices that will help them become more excellent ministers. A long-time field educator, now serving as a denominational staff person responsible for ministerial formation, Barbara Blodgett believes excellence is a matter of doing simple things with care and consistency. Ministers who commit themselves to excellence will grow and flourish, and even become happier in ministry.
Blodgett urges ministers to resist praise and instead to ask for feedback, to seek the company of mentors who are better than the reader is at what he or she does, to be vulnerable before their peers in order to learn from them, and to define themselves as a leader who does not merely take activist stances but risks entering into deep, transformative relationships. Improvement in ministry, Blodgett argues, comes about not through extraordinary leaps and bounds but rather through adoptingsimple habits and carrying through on small but thoughtfully made choices.
Addressed to ministers, Becoming the Pastor You Hope to Be is also a valuable resource for discernment committees, Christian educators, leaders of continuing education and lay education programs, and all those who partner with theological schools to help form ministers, both lay and ordained.
Blodgett urges ministers to resist praise and instead to ask for feedback, to seek the company of mentors who are better than the reader is at what he or she does, to be vulnerable before their peers in order to learn from them, and to define themselves as a leader who does not merely take activist stances but risks entering into deep, transformative relationships. Improvement in ministry, Blodgett argues, comes about not through extraordinary leaps and bounds but rather through adoptingsimple habits and carrying through on small but thoughtfully made choices.
Addressed to ministers, Becoming the Pastor You Hope to Be is also a valuable resource for discernment committees, Christian educators, leaders of continuing education and lay education programs, and all those who partner with theological schools to help form ministers, both lay and ordained.
181 pages, Nook
First published January 1, 2011
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 18, 2015
Helpful strategies for personal growth as a pastor especially for new/young clergy. Boils down to 1) seek feedback, not praise 2) find a solid ministry mentor; 3) engage a peer group; and 4) understand your role I'm community engagement that stretches beyond the congregation.
This book took me a year to read, not because it's unhelpful but because it's not a "read cover to cover" style book. Skim for overview, engage each section one at a time more deeply.
The book is most helpful at the beginning and weakens as it progresses. Admittedly, I have little experience or desire to be a community organiser pastor and the latter quarter of the text addresses that role. There were still helpful nuggets of insight at the end but it was less engaging to me there. Overall, a helpful book to engage.
This book took me a year to read, not because it's unhelpful but because it's not a "read cover to cover" style book. Skim for overview, engage each section one at a time more deeply.
The book is most helpful at the beginning and weakens as it progresses. Admittedly, I have little experience or desire to be a community organiser pastor and the latter quarter of the text addresses that role. There were still helpful nuggets of insight at the end but it was less engaging to me there. Overall, a helpful book to engage.
March 28, 2014
A helpful book that would be good for new pastors, especially, to read. Books on ministry do not need to be peppered with quotes from Scripture. The stories Barbara shared were illuminating. I do wish the chapters were shorter.
February 20, 2016
Most thoughts and ideas were not theologically based nor presented from a theological perspective. It read more like a book on business leadership.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews