Pastors must have compassion and empathy for those they serve, but it is not pastoral compassion and empathy that brings change and healing. That comes from God working through his gracious means. This by no means excuses pastors from compassion and empathy, for these adorn the reception of those gracious means. From The Care Of …
Will Willimon tells the story of his first Christmas in a new appointment serving a very small church, having received the news that his estranged black-sheep father has died in his memoir Accidental Preacher. His stories resonate with experiences of pastoral life, not in a self-serving or manipulative way that presents the pastoral role as …
In The Care Of Souls, Harold Senkbeil reminds us that God accomplishes the work of growing the saints through the tools that Christ has entrusted to the Church, not through the personal capacities of those who wield them. This is not say that people don’t matter, it’s just important to remember what the channels that …
The Care Of Souls by Harold Senkbeil is a book about pastoral ministry that focuses on the pastoral role as ministering grace, rather than managerial or therapeutic. In writing about being a pastor, Senkbeil describes how the acts of pastoral craft move from being habits to what he terms habitus, and how the pastor moves …
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