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This volume guides religious leaders during turbulent life events that challenge their ability to serve as effective ministers. Encouraging careful introspection and a focus on personal fulfillment and self-care, the book challenges all readers to build support systems for themselves and their faith communities.
List of contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Sacred Chaos..., Processing Pain, Recovering Passion and Experiencing Journey
Part I.
Journey Inward
Chapter 1. Sharing Pain...Are you willing to share your own pain with others? Do you know when to let your pain plumb the depths of your soul, allowing the pain to help you grow spiritually? Are you sensitive to when it is possible to move beyond your pain to experience newness in life and ministry?
Chapter 2. Maintaining Passion...How do you maintain your passion in your ministry? How do you experience passion? What do you feel when you lose passion?
Chapter 3.A Healthy Balance...Do you seek to live a wholistic life, caring for body, mind and spirit? What are your physical disciplines? What are your mental disciplines? What are your spiritual disciplines?
Chapter 4 Power and Control...Have you dealt with your issues of power and control? How do you lead without becoming controlling? Do you understand the Servant Leadership model?
Chapter 5. Sensitivity and Burn-Out...Are you able to maintain your sensitivity to others without experiencing burn-out? Do you know the warning signs of burn-out? Do you understand the importance of professional boundaries?
Chapter 6. Knowing Who You Are...Are you honest with yourself and others about your gifts and ministry expectations? What is your personal credo...what you believe and why you believe it? What is your spiritual autobiography?
Part II.
Journey Outward
Chapter 7. Nurturing Community...Are you finding ways to nurture community, even as religious institutions face political and doctrinal division? How are you addressing the issues surrounding gender inclusivity and ethnic diversity? How are you making internal adjustments to the rapid external changes?
Chapter 8. Maintaining Perspective...Do you understand that institutions cannot love you back? Do you maintain a healthy balance between your personal life and corporate life? Do you allow what you do to define who you are?
Chapter 9. A New Institutional Landscape...How are you addressing the issues associated with the "Nones" and the "Dones?" How has the Pandemic changed the ways that you do ministry? What are the issues centered around justice for the poor and racial equality, and how are you and your faith community addressing them?
Chapter 10. Personal and Corporate Spirituality...Are you and the institution that you lead and serve growing together spiritually? Does the institution you serve provide you with the necessary spiritual challenges needed to keep your ministry vital and alive? Is it a joy, and do you find passion when you are in your faith community preaching, teaching and care-giving?
Epilogue: A New Vision of Authentic Religious Leadership
About the author
James R. Newby is the minister and public friend at Cincinnati Friends (Quaker) Meeting. Jim holds degrees from Friends University, Earlham School of Religion, William Penn University, and Princeton Theological Seminary. He is the author and editor of ten previous books, including Sacred Chaos: One Man's Spiritual Journey through Pain and Loss. He lives in Cincinnati (Montgomery), Ohio, with his wife, Elizabeth.
