Being present is at once the most basic part of being a pastor, and the hardest. Here's a poem of a day from a sole pastor. I'll give you the conclusion to entice you to read the whole piece:
The truth is, honey, we're all wiping out all the time. There's a little bit of everything every day. Sometimes we can hide it under cute trouser jeans or behind the grace of a hopeful outing. But don't be fooled. We're all in it.
Ever wonder how the world around us is changing, and how we might speak of God's promise in the middle of those changes? Here's a very brief look at just some of the demographic changes facing one particular church -- the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America -- from the director of multicultural ministries of the ELCA:
Dr. David Lose
weighs in
on the future of seminaries, and theological education, with this provocative statement:
I'd argue the single most significant cause of decline is far simpler:
most seminaries are training leaders for a church and world that no longer exists
.
Lose references Alan Roxburgh and Fred Romanuk's book,
The Missional Leader
, and the three zones that organizations and their leaders dwell in: the emergent, the performative and the reactive.
Ironically, it is our well-founded
…
Dee Pederson talks about building cross-cultural relationships in Saint Cloud, Minn., forming the connective tissue between members who don't share the same culture or language.
Dee Pederson: Many Cultures and Languages from Discerning Mission on Vimeo.
Listen as Laurie Skow-Anderson talks about the challenges of moving from a uniracial congregation to a more multiracial one:
Laurie Skow-Anderson: "Pentecost on the Prairie" from Discerning Mission on Vimeo.