Аннотация

What is your hope for your first five years of ministry? Thousands of people graduate every year from seminaries and divinity schools in the United States and immediately encounter a whole range of possibilities, issues, and decisions. Many new pastors experience stymied creativity, an endless list of tasks, the intransigence of church systems, personal and professional isolation, and the pressure that comes with dealing with the expectations of other people. As a result, many do not remain in ministry. How new pastors navigate the transition into ministry can determine their temperament and patterns for the rest of their pastoral careers. In Like Stepping Into A Canoe, Kincaid seeks to help new pastors stay connected to their call, to understand change and transitions, to value both restlessness and resilience, and to find fulfillment in the early years of their ministry. Kincaid's five practices of nimbleness correspond to the common transition into ministry issues:
For the stymied creativity, the practice of curiosity. For the barrage of tasks, the practice of clarity. For the intransigence of church systems, the practice of agility. For the isolation and loneliness, the practice of proximity. For the expectations of others, the practice of temerity.

Аннотация

In Finding Voice, Kincaid employs an often used but somewhat elusive metaphor, «voice,» as a way of speaking of pastoral identity and contends that a lively, imaginative pastoral voice emerges from a thorough grasp of context, theology, pastoral roles, personal journey, and systemic dynamics. Designed as a text for the field education, contextual education, and supervised ministry experiences of seminary students and others preparing for congregational leadership, Finding Voice examines in depth how people are experiencing each of these constituent parts of pastoral voice at their student ministry sites not only to learn about each of the areas, but also to recognize and understand what is being called forth in the students as they engage these five key experiences and begin to visualize their future ministry. The book further explores the opportunities created when the five aspects of pastoral identity are in conflict with one another. In the absence of any one of these or the imbalance of them, pastoral voice gets skewed, and vibrant, effective ministry is undermined. Finding Voice urges students to begin now, with field education, to engage a practice of ministry that is imaginative, courageous, nimble, and faithful.