"Campbell-Reed's book is ideal for giving both professors and students a vision, rich stories, and deep questions to accompany them as they learn in practice how to speak love, enact hope, and demand justice in our broken and beautiful world."
Pastoral Imagination: Bringing the Practice of Ministry to Life
In Pastoral Imagination: Bringing the Practice of Ministry to Life, Eileen R. Campbell-Reed informs and inspires the practice of ministry through slices of "on the ground" learning experienced by seminarians, pastors, activists, and chaplains and gathered from qualitative studies of ministry. Each of the fifty chapters explores a single concept through story, reflection, and provocative open-ended questions designed to spark conversation between ministers and mentors, among ministry peers, or for personal journal reflections. The book provides a framework for understanding ministry as an embodied, relational, integrative, and spiritual practice.
Pastoral Imagination is closely integrated with the author's Three Minute Ministry Mentor web resource, which introduces the topics in the book through brief video presentations. The book serves as a coaching guide and a ministry mentor in its own right by expanding on these topics through the author's reflections, observations, and questions. Addressing the importance of the practice of ministry, Campbell-Reed states: "Ministry itself, like most professions and complex practices, is dogged and driven by a rush to achieve. Yet to focus on achievement can be disastrous, especially if we skip over the steps for learning. To learn the practice of ministry--a multifaceted professional and spiritual practice--takes time and preparation, risk and responsibility, support and feedback."
The book can be used by individuals for personal growth; with groups in new-pastor retreats, CPE training programs, ministry peer groups, or supervision settings such as internship or field education; for devotional inspiration at staff meetings; and in seminary classrooms that prioritize teaching ministry as a practice.
The Pastoral Imagination Journal is a companion to Campbell-Reed’s book Pastoral Imagination. The 8″ x 10″ journal is full color, 108 pages, and it includes questions for reflection from all 50 chapters of the book. Blank pages allow space to write reflections. The journal is available exclusively at the author's web site.
- Publisher Fortress Press
- Format Paperback
- ISBN 9781506470061
- eBook ISBN 9781506470085
- Dimensions 5.5 x 8.5
- Pages 264
- Publication Date May 11, 2021
Endorsements
Serene Jones, president at Union Theological Seminary
"Encyclopedic in scope and pulsing with heart in every word. Pastoral Imagination is a compendium of wisdom and a companion for ministry. Pastors will turn to it again and again."
George A. Mason, senior pastor, Wilshire Baptist Church, Dallas, Texas, and author of Preparing the Pastors We Need: Reclaiming the Congregation's Role in Training Clergy
"Eileen Campbell-Reed has given us all a generous invitation to ponder anew what makes for faithful leadership today. Through story and scholarship . . . you will find here a treasure trove of insight, learning, and wisdom . . . that nurtures a lifetime of ministry."
Eric D. Barreto, Weyerhaeuser Associate Professor of New Testament, Princeton Theological Seminary and editor of Reading Theologically
"Evocative, discerning, and insightful--this book gives . . . a travel itinerary for how ministers become engaging leaders of communities of faith today."
Kathleen A. Cahalan, professor, practical theology, Saint John's University School of Theology and Seminary and project director, Collegeville Institute Seminars
"Pastoral Imagination is a book of wisdom. Campbell-Reed expertly mentors the reader in the habits, disposition, and reflective ways of being that catalyze growth."
Matthew Floding, Director of Ministerial Formation at Duke Divinity School, co-editor of Reflective Practice: Formation and Supervision in Ministry
"Gaining wisdom in the pastorate typically takes decades of trial and error and lots of support and advice from colleagues. In Pastoral Imagination, Campbell-Reed does us a great service by distilling decades of developed intuition into 'ministry minutes,' giving us the mentor that we need."
Carol Howard Merritt, pastor, Bedford Presbyterian Church, author of Healing Spiritual Wounds
Table of Contents
Foreword by Christian Scharen
Preface
50 Ministry Topics
1 Ministry as a Practice
2 Seeing Holy Depths
3 Self-Reflection
4 Collaboration
5 Being There
6 Supporting Peers
7 Ministry as Embodied
8 Equity in Ministry
9 Ministry as Relational
10 Falling Creatively
11 Listening
12 Mentoring for Skill
13 Stakes for Ministry
14 Contemplative Prayer
15 Emotional Intelligence
16 Engaging Ritual
17 Aha Moments
18 Preaching Jesus
19 Brick Walls
20 Identity and Place
21 Practicing Resurrection
22 Transforming Injustice
23 Sabbath
24 Vocational Discernment
25 Examen
26 Future Stories
27 Preaching and Prayer
28 Thinking Theologically
29 Apprenticeship
30 Learning Goals: Harnessing Frustration
31 Learning Goals: Redirecting Fear
32 Learning Goals: Seeking Accountability
33 Cultivating Questions
34 Action-Reflection for Beginnings
35 Overcoming Isolation
36 Improvisation
37 Salience
38 Action-Reflection for Preaching
39 Pulled Up Short
40 Change Over Time
41 Two Vocations
42 Blueprint Stories
43 Facing Fears
44 Defining Moments
45 Navigating Conflict
46 Knowledge Use
47 Congruence
48 Holy Fierceness
49 Boundaries
50 Embracing Joy