Pastors are tasked with the incredibly demanding job of caring for the spiritual, emotional, and, at times‚ physical needs of their people. While seminary is helpful preparation for many of the challenges pastors face, there’s far more to pastoral ministry than what can be covered in the classroom. Designed as a reference guide for nearly every situation a pastor will face, this comprehensive book by seasoned pastors Kent Hughes and Doug O’Donnell is packed full of biblical wisdom and practical guidance related to the reality of pastoral ministry in the trenches. From officiating weddings to conducting funerals to visiting the sick, this book will equip pastors and church leaders with the knowledge they need to effectively minister to their flocks, both within the walls of the church and beyond.

Here, for the first time, the development of pastoral care as a discipline has been documented. Dr. Holifield details the shift in emphasis from saving souls to supporting individuals in self-realization, and in the process raises thought-provoking questions about the preoccupation with psychological methodology evident in modern society and clergy. Every pastor wittingly or unwittingly adopts some 'theory' of pastoral counseling, whether it be derived from the seventeenth century or from the twentieth, says Dr. Holifield. From colonial America's intellectual approach to today's therapeutic self culture, he explores those theories. Theological, social, economic, and psychological threads are interwoven with fascinating conversational examples to show how Protestantism helped to form--and was influenced by--changing social orders. Broad in scope, scholarly in detail, yet immensely readable, this is an important book for clinical pastoral educators, students, professionals--everyone interested in church and social history.

In Calvin's Company of Pastors, Scott Manetsch examines the pastoral theology and practical ministry activities of Geneva's reformed ministers from the time of Calvin's arrival in Geneva until the beginning of the seventeenth century. During these seven decades, more than 130 men were enrolled in Geneva's Venerable Company of Pastors (as it was called), including notable reformed leaders such as Pierre Viret, Theodore Beza, Simon Goulart, Lambert Daneau, and Jean Diodati. Aside from these better-known epigones, Geneva's pastors from this period remain hidden from view, cloaked in Calvin's long shadow, even though they played a strategic role in preserving and reshaping Calvin's pastoral legacy. Making extensive use of archival materials, published sermons, catechisms, prayer books, personal correspondence, and theological writings, Manetsch offers an engaging and vivid portrait of pastoral life in sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century Geneva, exploring the manner in which Geneva's ministers conceived of their pastoral office and performed their daily responsibilities of preaching, public worship, moral discipline, catechesis, administering the sacraments, and pastoral care. Manetsch demonstrates that Calvin and his colleagues were much more than ivory tower theologians or "quasi-agents of the state," concerned primarily with dispensing theological information to their congregations or enforcing magisterial authority. Rather, they saw themselves as spiritual shepherds of Christ's Church, and this self-understanding shaped to a significant degree their daily work as pastors and preachers.

Pastoral Imagination: Bringing the Practice of Ministry to Life informs and inspires the practice of ministry through "on the ground" learning experienced in a variety of ministry settings. 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 is closely integrated with the author's Three Minute Ministry Mentor web resource.

David McDonald wrestles with a vital, and for him, a very personal question: is there hope beyond cure?

Pastoral ministry is more challenging than ever with unique, complicated burdens and expectations some have not experienced in previous generations. Because of this, the number of pastors who start with a great zeal for the work, quickly crash and burn and are left with a battered faith and family. This book seeks to identify those unique challenges, diagnose the problem, propose a biblical solution, and then guide the pastor and his family to embrace these challenges while shepherding the family through them.