Contents include: I. What is authority? and Where do you get it? II. Patterns of Growth in Authority III. Practical Dilemmas in the Exercise of Authority IV. Authority in Different Voices V. The Paradoxical Authority of Laity and Clergy VI. Growing in Authority, Being the Church

Clergy have a pivotal role in creating and nurturing church communities in which all people can grow up into Christ. This book explores the nature of that role by considering key similarities with the essential but often conflicting demands of motherhood. Like mothers, clergy need to preserve and hold people faithfully, while encouraging them to grow, take initiatives and become more confident and self-supporting. This book will help clergy to think about how this is achieved through the myriad of 'small' things they do from day to day, highlighting skills such as comforting, cherishing and multi-attending - skills that are centrally important but often unarticulated and undervalued.

Missio Dei by its very nature requires the church to come to terms with the exercise of power, both internally and externally, as it confronts the world. Tune in to any newscast or glance at the daily newspaper and it immediately becomes clear that the use and abuse of power is a live issue. The more we focus on the twists and turns of current events, the more it appears that uncorrupted exercise of power eludes the human race. All too often we become uneasily aware that there are powers lying behind the power that any of us wields, whether it is in the family, the classroom, on the shop floor, in the boardroom, or in churches. Effective missional leadership involves creative engagement with the powers at work in the world without being debased by them. This book sets out to address the issue of the use and misuse of power from biblical, theological, and practical perspectives. The authors bring their theological, pastoral, missionary, and personal experience to their task in order to inform, challenge, and invite readers into a responsible use of the powers that God has put into the hands of each one of us to achieve his purposes in the world.

Starting with Spirit is a spiritual and professional resource for new pastors, their family members, and congregations, as well as ministers in every season of ministry who seek to grow in vitality and skill in the ongoing adventure of ministry. For more than thirty years, Bruce Epperly has followed the call of the spirit, moving through his vocations as a congregational pastor, university chaplain, seminary and university professor, and seminary administrator. Drawing on these experiences, he addresses the new pastor's transition from seminary student to congregational leader; pastoral authority; the 'honeymoon;' boundaries; death; the pastor's spiritual life, health, and relationships; the role of the associate pastor; and continuing education.

As the first woman in the Anglican Communion to become a diocesan bishop, she brought to her diocese an experience of beng an outsider, a woman in a hierarchical church in which women were second class citizens. In this, her first book, she asks how outsiders who win power may exercise that power without making others outsiders.

When serious conflict surfaces in a congregation, lay people are usually stunned. They feel frightened, angry, and helpless. Congregational Fitness explores why congregations are prone to conflict and describes healthy behaviors lay people can practice to manage conflict constructively. Goodman argues that since it is members of the congregation who carry on from one pastor to another, it is important for them to know and practice positive behaviors continually, rather than reacting out of emotion and anxiety to an unexpected situation. Designed for use by individuals, study groups, and retreat participants.

This planning and leader training handbook offers a distinctive broad-based, small-group approach to building community. From the Jewish havurot to Christian koinonia, you will gain a thorough understanding of community, learn how to plan an effective small-group ministry, how to select and train leaders for all kinds of small groups, and how to start small groups that are a part of and not apart from their congregations. Appendices provide an overview of the sociological, psychological, and biblical theological literature on community and a wealth of presentation and leader training resources.