This volume provides all who minister to young people with an effective blueprint for building a truly meaningful ministry

“A perceptive and practical book about why our calendars so rarely reflect our priorities and what we can do to regain control.”—ADAM GRANT “Carey’s book will help you reorganize your life. And then you can share a copy with someone you care about.”—SETH GODIN You deserve to stop living at an unsustainable pace. An influential podcaster and thought leader shows you how. Overwhelmed. Overcommitted. Overworked. That’s the false script an inordinate number of people adopt to be successful. Does this sound familiar: ● Slammed is normal. ● Distractions are everywhere. ● Life gets reduced to going through the motions. Tired of living that way? At Your Best gives you the strategies you need to win at work and at home by living in a way today that will help you thrive tomorrow. Influential podcast host and thought leader Carey Nieuwhof understands the challenges of constant pressure. After a season of burnout almost took him out, he discovered how to get time, energy, and priorities working in his favor. This approach freed up more than one thousand productive hours a year for him and can do the same for you. At Your Best will help you ● replace chronic exhaustion with deep productivity ● break the pattern of overpromising and never accomplishing enough ● clarify what matters most by restructuring your day ● master the art of saying no, without losing friends or influence ● discover why vacations and sabbaticals don’t really solve your problems ● develop a personalized plan to recapture each day so you can break free from the trap of endless to-dos Start thriving at work and at home as you discover how to be at your best.

The essentials of pastoral care involve the pastor's distinctive task of caring for those who are estranged--the lost sheep. Taken from the biblical image of the shepherd, the pastor by virtue of his or her professional calling cultivates wise judgment in order to hear the hurting and offer guidance, reconciliation, healing, sustaining presence, and empowerment to those in need. This book will outline the quintessential elements pastors need to wisely minister in today's context by discussing four major kinds of lostness: grief, illness, abuse, and family challenges. The purpose of the Abingdon Essential Guides is to fulfill the need for brief, substantive, yet highly accessible introductions to the core disciples in biblical, theological, and religious studies. Drawing on the best in current scholarship, written with the need of students foremost in mind, addressed to learners in a number of contexts, Essential Guides will be the first choice of those who wish to acquaint themselves or their students with the broad scope of issues, perspectives, and subject matters within biblical and religious studies.

An introduction to pastoral care for pastors of small membership churches. "If you spend your whole life serving small membership churches and doing it well, yours will have been a life well spent." Small membership churches have a real advantage when it comes to incorporating people into a fellowship where they are known and where their needs are met. These churches and their pastors have an opportunity for excellence in this area, and should make the most of it. Good pastoral care can be the key to effectiveness in all of the other ministries of the church.From getting acquainted with your congregation, weddings and funerals, picking up on subtle cues in a conversation to not-so-subtle conflicts, Killen shares insights from years of ministry in a small membership church setting. James L. Killen, Jr. is a retired elder of the Texas Conference, contributor to Circuit Rider, and author of Who Do You Say That I Am? A Personal Reader.

Trends and skills for those who offer pastoral care Christian pastoral care has changed a great deal in the past few decades in response to many factors in our rapidly changing world. In part 1 of Nurturing Hope, Lynne Baab discusses seven trends in pastoral care--shifts in who delivers pastoral care, the attitudes and commitments that undergird pastoral care, and societal trends that are shaping pastoral care today. She illustrates them with stories from diverse congregations where Christian caregivers are meeting those challenges in creative and exciting ways. In the second half of the book, Baab presents four practical, doable, energizing skills needed by pastoral carers in our time. Focusing on skills that help carers nurture connections between everyday life and Christian faith, she explores the need for carers to understand common stressors, listen, pray with others, and nurture their personal resilience. Grounded in an understanding of God as the true caregiver and healer, the author offers tips for readers who are training other pastoral carers or developing their own understanding and skills. Each chapter ends with discussion and reflection questions, making the book helpful for groups. Lynne Baab brings readers hope for their caring role and for their own spiritual journey.

"With generative wisdom, Gerkin moves beyond the predominance of the psychotherapeutic paradigm in pastoral care to a dynamic, interactive process which balances faith, culture, community, and individual well-being. . . . Gerkin's history of pastoral care is skillful. . . . His analysis of the current transitions in the field of care will make this book a classic."--Jeanne Stevenson Moessner, Columbia Theological Seminary, Decatur, and the Georgia Association for Pastoral Care "Out of the abundance of his many years as a pastoral caregiver and theologian, Gerkin introduces readers to the history, theory, and practice of pastoral care. This book represents the best of Protestant liberal pastoral theology and fills a long-standing gap. . . . The narrative-hermeneutical paradigm which Gerkin offers holds and works with many of the complexities of pastoral care in postmodern times."--Carrie Doehring, School of Theology, Boston University "Gerkin's Introduction to Pastoral Care breaks new ground for an introductory text in its emphasis on care as 'the central metaphor of life in the Christian community.' Thus the scope is much larger than the more usual focus only on individual and family needs. He is deeply sensitive to both individual and community dimensions through his quadrilateral nexus of tradition, individuals and family, community, and cultural context."--James N. Lapsley, Princeton Theological Seminary "The formula appears simple: take the very best of pastoral care theory and research of the past, build upon it the best of contemporary literature and practice in the pastoral arts and sciences, season it with rich experiences of a pioneer in the pastoral care, counseling, and education movement, and you have a solid bridge to the 21st century. Gerkin has proven the formula. . . . [Gerkin] articulates a pastoral care for the 21st century."--Orlo C. Strunk, Jr., Pastoral Psychotherapist at The Coastal Samaritan Center, Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.