Reviewed by Sheldon Sorge
by Bob Burns, Tasha Chapman, and Donald Guthrie
InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, Ill. 304 pages
I grew up in the home of a pastor who considered pastoral ministry the best vocation on the planet, if God has called you to it. Although I wrestled for a while against embracing this vocation myself, I have never regretted saying “yes” to the call. Over the years I have discovered that pastoral ministry that flourishes over the long haul bears four core markers: faithfulness, fruitfulness, fulfillment and fecundity.
“What does it take for pastors not only to survive but to thrive in fruitful ministry over the long haul?” A team of pastoral theologians brought this question to the Lilly Endowment, which funded them to study more than 70 pastors and their spouses identified by colleagues and denominational officials as having demonstrated exemplary fruitfulness in their vocation. Participants were teamed in eight peer groups that each met six times over the course of two years, in order to identify and nurture practices that mark resilient, sustainable, thriving pastoral ministry.
I came to “Resilient Ministry,” the book chronicling that study, expecting to encounter stories of practices that have proven to sustain pastors for long-term robust, joyous ministry. Instead, the book primarily relates narratives of struggle in keeping the pastoral vocation vital. It is far more cautionary than celebratory. One pastor is quoted early in the book, “The relentless nature of ministry means that fatigue is a constant companion of leaders in the church.” “Resilient Ministry” is replete with similar accounts, as pastors in the study report loneliness, burnout and acedia as dominant features of their lives. And remember, this is from a sample selected precisely for being “the best” in ministry.
The book unpacks five “themes” of resilient ministry that emerged through the study — markers of vocational vitality that participants consistently cited as crucial for surviving and thriving in ministry: a. spiritual formation, b. self-care, c. emotional and cultural intelligence, d. marriage and
family, and e. leadership and management. The pitfalls of failure to nurture robustly these features of fruitful pastoral vocation dominate their reports. Participants testified that their engagement with the study’s peer groups revitalized their sense of call, as they discovered that their ministry struggles, in which they had often felt quite singular and guilt-ridden, were in fact shared by many colleagues. Yet just one of the eight groups continued to meet after the funded study period ended, even though most had planned to do so. The majority returned to former “solo ministry” patterns. Project leaders populated their study group with conservative evangelical male pastors in similar ministry settings. They advocate homogeneity as a primary criterion for constituting pastoral peer groups. To the contrary, I have grown most in the joy and practice of ministry through participation in widely diverse peer groups.
Perhaps the most valuable lesson of “Resilient Ministry” is the great benefit to pastors in gathering regularly to encourage one another in their shared vocation.
