Presbytery Pastoral Care Network 13th Annual National Gathering Staying Afloat on Stormy Seas: Caring for Clergy in Trying Times October…

The Session could derive some real benefit and encouragement by doing a random poll of the membership around certain open-ended…

To prevent both burn-out and loss of faith, it is important to pay attention to our sense of calling or…

How are you doing spiritually? This can be an excellent framework for a conversation with a trusted colleague. A spiritual…

Think about what you should be doing with respect to your financial health. Here are some suggestions to consider putting…

All of us have families in some form or other and an important part of our core healthiness is to…

Ministry is stressful, with lots of ups and downs. Paying attention to your emotional health is important in maintaining a…

Find a colleague with whom you can explore the following questions. Not all the questions are important for everyone, but…

The best questions for conversation are ones that allow for a variety of responses that enable the group to probe…

How often have you greeted someone with the question: “How are you doing?” and had no intention of having that…

Fourth Step: a Scriptural Framework Psalm 23 offers an interesting framework for continuing the evaluation of a congregational ministry. Begin…

Third step Begins With Grace Sometimes when we try to evaluate either the clergy or the congregation, we can become…

A second step is to be conscious of the values of our society that affect our understanding of ourselves. We…

Evaluating A Congregation’s Ministry If we take the priesthood of all believers seriously, then evaluation of ministry should include the…

Building on yesterday’s suggestion of expanding evaluation to the whole ministry of the congregation, an alternative would be to have…

Two preliminary decisions with respect to evaluation need to be made. First, what is the purpose of the evaluation process?…

Sometimes we look at the membership of our congregation and we grow discouraged. It’s helpful at such times to recall…

Here is an exercise in counter-cultural connectionalism. It is designed to allow both the elders of a session and the…

The danger for an individual is to become to focused on the self. The danger of a congregation is to…

The counter-cultural message of the Christian faith is that a critical part of salvation is in discovering our true self…