A renowned pastor examines how poor congregational leadership is often the result of personality conflicts and presents a holistic solution for creating a healthy congregation.

This short volume is a plea for Christians to rethink their point and purpose in light of larger cultural changes and a crisis in leadership. Foss's model of moving from issues into conversation and then into compassion is a blueprint for new leadership.

Lloyd Rediger is a uniquely qualified national expert on all these questions with a strong message for clergy about their sexuality, spirituality, and behavior. In this timely volume, which incorporates material from his earlier volume Ministry and Sexuality, Rediger brings his extensive research, clinical experience, and theological insights to bear on the topic. He offers a comprehensive, authoritative account of clergy sexuality and sexual ethics with up-to-date legal information; helpful research on ethnic, gender, and denominational factors; a religious and moral framework for...

More than twenty years into the global AIDS pandemic, the efforts of Christian congregations and denominations have been less than minimal. This book is aimed to awaken Christian compassion in the coming years to this fathomless tragedy. The worst health crisis in the world in 700 years, global HIV/AIDS epidemic is overwhelming in scale: 40 million people are infected worldwide (75% of them in Africa); 7000 people die daily; each day 1600 persons are infected. Some 26 million people have already died. "At this unprecedented "kairos moment in human history," says Messer, "God is calling the...

Clergy are in startlingly bad health. Not only do they regularly report depression, stress, and serious family and financial problems, they also exhibit higher than normal incidences of being overweight, obese or having problem with cholesterol, inactivity, high blood pressure, and heart disease. How effective can professionals in ministry be with such debilities and vulnerabilities? Are clergy too busy helping others to take care of themselves? While Gwen Halaas notes many reasons for the present situation, her caring and savvy book addresses clergy health straight on: clergy have a...

In this highly accessible book, Fred Lehr clarifies the nature and practice of clergy codependence. In short, insightful, and highly readable chapters, filled with many examples and stories from his own life and those he has counseled, Lehr identifies the typical forms codependence takes in the life and ministry of clergy: the chief-enabler, the one who keeps things functioning; the scapegoat, the one on whom everything's blamed when it goes wrong, the one who's responsible; the hero, the example, the pure and righteous one; the lost child, the one no one really knows or cares about; the...

A primer for reinvigorating church life Drawing on his experience as pastor of one of the largest and fastest-growing congregations in America, Walt Kallestad envisions the church as a mission center-committed to reaching out to others through evangelism and service. Kallestad combines timeless biblical principles with the latest leadership and communication skills to show how pastors and lay leaders can: develop a dynamic congregation open to change motivate staff and members for innovation and creativity make a positive difference in their communities Pastors and lay leaders alike will...

Character development for communities of faith Mark Olson believes that trying to meet unrealistic expectations for church growth, along with expectations that pastors be all things to all people, has resulted in low morale, even burnout, among clergy and dissension within congregations. Olson's book argues that church-growth models exemplify and exacerbate the tendencies of the modern age and Constantinian Christianity, holding the church hostage to technique and marketing. These assumptions set up pastors and churches for disappointment and failure. But they also, in his opinion, miss an...

* An important new work on ministerial ethics in response to clergy misconduct * Relates to all practices of ministry in all settings and denominations * Grounds ministerial effectiveness in ethics and ethics in truth

We live in a leadership crisis. In an age when incompatible worlds collide and when scandals rock formerly stable institutions, says Walter Fluker, what counts most is ethical leadership and the qualities of personal integrity, spiritual discipline, intellectual openness, and moral anchoring that Fluker finds exemplified in the work and thought of black-church giants Martin Luther King Jr. and Howard Thurman.