Gary Fenton, Your Ministry’s Next Chapter: Restoring the Passion of the Mid-Career Pastor. Baker Books, 2005.
Referenced in: Minister Self-Care
LifeandLeadership.com Summary
Not every minister experiences a crisis in mid-life, but most do become more reflective. Fenton offers very helpful perspective on issues of the mid-career pastor. Some mid-life pastors succumb to the insidious tendency to become stale and quit growing. Others may become frantic with the “now-or-never” syndrome, believing they have very little time remaining to make their mark.
Mid-life is often a recapitulation of many of the issues of identity and meaning that are dealt with in adolescence, thus “middlescence.” But since ministers work in a world where existential realities such as meaning, significance, life transitions, and mortality are at the forefront, the mid-life issues may hit with more force than usual. Some professions allow people to encounter mid-life with accumulated resources and thus greater freedom, so the literature addressed to them speaks of moving from “success” to “significance.” Ministers, however, rarely approach mid-life with such an accumulation, having been immersed in a higher concern for “significance” throughout life. So the transition is not from “success” to “significance,” but in assessing the contributions they have made to that point, taking an honest look at needed growth areas, and moving into the second half of life with renewed passion. Fenton is a useful aid in this process.
From the Publisher
Pastors are not immune to the struggle of mid-life careers. At this stage in life the tendency is to slow down, retire, or stop growing. Though these symptoms are hard to detect, their effects are destructive to both the pastor and the church. Gary Fenton shows ministry leaders how they can maintain or rediscover their call to serve God with passion and focus. This pastoral resource will prove to be valuable to pastors wanting substance for their congregations and nourishment for their soul.
About the Author
Gary Fenton is author of Your Ministry’s Next Chapter and coauthor of Mastering Church Finances. Fenton is senior pastor of Dawson Memorial Baptist Church, a large church in Birmingham, Alabama. Leadership Journal has published several of Fentons practical and pithy pieces on the dynamics of church life. In 2002 and 2003, Gary Fenton was a featured speaker for the Waterhouse Foundation lecture series in Honolulu, Hawaii. He is a frequent speaker for leadership seminars and is an adjunct professor in the areas of leadership, administration, and stewardship at Beeson Divinity School of Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama. Gary and his wife, Alta Faye, have three grown daughters.
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