John Ortberg, Overcoming Your Shadow Mission. Zondervan, 2008. Referenced in: Strengthening and Renewing the Ministry Call LifeandLeadership.com Summary I naturally think of this book as helpful during a time of discouragement and burnout, but probably not the first read at such times. It hits a little too hard. Perhaps the best value is as a
Wayne Coidero, Leading on Empty: Refilling Your Tank and Renewing Your Passion. Bethany House, 2010. Referenced in: Strengthening and Renewing the Ministry Call LifeandLeadership.com Summary Coidero writes out of his own three-year experience of ministerial burnout and his recalibration that radically changed his lifestyle, values, goals, and calling. He offers many of the same insights
Gwen Wagstrom Halaas, M.D., Clergy, Retirement, and Wholeness: Looking Forward to the Third Age. Alban Institute, 2005. Referenced in: Minister Self-Care LifeandLeadership.com Summary In one of the few books of its kind, Wagstrom draws from her experience as a family physician, medical educator, and director of Evangelical Lutheran Church in America’s (ELCA) Ministerial Health and
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
William Bridges, Transitions: Making Sense of Life’s Changes. Second edition, expanded and updated. De Capo Press, 2004. Referenced in: Minister Self-Care LifeandLeadership.com Summary Bridges writes this long-time best seller out of his own experience in the 1970s where he left an enviable career as a respected professor and entered a period of great uncertainty about
Bruce G. Epperly and Katherine Gould Epperly, Four Seasons of Ministry: Gathering a Harvest of Righteousness. Alban Institute, 2008. Referenced in: Minister Self-Care LifeandLeadership.com Summary The authors offer great insight into how ministers may realize their greatest contribution in each phase of their lives. They express these phases as four seasons of ministry: Springtime –
Stephen Arterburn and John Shore, Midlife Manual for Men: Finding Significance in the Second Half. Bethany House, 2009. Referenced in: Minister Self-Care LifeandLeadership.com Summary This volume from Stephen Arterburn, while addressed only to men, and not exclusively to ministers, provides excellent counsel for male ministers whose need for professional direction and self-care may be elevated
Judith A. Schwarz, Blessed Connections: Relationships that Sustain Vital Ministry. Alban Institute, 2008. Referenced in: Ministry Burnout, Preventing and Overcoming LifeandLeadership.Com Summary Schwarz believes the startling statistics about ministry burnout and failure point to a breakdown in primary relationships with self, God, and others. The first three chapters discuss the development of an authentic self,
Gary R. Collins, Editor, and Louis M. McBurney, M.D., Author, Counseling Christian Workers: A How-To Approach. Resources for Christian Counselors, Volume 2. Thomas Nelson, 1994. Referenced in: Ministry Support Systems LifeandLeadership.Com Summary Part I of this resource covers the same issues as McBurney’s older volume, Every Pastor Needs a Pastor. Parts II and III are
Louis M. McBurney, M.D., Every Pastor Needs a Pastor. Self-Control Systems, 1978. Referenced in: Ministry Burnout, Preventing and Overcoming LifeandLeadership.com Summary This text is over 30 years old, and the ministerial role has changed over that time. But the conditions of the ministerial role and the spiritual and psychological dynamics of ministers described herein remain
