Tips for accessing BOOKS on Discerning God's Call: Many of the titles included on these pages are books found in Luther Seminary Library and only available to seminary students. However, you may be able to borrow these same titles from your local public library. Make note of the title, author and ISBN of the desired book and ask your local library to request the book by "Interlibrary Loan" (ILL). Otherwise, of course, you may choose to buy certain titles from your favorite bookstore or online book source.
Journeying in the Wilderness : Forming Faith in the 21st Century
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In Journeying in the Wilderness, author Terri Martinson Elton observes that faith formation in the church setting is contextual, and multiple forces are coming together today to create seismic contextual changes at record speed. These changes are disrupting aspects of our lives, challenging assumptions, and dislodging personal and communal practices. For the church to take seriously its call to form faith in each generation, it must be attentive to current contextual realities. Elton places confessional understanding of faith in dialogue with five contextually altering forces in order to provide a pathway for congregations to reimagine faith formation in the midst of twenty-first-century realities. The use of stories, nontechnical language, and biblical perspectives make this work accessible for congregational leaders and others who seek to explore new directions in forming faith. Processes and practices are offered to help both leaders and congregations contextualize their approach to their particular settings. Each chapter includes leadership competencies, shared practices, and group discussion questions.
Follow Your Bliss and Other Lies about Calling
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What does it mean to pursue a calling? According to Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore, it may mean ambiguity, uncertainty, and even suffering--but that's what makes it worthwhile. The common understanding of calling is often simplistic. You simply need to follow your bliss, or God's will. Miller-McLemore dives into the complex reality of what it means to pursue a calling, challenging the deceptive and destructive idea that a well-lived life is simple, with one perfect career, partner, or summons from God. Instead, she argues, to truly grapple with calling, we must consider how it evolves amid the constraints of life. Callings are often accompanied by loss, regret, failure, impediments, frustration, overload, and conflict, challenges that are an important part of a balanced life. Grounding her argument in stories from memoirs and biographies, fiction, and the people she has encountered in her thirty years of teaching and research, Miller-McLemore guides the reader through six dilemmas one may face throughout life, from missed or conflicted callings to unexpected or relinquished passions. Each chapter explores the pain and hardships around these complicated experiences and the enhanced insight and vitality that arises from enduring them. Intertwining faith, philosophy, and pragmatism, Miller-McLemore engages unflinchingly with the ways we find purpose in our lives, and how we make meaning of the search for a calling, no matter how rough the road it leads us down.
Let Your Life Speak : Listening for the Voice of Vocation
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With wisdom, compassion, and gentle humor, Parker J. Palmer invites us to listen to the inner teacher and follow its leadings toward a sense of meaning and purpose. Telling stories from his own life and the lives of others who have made a difference, he shares insights gained from darkness and depression as well as fulfillment and joy, illuminating a pathway toward vocation for all who seek the true calling of their lives.
LifeKeys: Discover Who You Are
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LifeKeys: Discover Who You Are is a powerful guide to uncovering your talents, spiritual gifts, passions, values, and personality-all that God made you to be. Now revised, it includes new material as well as the engaging stories, inventories, self-tests, and other easy-to-use exercises that make LifeKeys a one-of-a-kind tool. Whether you use it alone or in a group, it will help you Find deeper meaning in life, Consider significant volunteer opportunities in or outside of church, Work through career changes, Develop your usefulness to God Join the more than 100,000 people who have used LifeKeys to better understand themselves and their distinctiveness. Book jacket.
Strengths Based Leadership: Great Leaders, Teams, and Why People Follow
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Nearly a decade ago, Gallup unveiled the results of a landmark 30-year research project that ignited a global conversation on the topic of strengths. More than 3 million people have since taken Gallup's StrengthsFinder assessment, which forms the core of several books on this topic, including the #1 international bestseller; StrengthsFinder 2.0. In recent years, while continuing to learn more about strengths, Gallup scientists have also been examining decades of data on the topic of leadership. They studied more than 1 million work teams, conducted more than 20,000 in-depth interviews with leaders and even interviewed more than 10,000 followers around the world to ask exactly why they followed the most important leader in their life. In Strengths Based Leadership, #1 New York Times bestselling author Tom Rath and renowned leadership consultant Barry Conchie reveal the results of this research. Based on their discoveries, the book identifies three keys to being a more effective leader: knowing your strengths and investing in others' strengths, getting people with the right strengths on your team, and understanding and meeting the four basic needs of those who look to you for leadership; A unique access code allows you to take a new leadership version of Gallup's StrengthsFinder program. The new version of this program provides you with specific strategies for leading with your top five strengths and enables you to plot the strengths of your team based on the four domains of leadership strength revealed in the book.
The Stories We Live : Finding God's Calling All around Us
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"Christian vocation," says Kathleen Cahalan, "is about connecting our stories with God's story." In The Stories We Live, Cahalan rejuvenates and transforms vocation from a static concept to a living, dynamic reality. Incorporating biblical texts, her own experience, and the personal stories of others, Cahalan discusses how each of us is called by God, and to follow; we are from
grief, for service, in suffering, through others, within God. Readers of this book will discover an exciting new vocabulary of vocation and find a fresh vision for God's calling in their lives.
Luther on Vocation
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...[C]oncern about the [inherited doctrine of vocation and its relevance for modern life] was generated out of the complexities and frustrations especially of industrial life, and it has produced a voluminous literature of a popular and semi-popular kind which has served to drive home the problem of daily work upon the conscience of contemporary Christians, and also to provide certain resources for handling it. In addition to this varied literature, the last years have also seen a very general discussion of the question at every level of church life: in ecumencal conferences, in the curricular material of the major denominations, and in conferences and study groups of all kinds. About the urgency and importance of the problem of vocation there is now no doubt. But now we find that the rather simple formulae in which we have been dealing with it do justice neither to the Biblical and Reformation inheritance, nor to the profound dilemmas that appear not only in industry, but in every area of professional and commercial life. The problem now is not only to equip our lay-people with fuller theological resources for the understanding of the meaning of discipleship, but to utilize their practical experience of day-to-day dilemmas and day to-day decisions. ...Gustaf Wingren's conscientious analysis of Luther's teaching on the matter...remains our prime resource for the understanding of the relation of faith and works. Nothing could exceed the patience and thoroughness with which Wingren has combed through the Luther corpus.... [I]t will serve to put the full range of Luther's insight at the disposal of those who care for theology as part of their care of all the Churches. Alexander MillerStanford University
Called and Ordained: Lutheran Perspectives on the Office of the Ministry
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Ministry in the New Testament / Roy A. Harrisville -- Ministry in the early church / James Arne Nestingen -- Ministry in the Middle Ages and the Reformation / Jane E. Strohl -- Ministry in Martin Luther and the Lutheran confessions / Robert Kolb -- Ministry in Lutheran orthodoxy and pietism / James H. Pragman -- Ministry in nineteenth-century European Lutheranism / Walter Sundberg -- Ministry and oversight in American Lutheranism / Todd Nichol -- The ordained ministry / Gerhard O. Forde -- An evangelical episcopate? / Joseph A. Burgess -- The office of deacon in the Christian church / Michael Rogness -- Getting women ordained / Gracia Grindal -- The pastoral ministry / Roland D. Martinson -- Ministry and vocation for clergy and laity / Marc Kolden -- Perpsectives in perspective / Todd Nichol and Marc Kolden.
Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-lived, Joyful Life
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#1 NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER * At last, a book that shows you how to build--design--a life you can thrive in, at any age or stage * "Life has questions. They have answers." The New York Times Designers create worlds and solve problems using design thinking. Look around your office or home--at the tablet or smartphone you may be holding or the chair you are sitting in. Everything in our lives was designed by someone. And every design starts with a problem that a designer or team of designers seeks to solve. In this book, Bill Burnett and Dave Evans show us how design thinking can help us create a life that is both meaningful and fulfilling, regardless of who or where we are, what we do or have done for a living, or how young or old we are. The same design thinking responsible for amazing technology, products, and spaces can be used to design and build your career and your life, a life of fulfillment and joy, constantly creative and productive, one that always holds the possibility of surprise.
Explore : Vocational Discovery in Ministry
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This volume helps ministerial leadership students engage the tools of discernment while introducing the various roles that seminarians may pursue, including pastors, varieties of chaplaincy, clinical pastoral educators, academics, and nonprofit leaders. It is an ideal resource for seminarians, particularly during theological field education.
Four Ministries, One Jesus : Exploring Your Vocation with the Four Gospels
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Combining the skills of a leading biblical scholar with the wisdom derived from years spent training candidates for ordination, Richard Burridge offers rich reflections on the four gospel portraits of Jesus and shows how they not only inform the calling to ordained ministry but also help sustain the practice of Christian ministry in its various dimensions. Four Ministries, One Jesus is for all who feel called to a life of Christian ministry and want to ground their calling in the teaching and example of Jesus, as provided in the four gospels. Burridge helps readers consider vital questions such as: how to sustain reading, Bible study, and theological reflection in ministry; how to extend pastoral care to people outside as well as inside the Christian community; how to care for self and family; and how to stay attuned to the Spirit by cultivating a fresh and vigorous life of prayer.
Forming Leaders for the Public Church : Vocation in Twenty-First Century Societies
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These challenging times demand that Christian churches and their leaders faithfully and effectively address diverse global situations with Gospel-rooted compassion and justice. These essays argue that public theology provides the trinitarian theological framework which fuels wise and compassionate public participation in God's mission within the world today. Public church leaders from the Global South and Global North join their voices to explore the global implications of public theology within unique situational particularities. Their essays are principally based on the public theology and theological commitments of Gary M. Simpson, Lutheran pastor and systematic theologian. Simpson's public theology is an intersection of Lutheran theology, post-colonial approaches to missiology, the growing field of congregational studies, and the Civil Society turn in Critical Social Theory. Expanding on various aspects of Simpson's public theology, these essays provide a glimpse of newly-emerging global public theology with leadership implications for twenty-first century contexts. This book calls the church to bear today's multi-dimensional crises with courage, mutuality and cooperation. Congregations who seek to participate in God's mission by confronting these challenging realities will find encouragement through the theological reflections, first-hand experiences, and innovative public leadership narrated in these essays.
Members Are Ministers : The Vocation of All Believers
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Cultural changes and social conditions today give evidence of a growing disregard of traditional authority and an increasing distrust of institutions. Relations between pastor and people are changing. In many situations, the practice of top-down leadership appears no longer to be effective. Members Are Ministers identifies the positive change necessary to achieve greater unity and to reduce conflict within the church. This book promotes an approach that generates a greater sense of community, enables a clearer corporate and personal witness to the faith, and reduces the social distances between pastors and people. Above all, it recognizes the Word as crucial for effecting change in our emerging new culture. Paul Goetting works from a biblical base that shapes the Christian ministry of all people through their various vocations, and equips them for a clearer witness to the Christian faith and to issues of injustice. The family, the workplace, the political arena, and the church are seen as the primary contexts for authentic servant ministry of both clergy and laity.
The Vocation of Theology: Inquiry, Dialogue, Adoration
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When Emory University's Candler School of Theology was established in 1914, the school's founders had little notion of the remarkable events ahead: two world wars, a cold war under the threat of nuclear destruction, the collapse of colonialism, the Holocaust, and technological revolution. In response, theology was inadequate to the task of understanding and interpreting these world-changing circumstances in light of the Good News. Candler entered its second century in 2014-15, its faculty and students sought to anticipate some of the major theological challenges of the era to better prepare for the task of speaking God's truth in the midst of rapidly changing circumstances. The issues taken up during the year of Candler's centennial celebration were not trivial or parochial; they cut to the core of Christian identity and witness: theological imagination and secularization, the image of God in contemporary society, creation and care of the earth, and the kingdom of God and global pluralism.The essays, sermons, and addresses collected in this volume represent an extended reflection on the vocation of theology in a changed and changing world.
Pastor: The Theology and Practice of Ordained Ministry Revised Edition
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Ordained ministry, says Will Willimon, is a gift of God to the church--but that doesn't mean that it is easy. Always a difficult vocation, changes in society and the church in recent years have made the ordained life all the more complex and challenging. Is the pastor primarily a preacher, a professional caregiver, an administrator? Given the call of all Christians to be ministers to the world, what is the distinctive ministry of the ordained? When does one's ministry take on the character of prophet, and when does it become that of priest? What are the special ethical obligations and disciplines of the ordained? Pastor: Revised Edition explores these and other central questions about the vocation of ordained ministry. It begins with a discussion of who pastors are, asking about the theological underpinnings of ordained ministry, and then moves on to what pastors do, looking at the distinctive roles the pastor must fulfill. The book also draws on great teachers of the Christian tradition to demonstrate that, while much about Christian ministry has changed, its core concerns--preaching the word, the care of souls, the sacramental life of congregations--remains the same. Ordained ministry is a vocation to which we are called, not a profession that we choose. To answer that call is to open oneself to heartache and sometimes hardship; yet, given the one who calls, it is to make oneself available to deep and profound joy as well.
The Other Six Days: Vocation, Work, and Ministry in Biblical Perspective
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Throughout history the church has been composed of two types of people--those who "do" ministry and those to whom it is "done." In this provocative book R. Paul Stevens shows that the clergy-laity division has no basis in the New Testament and challenges all Christians to rediscover what it means to live daily as God's people. Exploring the theological, structural, and cultural reasons for treating laypeople as the objects of ministry, Stevens argues against the idea of clericalism. All Christians are called to live in faith, hope, and love, and to do God's work in the church and world. This biblical perspective has serious implications for the existing attitudes and practices of many churches as well as for our understanding of ministry. Stevens shows that the task of churches today is to equip people for ministry in their homes, workplaces, and neighborhoods.Written by a scholar and pastor well known as an active advocate for the whole people of God, this thought-provoking book--made even more useful with the inclusion of case studies and study questions at the end of each chapter--offers inspiring reading for anyone interested in what the Christian life holds for the other six days of the week.
A Burning in My Bones: The Authorized Biography of Eugene H. Peterson
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This essential authorized biography of Eugene Peterson offers unique insights into the experiences and spiritual convictions of the iconic American pastor and beloved translator of The Message. "In the time of a generation-wide breakdown in trust with leaders in every sphere of society, Eugene's quiet life of deep integrity and gospel purpose is a bright light against a dark backdrop."--John Mark Comer, author of The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry "This hunger for something radical--something so true that it burned in his bones--was a constant in Eugene's life. His longing for God ignited a ferocity in his soul." Encounter the multifaceted life of one of the most influential and creative pastors of the past half century with unforgettable stories of Eugene's lifelong devotion to his craft and love of language, the influences and experiences that shaped his unquenchable faith, the inspiration for his decision to translate The Message, and his success and struggles as a pastor, husband, and father. Author Winn Collier was given exclusive access to Eugene and his materials for the production of this landmark work. Drawing from his friendship and expansive view of Peterson's life, Collier offers an intimate, beautiful, and earthy look into a remarkable life. For Eugene, the gifts of life were inexhaustible: the glint of fading light over the lake; a kiss from his wife, Jan; a good joke; a bowl of butter pecan ice cream. As you enter into his story, you'll find yourself doing the same--noticing how the most ordinary things shimmer with a new and unexpected beauty.
Called : Recovering Lutheran Principles for Ministry and Vocation
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Called: Recovering Lutheran Principles for Ministry and Vocation explores vocation and the call to ministry from a Lutheran perspective and reveals their promise for the wider church. It offers a foundation and clarity for those considering the office of rostered ministry, while encouraging all believers to live their spiritual priesthood and faith vocation by responding to the gospel's call to love and serve the neighbor. The book has two main parts: The first part provides a historical overview of the inner call to ministry in the European and American contexts. This inner call in Lutheranism was encouraged by pietist leaders and later required by orthodox writers. In the American context, nineteenth-century Lutherans in the Muhlenberg tradition gave unprecedented emphasis to inner call, and Midwest confessionalists continued the tradition of encouraging inner call while treating it separately from the "regular call." Both streams flowed into the twentieth century as the church experienced mergers and addressed the ordination of women. The second part of the book provides a Lutheran theology of vocation and ministry, with chapters on vocation, ministerial call, and lay ministry. The importance of external factors is applied to the calling to the office of ministry, with applications for clergy commitment and mission, and to the priesthood of all believers, with applications for the mission of the church in an era of institutional decline. The book aims to support pastors and others considering rostered ministry and helps thoughtful lay readers support ordained ministry while discovering their own rights and duties to minister. Called will be especially helpfulfor congregational call committees and denominational ministry candidacy committees.
Called by God : Stories from the Jewish and Christian Bibles
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Called by God tells of the life and work of thirty characters in the Bible who were convinced that they had received a divine calling. The author, a well-known poet and former lecturer in Religious Studies, has set these stories in a modern verse style, and in accessible language. The text brings out, in a poetic and highly readable way, the personal thoughts and tribulations of the characters as they seek to fulfil God's command and to follow the path of their vocation. While the text follows the Old Testament and Jewish biblical narratives, it adds dimensions of poetic license to bring out the characterization of the personalities and their stories in a way that highlights their conviction that God supports them in all their activities. Essentially, the text is a celebration of the imaginative powers and insight of these characters, achieved through a structured, rhythmical, poetic verse form. The book is an ideal introduction to the Old Testament stories, and can be used for teaching purposes prior to reading the Bible proper, or as verse prose in their own right. These beautifully written stories introduce the reader to characters who have left their mark upon biblical history. The text, which does not lose sight of the narrative form of the biblical originals, includes interpretations of the thoughts of the classical prophets of Ancient Israel.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer : Called by God
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Nazi Germany produced an unusual group of Christian martyrs--among them, the nun philosopher Edith Stein, the mystical philosopher Simone Weil, and the peasant conscientious objector Hans JSgerstatter--but perhaps none so complex as the Lutheran theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Born into a large upper-middle-class, professional family that was not particularly devout or observant (his father was one of the leading psychiatrists in Germany), Dietrich early in life decided he wanted to be a Christian theologian. Yet his family background and connections insured that he wouldn't be one in the narrow mold of so many of his colleagues. Opportunities for travel-to Spain, North Africa. Mexico, Cuba, America (twice), and England (often)-gave him a broad horizon of possibilities. The greatest thing about America for him was his experiences in Harlem and his friendships with African Americans. His great regret was that he missed an opportunity to travel to India to meet Gandhi. He was one of the few German churchmen who spoke forthrightly against the persecution of Jews as Jews and not merely of Christians of Jewish descent. (How much of this was due to his beloved, 90-year-old grandmother Sophie, who defied the Nazi ban on shopping in Jewish stores? "I buy the things I need where I like.") His family connections drew him into a dangerous double game. His "employment" as a member of the Counterintelligence Office of the High Command of the Armed Forces enabled him to continue work as a pastor and seminary director. It allowed him to travel abroad, where he worked for a negotiated peace. And it eventually drew him into the plot to kill Hitler-an ethical stand which many German Christians of his generation couldn't understand or forgive. He was executed on 9 April 1945, three weeks before Hitler committed suicide. He was thirty-nine years old.The life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer has been told at great length and in magnificent detail by his younger colleague, Eberhard Bethge. It's a biography that will never be surpassed but which only the most devoted will have the perseverance to read. Elizabeth Raum has retold the story concisely and readably for a whole new generation of readers.
Sadhu Sundar Singh, Called of God
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Sadhu Sundar Singh was a well-known Christian mystic in India during the early 20th century. He walked from place to place preaching the gospel and lived without possessions. He had many dreams and visions. He suffered much from poverty and persecution, but won many converts. He eventually traveled the world preaching and teaching and wrote several books. This biography was written after many interviews with Sundar, a few years before he disappeared in Tibet.
Autobiography of St. Teresa of Avila
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In this landmark of Christian mysticism, the revered Carmelite nun presents moving accounts of her profound religious experiences and ultimate union with God. St. Teresa wrote this memoir at the behest of her confessor. It offers a warm, accessible account of her transformation into an impassioned leader and reformer of church doctrine. St. Teresa recounts her childhood and education in sixteenth-century Spain, her physical afflictions and spiritual crises, her many visions and mystical encounters, and her determination to embrace the contemplative life. In describing the ascent of the soul, she explains the core of her theology as a four-stage process that progresses from mental prayer to divine rapture. Next to Don Quixote, this timeless work constitutes Spain's most popular prose classic. It forms an excellent introduction to the saint's other writings and to the Christian tradition of mystical literature.
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