Reshifting pastoral ministry: an introduction -- New energy, new communications, new consciousness ... new ministry -- Transitioning from the pastor as self-help entertainer: what relational ministry can't & must become -- Sipping the sweet, hard liquor of individualism -- All the lonely people: pastoral ministry & the field of the personal -- What is a person?: recovering a Christian definition of people -- Empathy, it's a spirit thing: why we're built for relationships -- Can I read your mind?: brain science & relational ministry -- New visions of incarnational ministry: beyond our being incarnate -- Relational ministry as gift: union, need & the pastor -- Sharing is more than what you learned in kindergarten: relational ministry & the hypostatic union -- The place between: how we encounter Christ in relationships -- A quick Pauline excursion: sharing and place in Paul: it's all about the in -- Will you pray for me?: prayer as the essential practice for relational ministry -- What this looks like: how story, teaching & preaching fit -- I've got to run the church don't I?: leadership as letting relationships flow -- Portraits of relational pastors.
One of the Academy of Parish Clergy's ""Top 10 Books of 2013 for Parish Ministry""When is the last time you asked yourself hard questions about why you were pursuing certain relationships in your ministry? Could it be that the end game for many of us is not relationship per se but loyalty, adherence, even submission? The sheep in our flock become the means to our end: pastoring becomes less about the people of God and more about maintenance of the status quo-and, if we are willing to recognize it, the elevation of our pastoral status. Here practical theologian Andy Root dissects relational min.