Preparing for ministry involves more than the acquisition of certain skills. The shape of a disciple's soul as he or she embarks on this journey is as important if not more so than learning how to exegete a text or engage in pastoral care. Ministry is not easy, and the preparation for this form of Christian discipleship is open to a variety of temptations, not least of which is a kind of despair over the paucity of one's own resources, or worse, the illusion that one is better off relying on one's own talents and virtues. What is needed is bread for this journey, not necessarily exhortations to work harder, but words of encouragement and grace that bear witness to the surprising reality that ministry is, in fact, a joyful gift. These notes from a dean, who sought to help his students discover that joy in their study and preparation, bear witness to the One, whose life provides bread for every journey, especially for the journey of pastoral ministry.
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Thomas W. Currie. Bread for the Journey
Bread for the Journey
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Chapter 1: Beginnings
Chapter 2: Life Together
Chapter 3: Time and Preparation
Chapter 4: Ministry and Joy
Chapter 5: Reading for Ministry
Chapter 6: Theology and Poetry
Chapter 7: Theology and Theological Education
Chapter 8: Preparation and Prayer
Chapter 9: Worship
Chapter 10: Stories that Sustain the Faith
Chapter 11: Language Study
Chapter 12: Gratitude
Chapter 13: Weather
Chapter 14: Illness and Grief
Chapter 15: Dying Well
Chapter 16: Advent, Christmas, and Easter
Chapter 17: Seeking a Home
Chapter 18: The Sin of Boredom
Chapter 19: Texas Independence Day
Chapter 20: Technology
Chapter 21: Coming to the End
First Steps . .
The Joyful Feast
Bibliography
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Notes to Those Preparing for Ministry
Thomas W. Currie
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We are all saved by the Wrong Guy—there is no other way. The point? Well, our church is so quick to divide in part because we find it painful, even impossible to put up with the wrong people—whether they be of the left or the right. We prefer to be with the right guys and gals, people like us. Which is why it is so hard for us to hear the gospel, why its gracious logic upsets our more conventional type, why it often leaves us standing outside the party, harrumphing, while our Father and others are celebrating with the wrong guy who just came home.
What connects us to the other wrong guys is not tolerance or a sense of diversity or our own virtues. What connects us to other wrong guys is the Wrong Guy himself. In him “all things hold together,” says Paul (Col1:17). In him. The divine comedy is just that, a comedy. What we fear, what we have so quickly separated, God insists on being joined together, surprising us with the wrong people who become the very means of our salvation. God is sneaky that way, but then what would you expect of One who sticks us to the wrong people by sticking us to the Wrong Guy?
