Product Description

The New Guidebook for Pastors is written in the tradition of classics like Criswell's Guidebook for Pastors. But since most pastoral guidebooks available today date back to 1980 or earlier, this new resource by Mac Brunson and James W. Bryant will offer fresh experience-based encouragement to all pastors in their pursuit of excellence and development in their God-called profession.

Among the twenty chapters are "The Pastor and His Call," "The Pastor and His Family," "The Pastor and His Staff," "The Pastor and Worship," "The Pastor and Finances," "The Pastor, Wedding, and Funerals," "The Pastor, Politics, and Moral Issues," and "The Pastor and His Denomination."

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #68931 in Books
• Published on: 2007-06-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

About the Author

Customer Reviews

Review of Guidebook for Pastors
The book is wonderfully writing. The information is very practical and useful to new and current pastors. Although both writers have pastored large mega churches the information is very useful and practical for the pastor of smaller churches. I wished I had the book two years ago when I began to pastor. However, I have known the authors and sat in classes with them. They live out the very things the book speaks about in their daily lives.
I will be giving the book to many of my friends in the ministry.

A fine guide for ministers new and old
Bryant and Brunson have done ministers at all stages of development a great service in this book. I have taught ministerial ethics at university level for nearly twenty years. I now use this book as a text because the authors cover most of the matters I tried to hammer into ministry students over the years...and do it just as well as, if not better than, I.

They could have done better at a few points. Examples follow. First, their interpretation of "one-woman man" is deficient (pp. 55-56). Living in a culture that prohibits polygamy cannot automatically rule out that interpretation as an option. The same culture forbids murder, but that does not empty the mandate against murder of all meaning! Second, the remark that "it is the intimacy of the couple and not the ceremony that marks the beginning of marriage" (p. 144) should be tied more clearly to the discussion in which it appears. My students regularly misunderstand this as approval of premarital sex. Third, the writers misused Romans 11:29, a passage about the irrevocability of salvation, in an attempt to say a call to ministry is once and for all (p. 57). They may be right--although I am not sure they are--but they need another text on which to base their statement. Fourth, most ministers drive too many miles a year to make leasing a car a good option (p. 172).

All in all, however, the book offers tons of practical and valuable guidance! I recommend it highly.

Every Church Staff Person Should Read This Book!
Jim Bryant and Mac Brunson (and B&H Publishing) have done a great service to pastors and church staff. Every church staff person should read this book. Each chapter begins with a brief personal testimony by different professionals in the field. Then Jim or Mac gives the content of each chapter out of their own depth of wisdom and years of experience. I know both of these men, and they live what they preach. Most ministers' manuals simply tell how to do funerals, weddings, etc. While Bryant and Brunson offer appendices on such topics, theirs is a book on the everyday issues, challenges, and joys pastors face. I say all church staff persons should read this book, because much of what they say applies not only to pastors, but to other church staff as well, and becuase it will help other staff members to appreciate the challenges their pastors face. The book is perfect for gift-giving. Church members can give it to their pastors, or people can give it to someone they know who is beginning a life of vocational ministry. The authors address what one would expect to see in such a volume, and much that is unexpected, including changing churches, retirement, and how he should deal with moral and political issues. I recommend this book with enthusiasm and without reservation!