Product Description

This wise and practical guide provides clear insight for both pastors and congregations on how to begin a healthy, productive new pastorate or make a fresh start in an ongoing ministry. Author Kennon L. Callahan, today's most sought-after church consultant, has conferred with thousands of pastors and congregations, helping them discover their strengths and gifts and showing them how to work together in service to their community and mission. Here he offers fresh suggestions on how pastors and congregations can ensure a solid future together, whether they are newly beginning or beginning again.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #308692 in Books
• Published on: 1999-09-24
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 240 pages

Card catalog description
"This guide provides clear insight for both pastors and congregations on how to begin a healthy, productive new pastorate or make a fresh start in an ongoing ministry. Author Kennon L. Callahan, today's most sought-after church consultant, has conferred with thousands of pastors and congregations, helping them discover their strengths and gifts and showing them how to work together in service to their community and mission. Here he offers fresh suggestions on how pastors and congregations can ensure a solid future together, whether they are newly beginning or beginning again."--BOOK JACKET.

From the Inside Flap
A New Beginning for Pastors and CongregationsThis wise and practical guide provides clear insight for both pastors and congregations on how to begin a healthy, productive new pastorate or make a fresh start in an ongoing ministry. Author Kennon L. Callahan, today's most sought-after church consultant, has conferred with thousands of pastors and congregations, helping them discover their strengths and gifts and showing them how to work together in service to their community and mission. Here he offers fresh suggestions on how pastors and congregations can ensure a solid future together, whether they are newly beginning or beginning again.Callahan challenges the accepted wisdom that a year or more must pass before a new pastor can have an impact on a new congregation. He observes that the first three months are decisive for shaping a successful long-term relationship with any new church, and that the first few days set the tone for the months and years that follow. "In the first few days and weeks," he says, "you and your congregation teach one another who you plan to be together. Many pastors, in these early days, constructively teach their congregation that they plan to be a good shepherd, a helpful preacher, a wise and caring leader, a community pastor. Many congregations participate in helping this constructive beginning to grow forward."A New Beginning for Pastors and Congregations offers fresh wisdom for every ministry, new or ongoing, on how to grow stronger, deeper, and more helpful. Illuminating his insights with stories of real ministries, Callahan identifies specific ways that pastors and congregations can develop healthy, constructive relationships of trust, respect, appreciation, and genuine love, fulfilling their objectives, hopes, and mission.Today's most sought-after church consultant shows how you can make a healthy start in your churchA New Beginning for Pastors and Congregations offers practical, concrete wisdom for both pas

From the Back Cover
A New Beginning for Pastors and Congregations

This wise and practical guide provides clear insight for both pastors and congregations on how to begin a healthy, productive new pastorate or make a fresh start in an ongoing ministry. Author Kennon L. Callahan, today's most sought-after church consultant, has conferred with thousands of pastors and congregations, helping them discover their strengths and gifts and showing them how to work together in service to their community and mission. Here he offers fresh suggestions on how pastors and congregations can ensure a solid future together, whether they are newly beginning or beginning again.

Callahan challenges the accepted wisdom that a year or more must pass before a new pastor can have an impact on a new congregation. He observes that the first three months are decisive for shaping a successful long-term relationship with any new church, and that the first few days set the tone for the months and years that follow. "In the first few days and weeks," he says, "you and your congregation teach one another who you plan to be together. Many pastors, in these early days, constructively teach their congregation that they plan to be a good shepherd, a helpful preacher, a wise and caring leader, a community pastor. Many congregations participate in helping this constructive beginning to grow forward."

A New Beginning for Pastors and Congregations offers fresh wisdom for every ministry, new or ongoing, on how to grow stronger, deeper, and more helpful. Illuminating his insights with stories of real ministries, Callahan identifies specific ways that pastors and congregations can develop healthy, constructive relationships of trust, respect, appreciation, and genuine love, fulfilling their objectives, hopes, and mission.

Today's most sought-after church consultant shows how you can make a healthy start in your church

A New Beginning for Pastors and Congregations offers practical, concrete wisdom for both pastors and congregations on how to begin a healthy new pastorate or create a new beginning in an ongoing ministry. Well-known church consultant Kennon L. Callahan teaches us that nurturing the pastor-congregation relationship and securing a future together happens by discovering and building upon shared gifts and strengths.

"An excellent match develops between a pastor and a congregation when the two resonate with one another in four ways," he says. "First, the pastor and the people fall in love with each other. Second, the pastor's competencies mesh with the objectives and hopes of the congregation and the congregation's mission in the community. Third, both the pastor and the people mutually grow in the mission. Fourth, the pastor and the people grow whole and healthy lives together. They experience the grace of God, the compassion of Christ, and the healing hope of the Holy Spirit. They advance the gifts and competencies with which God is blessing them."

A New Beginning for Pastors and Congregations offers clear guidance on shepherding, preaching, and sharing in the community, and reveals some of the possibilities and obstacles of the early months, illuminating the ways in which a minister's family can thrive in a new congregation. This book is a must-have for every ministry-new or ongoing.

Customer Reviews

Sage Advice, Balance with Prayer
During the first year, the new pastor and congregation set the tone of their ministry partnership. They establish enduring patterns of relating to God and each other. Kennon Callahan here offers sage advice to pastors and congregations beginning together, or attempting to remedy a poor start by beginning again. I recommend this book highly. In fact, I incorporated some of Callahan's insights into a devotional book for new pastors and church members to read during their first 12 months together. Jesus began his public ministry with 40 days of prayer (Matthew 4), so you may wish to check out "Welcome, Pastor: Building a Productive Pastor-Congregation Partnership in 40 Days." Starting well deserves your careful, prayerful attention. Callahan writes, "How you begin shapes how you continue and where you end."

A Great Guide and an Easy Read
During a recent pastor's coffee in a state far from my own, I asked for advice as I prepared to move to new churches and a very different situation from my previous pastoral experience. Dr. Jim Carpenter lent me his copy of this book (I have since purchased my own)with a stern warning to return his copy. After reading, I understand why. The book is full of friendly annecdotes all pointing away from the stepping-stone and mega-church model back into the mission-oriented church we all dreamed of at seminary.

The narrative style runs through the book, but Callahan doesn't stop with annecdotal information. He makes clear and convincing arguments for doing certain things certain ways - much of the advice goes against the words of wisdom offered me at my last church. The words are well measured and warm in tone.

You'll finish the book on a quiet Friday... but you won't be finished with the book and its ideas for many months. Buy it, enjoy it, and try it out!

A New Beginning for Pastors and Congregations
Kennon Callahan is well known for his previous books and consulting work. This latest book is aimed at helping pastors who are starting out in a new congregation or pastors and congregations who want to renew their relationship. Callahan has a fresh focus for this reader. So many of the church experts today urge pastors to focus on the problems of their new congregations. Callahan insists that the key to an effective ministry is an early focus on relationships. He describes how a new pastor should plan the first three months around key visits to regular worshippers, shut-ins and hospitalized. He also has suggestions for getting quickly involved in the community, scouting out the church's mission field, developing a team of leaders and setting goals. The best thing about Callahan's approach is his gentle and confident attitude and the flexibility of his advice.