This Odd and Wondrous Calling offers something different from most books available on ministry. Two people still pastoring reflect honestly here on both the joys and the challenges of their vocation. / Anecdotal and extremely readable, the book covers a diversity of subjects revealing the incredible variety of a pastor’s day. The chapters move from comedy to pathos, story to theology, Scripture to contemporary culture. This Odd and Wondrous Calling is both serious and fun and is ideal for those who are considering the ministry or who want a better understanding of their own minister’s life.
About the Author :
Lillian Daniel is the senior minister of First CongregationalChurch, Glen Ellyn, Illinois, and a host of the Chicago-basedtelevision program "30 Good Minutes." She is alsothe author of Tell It Like It Is: Reclaiming the Practiceof Testimony, and When "Spiritual but NotReligious" Is Not Enough: Seeing God in Surprising Places, Even the Church. Martin B. Copenhaver is senior pastor of Wellesley Congregational Church in Wellesley, Massachusetts. His other books include Living Faith While Holding Doubts and To Begin at the Beginning.
Review :
Samuel T. Lloyd III
Dean, Washington National Cathedral
"One of the most human and most helpful books on ministry that I know. With moving, often humorous stories Lillian Daniel and Martin Copenhaver open windows onto the major and the mundane in the life of a minister -- shaking hands at the door, navigating a clergy marriage, handling money, visiting the hospital. Here is ordained ministry in all its depths, its ordinariness, and its joys." Lauren F. Winner, author of Girl Meets God and Mudhouse Sabbath
"My dictionary doesn't have enough enthusiastic adjectives for this book, which I adore. . . Everyone who loves the church or struggles with the church or is just plain curious about the church will relish every page."
Thomas G. Long
Candler School of Theology, Emory University
"Honest, wise, deeply personal, profoundly theological, and -- what's more -- delightfully written."
M. Craig Barnes, author of The Pastor as Minor Poet
"This is not another 'how-to' book that reduces the mystery of pastoral ministry to simplistic formulas. . . The authors are often brutally honest about the church as well as themselves, but always compelling, and in the end so very hopeful about our calling."
Anthony B. Robinson, author of Changing the Conversation
"Here's a book about ministry from the inside, written by two practitioners of the craft. And not just any two practitioners, but two excellent ministers who are gifted writers. . . . This is the best kind of affirmation of the ministry ù an honest one, richly grounded in the reality of the church."
Peter J. Gomes (from the foreword)
"This book gets better the more it is read; it does honor to the church and the ministry. . . We have in it both a classic and a class act."
Byron Borger
Hearts and Minds Bookstore
"If you are a clergy person, you will love this. If you know pastors well, you'll get it. If you want to understand what ministers go through -- their inner lives, their joys and frustrations, the strains on their marriages, their fears and foibles -- this is a must-read."
