Building Your Church Through Counsel and Care
Overview
One of the best definitions of leadership is “being willing to take responsibility for someone else.” While pop culture encourages people to break free from obligation to anyone but themselves, Christians who have heard the call of God know that ministry is about caring for others. Care is more than an emotion, a general warm feeling toward people, or an affection for a few individuals. Pastoral care implies ensuring basic needs of the flock are met—all with a purpose of cultivating mature Christian character.
This third volume in the Library of Leadership Development explores how to give effective counsel and care in a wide range of critical areas using person-to-person ministry, care groups, preaching, and teaching. Now, in a never-before-collected lineup, are thirty chapters of expert advice.
Top Highlights
“If pastors become accomplices in treating every child as a problem to be figured out, every spouse as a problem to be dealt with, every clash of wills in choir or committee as a problem to be adjudicated, we abdicate our most important work, which is directing worship in the traffic, discovering the presence of the Cross in the paradoxes and chaos between Sundays, calling attention to the ‘splendor in the ordinary,’ and, most of all, teaching a life of prayer to our friends and companions in the pilgrimage.” (Pages 22–23)
“But I do it in the same spirit that I, along with my wife, run our house. There are many essential things that we routinely do, often (though not always) with joy. But running a house is not what we do. What we do is build a home, develop in marriage, raise children, practice hospitality, pursue lives of work and play. It is reducing pastoral work to institutional duties that I object to, not the duties themselves, which I gladly share with others in the church.” (Page 18)
“In those early days at Fourth, God taught me two things: First, treat the Sunday morning congregation the same way you’d treat a small group of people meeting in your living room. Second, fully implement the commandment Christ gave: ‘Love one another as I have loved you, and you will demonstrate to the world that you are my disciples.’” (Pages 25–26)
“‘There is something to be captured in this moment that we can never give or receive at any other time or in any other situation. Let’s be alive to what Christ wants us to do here and now.’” (Page 27)
Product Details
- Title: Building Your Church Through Counsel and Care
- Editor: Marshall Shelley
- Publisher: Bethany House
- Publication Date: 1997
- Pages: 320
Marshall Shelley is editor-in-chief of Leadership Journal and editorial vice president of Christianity Today International (CTI). Shelley studied journalism at Bethel University and earned a Master of Divinity in theology from Denver Seminary where he subsequently served as a board member for nearly a decade. He has also studied at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and Wheaton College Graduate School, served as a board member for the American Tract Society, and held pastoral staff positions in his hometown of Denver, Colorado.
Marshall joined CTI after developing his journalistic skills at David C. Cook Publishing Company and The Denver Post. He is the author of several books including Well-Intentioned Dragons, several volumes in the Fresh Ideas series, the Library of Leadership Development, and the Library of Christian Leadership. He also served as general editor of The Quest Study Bible.
Shelley and his wife, Susan, live in Wheaton, Illinois, and have five children, two sons-in-law, and two grandchildren.