
When All Else Fails
Rethinking Our Pastoral Vocation in Times of Stuck
Wayne L. Menking(Author)
Wipf & Stock Publishers
Published on 5. September 2013
Book
Paperback/Softback
150 pages
978-1-62032-499-8 (ISBN)
Description
The condition of stuck is a condition well known by pastoral caregivers and leaders. In When All Else Fails, Wayne Menking argues that the way out of stuckness is not through the acquisition of faddish techniques, but through a deep rethinking of our pastoral vocation and what our pastoral work is to be about. Pastoral care and leadership are not indistinguishable, just as priestly work can never be separated from prophetic work. They are always one and the same. Pastoral care and leadership, then, are not about helping people relieve their anxiety through the offering of palliative comfort, but rather helping people to engage the powers that have hold of their life so as to leave what is old for what is new. In this engagement, the caregiver will always encounter powers against which niceness and unconditional love will not work. Using biblical images and narratives that depict God as a deeply empathic and compassionate God, yet one who is never adaptively sympathetic, Menking asserts that pastoral caregivers and leaders must shed their niceness and adaptivity so as to employ their God-given power if they are to help people effectively leave what is old for what is new.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Eugene
United States
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Dimensions
Height: 203 mm
Width: 127 mm
Thickness: 8 mm
Weight
169 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-62032-499-8 (9781620324998)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
09/2013
Wipf and Stock Publishers
€21.49
Available for download
Persons
Wayne L. Menking is a retired pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and an Emeritus ACPE Certified Educator. He lives in Fort Worth, Texas, with his spouse, Nancy and is currently an adjunct instructor in clinical pastoral education at Wartburg Seminary in Dubuque, Iowa. He is the author of When All Else Fails: Rethinking our Pastoral Vocation in Times of Stuck (2013).