Welcome to the Teaching Resource Gallery! We created it especially for seminary and college professors, congregational and faith community teachers, Clinical Pastoral Education supervisors and educators, and anyone looking for teaching or mentoring resources on topics related to pastoral imagination and the practice of ministry!
We are delighted to support you and your work of teaching and facilitating. Our hope is for these downloads to inspire and inform your work of cultivating #pastoralimagination. To support you, we gathered public articles, how to guides for the classroom, blessings, prayers, and book reviews. Each download features insights and stories from the Learning Pastoral Imagination Project. Enjoy, and let us know about the ways you find these resources useful in your teaching and mentoring. Bookmark the page. We have more resources in the que, and they will be available soon.
To download the resources, just click on each image.
Ministry Reports
Download the State of Clergywomen in in the US, a statistical report that includes attention to both ministry and seminary enrollments across a broad number of denominations and traditions.
Download the 30-page #PandemicPastoring Report to learn how a new era of ministry has emerged since March of 2020 and how we can acknowledge, honor, and move forward with those changes. You can read more summaries and news stories about the report and watch the September 1 Webinar here.
Download the 64-page Learning Pastoral Imagination Project Five-Year Report by Christian Scharen and Eileen Campbell-Reed. The report includes six major findings, a brief history of the practice of ministry, research methods, and conceptual discussions about how learning in practice happens, as well as stories from participants.
How to Use Pastoral Imagination in Your Classroom
This guide suggests ways to incorporate the findings of the Learning Pastoral Imagination Project into your Field Education, Internship, or Contextual Ministry courses. The two-page flyer offers suggestions for using Pastoral Imagination in your online and face-to-face classes. Additional links are embedded in the document.
Many aspects of the book Pastoral Imagination are well suited for use in a seminary pastoral care course and Clinical Pastoral Education. The book provides rich case study material and insights into learning that happens best in practice. Additional links are embedded in the document.
Selected Reviews of Pastoral Imagination: Bringing the Practice of Ministry to Life
Review of Pastoral Imagination by Marcus Hong, Louisville Presbyterian Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky, USA, in Reflective Practice 42 (2022).
This brief review of Pastoral Imagination by Susan Willhauck, retired from Atlantic School of Theology in Nova Scotia, Canada, appeared in Christian Century in November 2022.
Additional reviews of Pastoral Imagination are published in journals that request no publicly hosted reprints. If you lack access to library subscriptions to these journals, you may write to request the reviews. Those reviews are by Mary Elizabeth Toler, Moravian Theological Seminary, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, USA, in the Journal of Pastoral Theology 33:1 (2023); Jan Albert van den Berg, University of Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa, in Ecclesial Practices 9 (2022); and William B. Kincaid, Christian Theological Seminary, Indianapolis, Indiana, USA, in Encounter 82:2 (2022).
Articles and Essays about Pastoral Imagination
The Learning Pastoral Imagination Project launched in 2009. This brief 2023 article in Reflective Practice, summarizes the major moments in the study and key findings about “becoming wise in the practice of ministry.” The article also addresses learning the practice of research. And it concludes with implications of the findings.
This brief article in the Association of Theological Schools publication Colloquy, summarizes six finding from the LPI 5-Year Report (see above), and raises questions for theological educators.
In 2022, the #PandemicPastoring Report addressed changes experienced by lay and clergy leaders from 2020-22 (see above download a copy). In this brief article the implications for theological education are the focal point. It raises four major questions for seminary and divinity school faculties to ask themselves.
Podcasts & Videos
To listen to this interview with Eileen conducted by Andy Hale at the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, visit the CBF Podcast link. To read a transcript of the interview, download the PDF. In the interview Eileen discusses pastoral imagination, Three Minute Ministry Mentor, and the #PandemicPastoring Report.
In this interview with Brian Allain, Eileen discusses her book Pastoral Imagination (Fortress, 2021) and what she learned while sharing the research through Three Minute Ministry Mentor, and finishing the writing and editing of the book in 2020-21 during the multiple pandemics.
Blessings & Prayers for Teaching
Share this blessing with someone beginning the wonderful, invigorating, challenging, and often disorienting journey of seminary or divinity school.
This prayer for teachers, written in 2020, remains useful and on point. Teaching is challenging! And God of wisdom, work, words, and ways is present to those who teach. Share this prayer with teachers you know and love.
