We can always use a prayer for teachers. From preschool to grad school, this time of year is usually punctuated by joyous pictures of students and teachers returning to classrooms. But this year is a strange one. Not like any…
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How to Survive College Ministry: Guest Blog by Wanda Kidd
This week, many college students are returning to campus or virtual classrooms. College administrators are reshaping plans and policies for college life in a pandemic setting. What will ministry with college students look like this year? What are the best…
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How To Survive Zoom Fatigue: Guest Blog by Phoebe Capps
This week we want to share a guest blog by Phoebe Capps, church intern at First Baptist Church of Christ in Macon, Georgia. Phoebe’s responsibilities include working with children and youth. She shares with us what she is learning about…
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The World Is on Fire | Independence Day?
Counting the Costs of “Independence Day” If one of you wanted to build a tower, wouldn’t you first sit down and calculate the cost, to determine whether you have enough money to complete it? (Luke 14:26, CEB) If we want…
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How To Survive Your Internship in a Pandemic by Kim McKay Allen
Please enjoy this post by my friend, recent graduate of Central Seminary, and chaplain, Kim McKay Allen. In today’s blog she tells us how she survived the onset of the global pandemic this spring while completing her internship and seminary…
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The World is on Fire | Cultivating Empathy
For men of color, White women, and White men to stand in solidarity with women of color (and for us to stand in solidarity with one another) requires them to adopt an ethic of caring, a position of receptivity, trust,…
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Shifting from Victim to Witness: Doing Our Internal Work
How do we shift the balance of our internal narratives, so that we become witnesses rather than victims of our fear, grief, pain, and trauma? Recently our host, Eileen Campbell-Reed led a webinar for the Wayne Oates Institute: “Working with People in…
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The World is on Fire | How will we respond to the movement for Black lives?
The world is on fire. How are we going to respond? In the past week, my attention and all my news and social feeds were riveted to the protests in more than 140 cities in the US and globally, over…
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Pandemic Pastoring | Guest Sermon by Lauren Plummer
This Friday we welcome guest blogger Lauren Plummer who offers a encouraging word for #pandemicpastoring. Lauren is a pastoral intern at Glendale Baptist Church in Nashville, TN, where she recently preached this sermon in a zoom worship service. We welcome Lauren’s…
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How to Survive Youth Ministry in a Pandemic – by Laura Edgar
This week we want to share a guest blog by my friend, Laura Edgar. She is the Associate Pastor at First Baptist Auburn, Alabama and a graduate of Baptist Seminary of Kentucky. She ministers with students from middle school through…
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Pandemic Pedagogy
Teaching and learning are essential aspects of human development. From parenting to governing, from sports team to PTA, and from ministry to industry, human beings are creatures who can learn and grow from first cry to final breath. How we…
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New Rituals for Pandemic Grief
We need new rituals for #PandemicGrief. This is our space to gather and collect our best practices for grieving in this season of isolation. Part of the struggle of leaning into joy or beauty — which are desperately needed for…
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3MMM | Mini-Ethnography Resource
Paying attention fully to a ministry setting, requires some practice and skill. Pastoral attention can be learned and cultivated over time. One way to grow in those skills is through the work pastoral ethnography. Professional ethnographers spend many years of…
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Resources for Pandemic Pastoring
Are you a minister or chaplain, an activist or congregational pastor? Whatever your role in ministry, you are now living and working in an unprecedented worldwide season of the coronavirus pandemic. And we want to support you as you bring…
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How to Survive Your First Year of Ministry – by Anita Peebles
This week we want to share a wonderful guest blog by my friend, recent graduate of Vanderbilt Divinity School, and new minister, Anita Peebles. When I asked, Does it feel better to be in the second year of ministry? She…
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3MMM | How the Light Got In – 2019
Each year for the last few, I’ve taken time, with inspiration from my friends and writing pals Duane Bidwell and Frank Thomas, to compile a Gratitude List of Important Things that I have invested myself in during the past year.…
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“Ministry as Spiritual Practice”
“Ministry as Spiritual Practice: How Pastors Learn to See and Respond to the ‘More’ of A Situation” by Eileen R. Campbell-Reed and Christian Scharen Abstract Christian ministry in a changing and challenging context requires “pastoral imagination,” a capacity to perceive…
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Epic Journey: Writing for My Life
The bells chime for worship. I am walking away from them. My path leads me deeper into the woods, through a cathedral of trees. A lush carpet of green stretches away to my left. Low hanging clouds reflect on the…
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Mele Kalikimaka & Hau’oli Makahiki Hou
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from Hawai’i! This is the most unique Christmas holiday I have ever had in my life. My family and I traveled to Hawai’i where new adventures and new discoveries filled up each day of…
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Three Minute Ministry Mentor
New Weekly Video Series Launches in Advent Everyone in ministry needs a mentor. Whether you have one currently or feel like you could really use one, our new video series, Three Minute Ministry Mentor, is created exactly with you in…
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Wednesday Words for Writers ~ F
Feedback This month I’ve been taking a class in creative non-fiction over at The Porch. A dozen or so women sit around a big plank table each week, and we talk about delicious classics like “You Blow My Mind! Hey,…
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