Ministry Loves Company: A Survival Guide for Pastors

By John T. Galloway Jr.

Book Overview

In Ministry Loves Company John Galloway provides new and veteran pastors with insights on establishing and maintaining a vital parish ministry while remaining invigorated by the practice of ministry. Drawing on the image of a congregation as a family, Galloway uses anecdotes to describe the life of a congregation and the life of a pastor, who have both been called to be the body of Christ. Poignant, memorable, and often humorous, Galloway's reflections derive from his own personal experiences as a pastor. Ministry Loves Company uniquely addresses the many challenges facing today's pastors and serves as a practical guide for those entering ministry as well as those veteran pastors who are seeking to remain courageous and excited about parish ministry. Book jacket.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0664225845
• ISBN13: 9780664225841
• Release Date: February 2003
• Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press
• Length: 168 Pages
• Weight: 0.66 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.1" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

From a grateful reader

Dr Galloway's book is not only for the clergy, it is an excellent book on how to compassionately deal with people and groups in everyday life. Dr Galloway is a true pastor, who has a great deal of experience under his belt and we are fortunate to have his advice and wisdom.

a warm and helpful guide to any leader of a non-profit

Dr. Galloway has captured in a very readible way some helpful truths for anyone leading a non-profit organization. As a healthcare CEO in a number of organizations over 35 years I found new ways of looking at Boards and Volunteers in Dr. Galloway's book. I wish I had had this book 25 years ago!His writing style makes these truths very accessible and does so with humor and humility. All of us can learn something from this gem.

Applies to any organization or leadership endeavor.

This book will help most anyone attempting to Chair an organization of any size that has been in existance for a while. Oh, to have had this book to read before I tackled many a group leadership position. I enjoyed reading it, in fact, I couldn't put it down. It may be for professional Pastors, however,t every layman can relate to the issues and learn from its very clever analogies, which, incidently, they will find stay with them.

excellent guide to the challenges of church leadership

Ministry Loves Company: A Survival Guide for Pastors by John Galloway, Jr.While its title contains both truth and allusion, the subtitle of this book tells us what it's really all about. It is indeed an essential survival guide for pastors written by a seasoned senior clergyman. Rev. John Galloway writes in an engagingly humorous style, and reading his guide is like having an informal heart-to-heart chat with a wise and caring colleague.Ministry Loves Company distills into 168 pages a lifetime of pastoral wisdom on topics ranging from coping with conflict and competition to church parking problems. Galloway warns the pastor just coming to a new church that it's as tough as being an outsider called on to facilitate an ongoing family reunion. His book is full of thoughtful advice on how to be patient during the gradual transition from listening to leading, and how to share in the existing priorities of a congregation while helping them to develop a new creative vision. With enough important business to occupy ten clones, as the author puts it, how can the parish minister....... balance the open-ended demands of preaching, pastoral care, and church administration?... handle competition among congregation members for program space, budget, staffing, and publicity?... maintain integrity in the face of pressures to play a competitive "numbers game" against other churches?... cope with the irrational exuberance of the "born-again" yet shallowly self-centered member?... deal with the easily offended or emotionally volatile parishioner without taking it all personally?... in sum, how does the pastor manage and affirm the diversity of gifts and perspectives within the body of Christ?As Galloway points out, "Few people can appreciate the sheer terror in the heart of the pastor when the going gets tough.... No matter how well we do, we can still be rejected and renounced" (p. 110-111) Having said that, he offers a useful collection of coping strategies for pastors to follow in the thick of a church crisis, while humbly admitting one never has all the answers. A time of crisis must be a prayerful time, he wisely counsels, a time of recognition that "...one of the shrewdest ways evil does us in is to get us believing that we are on the side of goodness and purity while our opponents are the incarnation of evil itself. Such a belief is guaranteed to provoke the most demonic words and deeds from us." (p.117) Would that all our secular leaders shared this profound insight! Anyone faced with leadership challenges in a voluntary organization would benefit from this book. For the parish minister who would like to avoid a lot of misery by spending just a little time in John Galloway's congenial company, Ministry Loves Company is a survival guide well worth reading.