Editor’s Note: This week we welcome Rev. Laura Edgar as our guest. Laura helps us think about back-to-school season for youth and college students. She serves as Support Minister for Three Minute Ministry Mentor. Additionally, she is Coordinator of Chapel…
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Editor’s Note: This week we welcome Rev. Amanda Smith as our guest. Pastor Amanda helps us think about the back-to-school season as a time to reboot, refresh, and restart aspects of ministry in the congregation. She serves as Co-Pastor at…
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Editor’s Note: This week we welcome Rev. Melissa Collier Gepford as our guest to share her “Back to School” Blessing. Melissa is the Intergenerational Discipleship Coordinator of the Great Plains Conference (all of Kansas and Nebraska). Melissa supports United Methodist…
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Remembering a Storied Life: Dr. Toni Craven By Rev. Dr. Stephanie Wyatt Dr. Toni Craven, Emerita Professor of Hebrew Bible at Brite Divinity School in Fort Worth, Texas died on Thursday, June 5, 2025. Dr. Craven was my Ph.D. advisor…
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This year I want to think beyond “American Thanksgiving” and its usual traditions. I want to share with you my commitment to understanding, learning from, and supporting Indigenous Peoples. Many of them are seeking to care for and “reclaim stewardship…
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Welcome to Three Minute Ministry Mentor. We are delighted that you are here! Three Minute Ministry Mentor (3MMM) offers weekly resources for learning and deepening your practice of ministry. Our weekly episodes strive both to inform and inspire your learning…
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#PandemicPastoring Report (2022) Download + News | Learn about the Author | Watch the Webinar ++++++++++ Pre-order the #PandemicPastoring Study Guide The #PandemicPastoring STUDY GUIDE is available NOW! We are living in a new era of ministry. We need to…
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Welcome to the Pastoral Imagination book page. You can observe and imagine doing ministry. Yet until you enter it with your whole self, alongside people in everyday situations, you cannot know fully how a calling comes to life. ~Eileen Campbell-ReedPastoral…
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What is the Writing Table? In the early pandemic days, students, pastors, professors, and authors were feeling a lot of stress on our writing (here is how one of my favorite writers has navigated it). So to help combat the…
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So you’ve been hearing the phrase pastoral imagination? And you’re thinking hmmmm, that’s interesting. Sounds kind of fun. Maybe a little mysterious. I’d like to know more…. But what is it exactly? You have come to the right place. I…
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Editor’s Note: Today’s guest post is by author Kimberly Knowle-Zeller, one of the co-authors of The Beauty of Motherhood (Morehouse Publishing, March 2023). We honor the gifts and graces of mothering, and the many ways mothering that happens in relationships and…
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Today, we welcome Sandhya Jha (they/them), to help us in calling on our ancestors. Sandyha is a community organizer, anti-oppression consultant, and ordained minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). They helped First Christian Church of Oakland convert their…
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This week we are celebrating mentoring! And we are also going to celebrate the Women’s Leadership Initiative (WLI) of Central Seminary. I know we are still on the Lenten journey for two more weeks. And I am so grateful for…
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Today’s guest post, “Women Preparing the Way” invites us to be thinking of Advent. We welcome Rev. Joanna Harader, pastor of Peace Mennonite Church in Lawrence, KS. You can find more of her writing at SpaciousFaith.com and on Instagram @joannaharader.…
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Editor’s Note: Today we welcome Rev. Jake Hall as our guest! Jake lives in Macon, GA with his wife Erin and their children. He is the Director of Initiatives in Faith and Culture at Mercer University’s Eula Mae and John…
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Welcome to the #MeTooReckoning Workshop! Thank you for making the choice to educate yourself and your community about the #MeTooReckoning and taking this self-paced course. We know this workshop will be valuable to you! It is designed to be a…
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This is a mother’s day prayer. Yet it is not like the ones I grew up hearing. This prayer is more of a psalm and a lament. It lifts up to God the painful and unspeakable facets of mothering and…
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How I Gave Myself Permission to Listen to Podcasts I remember the day so well — siting on my couch in my old apartment on Woodmont Boulevard. Hardwood floors, windows open, coffee in hand, as I pressed play on the…
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Bridges I have an invitation for you. But first an image. You’ve heard of the Bridge on the River Kwai? A Bridge over Troubled Waters? How about the Bridge to Terabithia? War. Grief. Escape. The search for relief. A bridge…
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Friends, here is a blessing for you this Christmas Eve and Day. A Blessing for Christmas Eve Whatever your year has been, wherever it has taken you, Whatever difficult or easy pathway, And whatever winding or steep road, You are still…
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How will you survive the holidays this year? Listen up! The holidays are here, and children everywhere are thrilled. But many teenagers and adults are wondering, how will we survive the holidays? Great question. Even in a normal year, so…
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Writing a Memoir with Dr. Charisse Gillett Today we are talking once more with Dr. Charisse Gillett, president of Lexington Theological Seminary and author of That Little Girl. Our topic today is writing a memoir. We are also going to explore…
Read MoreHolding Hope with Dr. Charisse Gillett We are in that time of year when school, church, and family can start to feel overwhelming. Holiday season is underway! I was in a store the day before Halloween. One aisle displayed Halloween…
Read MoreThis week we begin a series of conversations with Dr. Charisse Gillett, president of Lexington Theological Seminary. She published a memoir this summer. The book honors both her own young life and also speaks to the lives of young people…
Read MoreEditor’s note: This week we welcome Dr. Richard Olson as our guest. Richard helps us pay attention to the voices and needs of young clergy. A retired pastor, pastoral counselor, and professor of pastoral theology, Richard aspired to be a…
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Editor’s note: This week we welcome Rev. Sarah Jackson Shelton as our guest. Sarah helps us think about how to offer genuine appreciation for clergy. A retired Baptist preacher with 44 years of ordained ministry, she now serves as Pastor…
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In early June three significant public figures in theological education died. Each one contributed through teaching and writing to the education of ministers and the doctoral training of seminary professors. They each held up distinct nodes in the ecology of…
Read MoreWhen we think it’s too late I was flipping through the Christian Century that came this week while I was in New York City for commencement. I couldn’t understand the Gothic church doorway, the rainbow light and the word…
Read MoreWelcome to the final episode of our series with Dr. Bonnie Miller-McLemore, and today we are talking about ways of blessing our callings. What a delight to continue our exploration of Bonnie’s new book Follow Your Bliss and Other Lies…
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Today I am remembering Kat Baker, my friend and fellow doctoral alum from Vanderbilt University. Her obituary reports that Dr. Katharine Haywood Baker, “passed away peacefully at her home on August 28, 2024, following a brief bout of pancreatic cancer.”…
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We welcome Rev. Dr. Kris Bentley as our guest blogger this week to share what she learned writing her first book Bivocational Ministry: Field Notes for Congregations and Ministers. Kris teaches at Lexington Theological Seminary, directs research with bivocational ministers,…
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This week we are exploring changed callings, times when our vocations have fractured or when new callings arrive in unexpected ways. I invite you to listen in to Part IV of my conversation with Dr. Bonnie Miller-McLemore. She reads from…
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What do you know firsthand about “conflicted callings”? Welcome to Part III of my conversation with Dr. Bonnie Miller-McLemore about her new book Follow Your Bliss and Other Lies about Calling. This week we are taking her third chapter about…
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