Moving On - eBooks.
Discover practical guidance and heartfelt narratives that equip ministers and church leaders to navigate the complex journey of grief during ministry transitions with honesty and grace.
This book:
- Offers practical advice for handling ministry endings and transitions.
- Shares personal stories from diverse contributors for real-world insights.
- Explores prayers and liturgies that facilitate healing and reflection.
- Provides insights about church processes and policies related to resignations and retirements.
- Offers tools and resources for supporting grieving congregations.
- Describes personal and communal grief practices in ministry settings.
- Fosters deeper understanding of cross-cultural perspectives on grief.
Features
- Contributions from 40 diverse authors and ministers.
- Sections dedicated to grieving, complicated grief, and recovery.
- Practical tools, tips, and resources for moving forward.
- Inclusion of poetry that enriches the thematic depth.
- Liturgical resources for prayer and reflection.
You are buying a zipped file containing eBook editions of this 286 page book in PDF, ePub and Mobi formats. (2022).
ISBNs
PDF 9781991027269
ePub/Mobi 9781991027276.
Click for Print book
Moving On: Grief in Ministry Transitions is an essential resource for ministers and church leaders grappling with the complexities of ministry endings.
This comprehensive volume offers both practical advice and personal stories from nearly 40 contributors, addressing the unique blend of grief and hope that accompanies significant transitions in church life.
Every ending brings a need to rework and re-story relationships, transforming what was into memory. This book guides readers through this process with honesty, providing tools to navigate the emotional landscape of grief while fostering renewal and joy.
Contributors share their experiences, from the pain of leaving a conflicted ministry to the healing found in community and prayer.
Each section delves into themes of grieving endings, complicated grief, and recovery, featuring prayers and liturgies that help facilitate personal and congregational healing.
With a blend of cultural insights and practical resources, Moving On is designed to support not only the individual minister but also the wider church community as they journey through transitions with grace and dignity.
• • • Out the other side:
The unique challenge of endings in ministry
An article by Silvia Purdie in the January 2024 issue of
Ministry: International Journal for Pastors,
published by Seventh-day Adventist Church, USA.
www.MinistryMagazine.org to listen to an AI generated audio narration of the article:
https://share.transistor.fm/s/06fd5fa2
“Ministries end for a host of reasons. Some are positive, a clear, exciting call to a new ministry. Some are expected and well planned, such as retirement. But sadly, many endings are tinged with disappointment and frustration. We love to celebrate God’s call in new beginnings, but seeing God’s hand at work in the leaving can be harder. Some ministry endings are traumatic, like a sudden death, formal discipline, or subtle abuse. These are the hardest points in ministry journeys and threaten to derail ministry callings completely.
It is vital for our own well-being as ministers and for the health of our congregations that we learn to see God at work in endings as well as beginnings. This means attending to grief, the loss and all it means, and supporting one another through the hard times. This article identifies four reasons ministry transition can be uniquely challenging, together with four biblical themes that enable us to grow “out the other side" of endings.
Over the past three years, I have talked to people about endings and transitions, which formed into a book called Moving On: Grief in Ministry Transition.1 It began with my own healing after I resigned from a parish, but as my colleagues shared with me, God called me to continue this work and offer it to the church. Over 50 people contributed to Moving On, a rich cultural and theological diversity. Their stories ring with faith in Christ, crucified and risen, who leads us and walks with us, especially in the places where we struggle to recognize Him.
Multiple loss challenge
Why is ministry transition uniquely challenging? First, because of multiple losses. Ending a ministry involves many losses all at once: friends, a job, an income, and a role with status. When I left my parish, I griev