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Dear ,

Today is the annual Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday in the US. It is a good day to remember the powerful and inspiring legacy of Dr. King. Rev. Bernice King, youngest daughter of Coretta Scott King and Dr. King, said in an interview this weekend: "Every day we wake up, we should think, Is what I'm doing helping us to learn how to live together? Or is it pulling us further apart? That's the biggest message for me from him." What great questions!

You can view the King Center's service, "Mission Possible: Protecting Freedom, Justice, and Democracy in the Spirit of Nonviolence 365" later this morning (link), including keynote speaker Bishop William J. Barber II. 

The values that Dr. King preached and lived are the ones that help human thriving. They pave the way to a beloved community, and they help us to counter the ills of violence, racism, sexism, and white supremacy.  
 

How does Dr. King's legacy impact you? Your ministry leadership? Your action and advocacy? How you engage your ministry relationships? 

Speaking of relationships... Ministry is many things, but there is no way to think of it without considering how ministry is relational. Right? That is the big idea in chapter 9 of Pastoral Imagination: Bringing the Practice of Ministry to Life. 

In chapter 9, I share the story of Trong who feels a call to ministry, yet he faces conflict and alienation in his very own childhood church. He goes instead to work in a bookstore where he learns so much about managing relationships. After a time things change. A new minister named Tam arrives at the church. He becomes Trong's friend and ministry mentor. And it was "through friendship, conversation, and shared ministry that Trong eventually embraced his own desire to go to seminary" (pp. 55-56).

A question for you: 

Who is shaping me relationally 

as a minister for good or for ill?

Episode 9: Ministry As Relational | video | blog | podcast

Check out this 3-min video to learn more about Trong and Tam.

Have you read Pastoral Imagination already? Or taught the book to your students? Maybe you are reading it as part of a mentoring relationship? If yes, then I would love to invite you to take a few minutes to share your insights in a review on Amazon. Could you do that? Reviews really help new people find and read the book. And it is a book for ministers, mentors, seminarians, and chaplains. Thank you for helping me share it with people who can learn from its stories!

Conversations with Bruce Reyes-Chow

Did you catch my recent conversations with Rev. Bruce Reyes-Chow? I think you will really appreciate his new book, Everything Good about God is True: Choosing Faith. I was delighted to interview Bruce and share that conversation with you in recent weeks! You can catch up on the earlier episodes (249, 250, 252 and 253) here. 

, each Monday I want to help you launch your week by learning something valuable, doing a bit of self-reflection, and/or thinking with a new perspective. All of the episodes we share at 3MMM are supported by research from the only national, longitudinal (ongoing, year after year), and ecumenical study of ministry in the U.S.. The Learning Pastoral Imagination Project has been a major focus of my research with ministers since 2009. 

Conversations with Bonnie Miller-McLemore

Starting next week we will be sharing new episodes from my conversation with Dr. Bonnie Miller-McLemore coming later in January! Her new book Follow Your Bliss and Other Lies about Calling (Oxford, 2024) is a powerful, interesting, and very engaging book on vocation in its many dimensions. You are going to enjoy these conversations so much!

Remember, , what you do and who you are matters! I believe in you, and I hope you will let me know how I can support you!

Warmly,

Eileen

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