🥳 Guess who's four in May, ?!🎂

Published: Mon, 05/12/25

Updated: Mon, 05/12/25

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Leading your fai

Hello, !

This month marks the 4th birthday of Pastoral Imagination: Bringing the Practice of Ministry to Life. What a delight I've had sharing this book with students, seminary professors, and ministers. Maybe you are new to 3MMM and you'd like to know more?

Let me share a few things that matter to me about the book, and more importantly about learning ministry in practice!

From the introduction of Pastoral Imagination:

Given the times we are living in, there is a clear and present need for faith leaders to lead with moral responsibility and renewed vision. We need pastoral imagination to extend into every part of life. This book takes slices of learning on the ground in practice and offers them up in brief presentations to unfold the ways that learning ministry happens in actual lives.

My interest in understanding the lives of ministers and helping them learn from one another runs deep. I was fortunate that my first academic job, co-directing the LPI study, allowed me to pursue this love. [A few] years ago, I knew that I wanted to get these stories out to the world in a way that was both easily available and accessible. During a vacation in the summer of 2018, I opened up my journal and made a list from A to Z two times. If I could make a list of topics that filled fifty-two weeks, I was ready to begin. I think it took me about thirty minutes to make that list. That was the birth of 3MMM, an online platform that makes the stories of ministry and my reflection on them as a researcher, professor, and minister available to people who need inspiration and information to support their practice of ministry. Many stories from season one of 3MMM fill the pages of Pastoral Imagination.

Read a review of Pastoral Imagination by Dr. Marcus Hong.

Although there is no map that shows a single route to learning the practice of ministry, a multilayered map is a good metaphor for the fifty chapters of this book. Each chapter is like another layer of the landscape. One shows the topography and water table. Another shows the plants and trees and animal trails. Yet another layer indicates different historical boundaries across time. Another layer of the map fills in the current streets and dwellings. Yet another slice highlights the businesses and pricing of gas, hotels, and restaurants. Another layer might show live traffic or weather, and still another shows a particular route to a particular destination. All the maps together are telling you about a single place, and together they are giving you a richer understanding of that place. Only you can go to the place itself and experience it. But these thin slices of the map will help you prepare for what you will experience for yourself. They will give you language, stories, and possibilities to help you cultivate your own pastoral imagination for life and leadership.

Campbell-Reed, Eileen R.. Pastoral Imagination: Bringing the Practice of Ministry to Life (p. 17). Kindle Edition.

I compiled 20 fun facts about the Pastoral Imagination book. I'll give you just a taste of them below. The other 17 facts are also worth the effort. Fun. Funny. And informative.

20 Fun Facts about Pastoral Imagination

~ #2 ~

Pastoral Imagination features 110+ short stories from ministers, mostly study participants from the Learning Pastoral Imagination Project, and also former students, fellow ministers, and seminary professors. The variety of genders, geographies, ethnicities, and ages in the book is vast.

~ #7 ~

Each of the 50 chapters concludes with open-ended questions for your reflection. There are a total of 210+ questions. That should keep your learning about your practice of ministry for a very long time!

~ #17 ~
Pastoral Imagination books and journals make absolutely

perfect graduation gifts! They can be useful to any ministry student who is graduating from college, seminary, or with a doctor of ministry degree. For the rest of this month and all of June, use the code GRADUATE in our 3MMM Shop and choose any Pastoral Imagination books and journals for a 20% discount. (UPDATE: Expires June 30, 2025.)

Graduation Blessings

It is that time of year! Graduations are happening every weekend! I created a series of blessings that I hope you will share and make your own when you add a personalized message. These three blessing downloads can be shared with graduates, teachers and professors, or family members. Print them on cardstock and they make a lovely 8.5 x 11 card. Or read them as part of a baccalaureate service or your church recognition of graduates.

Downloadable Graduation Blessings

Series on Calling

with Bonnie Miller-McLemore

This spring we have been taking a deep dive together into calling (the good, the troubling, and the surprising) with Dr. Bonnie Miller-McLemore. She's helped us think about conflicted, blocked, and changed callings. She is reading to us from her new book Follow Your Bliss and Other Lies about Calling. And if you've missed any episode, all the links are here. You will be provoked, and I think you will also feel seen, by Bonnie's way of writing about vocation.

See all the Interviews with Bonnie Miller-McLemore

Join me for #FreeWrite Friday!

Part of my vocation these days is to write and accompany writers through individual coaching and by offering space for their work. Every Friday we offer a free hour of writing alongside pastors, chaplains, professors, poets, and writers. You are welcome to join us anytime. Just sign up and you'll get a Thursday night email with your link and some weekly writing inspiration!