3 Minute Ministry Mentor

In this episode, Eileen Campbell Reid invites ministers to consider their learning goals. Whether you have been in a ministry setting for years or you are in seminary, creating goals can shape your ministry. How do you set learning goals for your ministry? Eileen offers three helpful ideas to help you set meaningful goals in this episode of #3MMM. 

While some ministry situations still allow for apprenticeship to a person, more often the apprenticeship is to the situation of ministry itself. How can we be apprenticed to a community? With many teachers and opportunities to learn just around every corner, we consider the way ministers are apprenticed to particular contexts.

This week's episode of #3MMM features Pastor Wanda, a participant in the Learning Pastoral Imagination Project. Learn how she has cultivated a deep love for people in her neighborhood in Harlem as she became apprenticed to her community.

Thinking spiritually and theologically – especially when that thinking takes on form and action in our bodies, relationships, and lives – is a significant gift that the world needs now. Thinking theologically involves stories and embodied experience, not just thinking. In this episode, you are invited to expand your capacity and skill for thinking theologically. #3MMM  

What is the role of prayer and meditation in #ministrylife? This week’s episode of #3MMM is about one pastor’s experience of connecting prayer and preaching. Rev. Bonita describes her journey through learning to preach in different styles. As a ribbon through the topical, expository and lectionary preaching, runs Rev. Bonita’s commitment to the prayerful following of the Spirit for guidance in her practice. 

Stories give contour and texture to our identities. Beyond the stories from only the past, ministers must consider how future stories help us narrate both our past experiences and the future hopes, plans, and dreams we live into every day. Eileen Campbell-Reed teaches about the value of using future stories. This week’s episode of Three Minute Ministry Mentor considers future stories in the context of ministry partnerships. Hear the story of Pastor Carly, a participant in the Learning Pastoral Imagination Project, learning to listen carefully to the future stories of Zambian pastors. 

#3MMM #futurestories

Examen is a form of spiritual exercise. It invites the exploration of  scriptures and any portion of one’s life through guided questions. In this way, examen is a tried and proven pathway for discernment. It allows us to look back to times and events of our everyday lives and ask questions that help us notice the presence and guidance of God’s spirit. Knowing what brings consolation or desolation helps us see a way forward that honors our learning and God’s wisdom...

Examen for the Practice of Ministry

There are a million questions that rise up in the course of learning the practice of ministry. Among them are the big questions of vocational discernment: What should I do? Where should I turn? How do I know which way to go at this point in pursuing my call?

There are also the questions of the daily minutia of ministry that also deserve careful and prayerful attention. Practicing the examen and considering what brings consolation and desolation can become a spiritual habit that informs your leadership in ministry and assists you in questions large and small.

Read more about Episode 25: Examen.

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