Varieties of Gifts

Multiplicity and the Well-Lived Pastoral Life

By (author) Cynthia G. Lindner

Publication date:

08 April 2016

Length of book:

176 pages

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

ISBN-13: 9781566997751

If there’s one thing upon which contemporary pastors and their congregations can agree, it’s that the practice of ministry in our rapidly changing, increasingly diverse context is a complicated business. Varieties of Gifts highlights the stories of ministers who thrive in this environment, offering inspiration to readers—ministers, seminary students, and people who care for them—on engaging their own multiplicity to build healthy, sustainable ministry.

Varieties of Gifts illuminates the inner lives of clergy who lead with courage and creativity, stamina, and soulfulness. The author mines in-depth interviews with twenty pastors in order to demonstrate that the human experience of multiple-mindedness is an essential ingredient for healthy, innovative ministry. Cynthia Lindner, herself an ordained minister, pastoral psychotherapist, and professor, illustrates how the Christian tradition bears witness to creation’s complexity, and how our own multiplicity mirrors God’s abundance. Through the accounts of the pastors themselves, the book illustrates how well-tended ministerial multiplicity can cultivate a rich pastoral identity, navigate congregational conflict, and embrace change in rich, life-giving ways.

Rather than an unattainable “quick fix,” Varieties of Gifts profiles relatable pastors and congregations whose lives highlight the rich potential for multiple identities to enhance pastoral life, even in challenging times.
[W]e need Cynthia Lindner’s study of 21st-century pastors, which demonstrates the value of pastors drawing from multiple internal energy sources in order to exercise their gifts in multiple forms. Lindner...examines the stories of pastors serving mainline congregations, many of which are now small but not long ago were bursting at the seams. Lindner draws on the tradition of autobiography as theological narrative from Augustine to Dorothy Day, the psychological category of multiplicity with roots in Eakin’s How Our Lives BecomeStories, and the work of several other contemporary psychologists. But she doesn’t dwell on theory and moves quickly to the best part of the book, the stories themselves. Her storytellers— female and male, gay and straight, old and young, African American and Caucasian—talk straightforwardly about the challenges of contemporary ministry and the need for multiple strategies. . . .These thousand eyes represent the multiplicity that is necessary to the pastoral life. They also remind us that in ministry we are never alone….Varieties of Gifts testifies that God is not done with the church.