Kirjahaku

There was a time where Christian ministry offered the opportunity to spend your life in the study of God's word, in reading and reflection, in prayer and sermon preparation, and in the quiet and faithful pastoral care of a community. The world has changed, and with it most of the expectations that govern church appointments. These days there are very few jobs in full time ministry which do not require a heroic combination of stamina, multi-tasking and change management. This book gives practical advice on how to nurture faith and a sense of calling amid the hectic life that is ministry today. Drawing on his experience of developing and leading training programmes in this area, Ian Cowley assesses the stresses and pressures of the job and shows how to grow into being a 'contemplative minister', prioritising a relationship of deepening love with God. He also offers guidance on leading others into that same relationship, without your own spiritual life running dry.

Following on from the success of The Contemplative Minister, Ian Cowley offers new insight and greater depth for church leaders in a distracted world. Ian emphasises that the true self finds peace in resting in the love of God. He addresses the compulsions of our consumerist culture and calls those in leadership to an inner life of truthfulness, self-knowledge and self-discipline. Praise for Ian's previous book: 'An immensely readable tour de force' Church Times

How do we embrace and work out our call to be disciples in a broken world? In The Contemplative Struggle, Ian Cowley draws on his experience of living in his native South Africa during the apartheid era to challenge understandings of contemplative prayer and spirituality as essentially inward-looking. In doing so, he highlights the urgent need for Christians to be active in bringing transformation to a suffering world and paints a compelling picture of radical discipleship for today. ‘Just as we are all meant to be contemplatives and to hear the voice of God in our lives, we are all meant to answer God’s call to be his partners in transfiguring the world. This calling, this encounter with God, is always to send us into the midst of human suffering.’ Archbishop Desmond Tutu