Description

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Christianity Today 2021 Award of Merit (The Church/Pastoral Leadership)

Diary of a Pastor's Soul tells the story of a fictionalized pastor, embarking on his final year before retirement, who reflects on the experiences and relationships that have formed his vocation and shaped his soul over a lifetime of pastoral ministry.

Drawing on his own experiences, seasoned pastor Craig Barnes invites readers to embrace the life lessons of a pastor who has been formed by his failures and his fleeting moments of glory, but most of all by discovering the holy in the routine but often quirky duties of being a parish pastor.
Through 52 weekly thematic entries, Barnes presents spirituality in narrative form through a collection of interwoven stories about learning to love others with curiosity, amazement, vulnerability, and most of all gratitude for the grace found in flawed lives.

Barnes's fictionalized diary approach creatively shows how the pastoral vocation forms mind, heart, and soul, helping pastors make sense of their own calling. With unvarnished honesty, this book eloquently illustrates a lifetime of ministry, revealing how "the Holy haunts the landscape of life.

About the Author

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M. Craig Barnes (PhD, University of Chicago) is president of Princeton Theological Seminary in Princeton, New Jersey, where he also serves as professor of pastoral ministry. He previously taught at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and has pastored several churches. Barnes frequently speaks and preaches across the country, writes regularly for the Christian Century, and is the author of numerous books, including Searching for Home, When God Interrupts, Sacred Thirst, Hustling God, The Pastor as Minor Poet, and Yearning.