THE RESILIENT PASTOR:
Leading your church in a rapidly changing
world
By Glenn Packiam
Baker Books. 267 pages. £14.99
ISBN 978 1 540 903 105
Anyone who is interested in issues of debilitation and resilience of pastors knows that it is extremely difficult to find relevant statistical data. That is exactly what this book sets out to provide, so I approached it with high hopes. Were they met? Only partially.
The Resilient Pastor is a series of reflections based on research work by the Barna Group on the hard realities of pastoring. This comprised of two surveys, one of 408 senior pastors and one of 1,520 adults, plus online interviews and focus groups, all in a US context. Beginning with an overview of how tectonic shifts in Western views of self, religion, God and church have pushed God to the margins, the book then divides into sections on challenges for the pastor, challenges for the church, and hope for tomorrow.
