To My Younger Pastor Self
Dear 28-year-old Libby, As you assume pastoral leadership of a holy, beautiful, complex, and complicated local Christian church, I share a few ideas intended to serve as guideposts for the journey. I remember so clearly how much energy and confidence you have. But I want to make sure you don’t rely on your own gifts…
Continue reading »Moondust and Ministry
Derek Nelson April 6, 2022 What does it take to keep a good early career pastoral leadership program thriving? Some provocative answers emerged from a seemingly unlikely place last year: the hit Netflix series The Crown, a behind-the-scenes dramatization of the British royal family. Queen Elizabeth’s faith was strong, but the Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Philip,…
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Vision, Leadership & van Gogh
Derek R. Nelson Before he was a great-but-not-much-appreciated painter, Vincent van Gogh was a lousy-but-very-much-appreciated pastor. The details of this little-known chapter in his life are of some interest, I think, to those who are wondering about how early career pastors find sources of resilience to sustain them in their ministries, and also how pastors…
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ARDA Conversation with Art Farnsley
Wabash Pastoral Leadership Program Director Rev. Libby Davis Manning and Dr. Art Farnsley discuss a new educational program where the ARDA holds seminars to help users IN INDIANA learn to get the most out of the data available at www.thearda.com. ARDA will form three cohorts of faith-based non-profit leaders, pastors, and civic officials to help…
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A Leader’s Ego
by Raymond B. Williams, Senior Advisor to the Wabash Pastoral Leadership Program The presupposition at the beginning of a leadership program was that a strong ego is a predictor of leadership potential. The leader would command respect, overcome obstacles, and get things done. A strong ego might be essential for the leader to stand as…
Continue reading »Resisting Erasure Through Grace
Did racism or theology or gender motivate the shootings in Georgia? All of the above. When news about the Atlanta killings broke, I saw in Korean sources first that six of the dead were Asian women, four of Korean descent. I didn’t yet know their names; I mourned them as Daughter, Big Sister, Mother, Aunt.…
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What I Learned About Ministry From Beekeeping
“Terroir,” the word for the local environmental factors that give a particular wine or honey its distinctive flavor, can be applied to ministry, writes the director of the Wabash Pastoral Leadership Program. Click here to read Wabash Pastoral Leadership Program Director Rev. Libby Davis Manning’s March 2021 article in Faith & Leadership.
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ARDA Training Opportunity
Every WPLP cohort has experienced at least one presentation from The Association of Religion Data Archives. ARDA has tools for researchers and journalists, but it also has an entire Congregational Resource Center. Here you can create maps containing important data about social conditions in any area you serve, everything from economic data to family composition…
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Blessings Beyond the Two Years of WPLP
by Jerry Ingalls, Lead Pastor, First Baptist Church, New Castle, IN There are two things I want to share with you about how my experiences with the Wabash Pastoral Leadership Program have continued to bless me over six years later. 1. Through my experiences with this program I was introduced to the Lilly Endowment Inc.…
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Institutional Racism: Lessons from South Africa
by The Rev. Matthew Cowden, Rector, St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church, South Bend, Indiana Our Cohort 3, WPLP pilgrimage to South Africa in 2014 continues to be strikingly relevant; acutely so now in 2020. We saw firsthand that systemic, institutionalized racism doesn’t end with a legislative vote. We heard the difficult truth that…
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