Made Healthy in Ministry for Ministry

Clarity of vocational practice is key to clergy health. The center of clergy practice is the ministry of Word and Sacrament. What takes place at the pulpit, font or pool, and table is the divine intent and extent of ministry. While this may sound in-house and parochial in the extreme, it is both priestly and prophetic.John Weborg’s argument in this book is that the clergy can be made healthy in ministry for ministry by maintaining vocational clarity. The priestly and prophetic acts of Word and Sacrament address the clergy before they address the congregation. Hence what is offered here is a spirituality through practices-the clergy are hearers before preachers, baptized before baptizers, communicants before celebrants.Neither a how-to book nor a work of pastoral theology, Made Healthy in Ministry for Ministry is aimed toward helping clergy appropriate the gifts and graces of the practices they are called and authorized to carry out.''I first met John Weborg when we both arrived as students on the campus of North Park (then) Junior College in Chicago. It was apparent even then that John was gifted with unusual spiritual insight about the human condition. He has honed and developed that gift in remarkable manner during the past almost sixty years of pastoral ministry and teaching. I know of no one more qualified to speak of what he does-how to practice ministry in a healthy way. I have spent my life thinking about physical health, John about spiritual health. This book brings them together under God where they belong.'' -Dr. Tim JohnsonSenior Medical Contributor, ABC Newsauthor of Finding God in the Questions''John Weborg has written a helpful and provocative book for all those serving in vocational ministry and for those discerning ministry as a vocational pathway. This is not a how-to book, but a how-to-be book. Dr. Weborg makes the crucial distinction that we cannot simply live for God while serving in this vocation, we must indeed live with God. In so doing we are called back to the center of this great vocation, Word and Sacrament.''-David W. KerstenExecutive Minister, Department of the Ordered MinistryEvangelical Covenant ChurchJohn Weborg was born and raised on a farm in Pender, Nebraska, confirmed in his baptismal faith in the Evangelical Covenant Church, and at an early age received a vocation to pastoral ministry. Educated at North Park Theological Seminary (BD), Princeton Theological Seminary (ThM), and Garrett-Evangelical-Northwestern University (PhD), he was ordained in the Covenant Church and served three of its congregations. From 1975 to 2003 he served as Professor of Theology at North Park Seminary, where he coordinated the development of the curriculum in spiritual formation. His academic research focused on German Lutheran Pietism.He now lives in Princeton, IL, with his wife, Lois, and has two children and six grandchildren.