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Healthy Churches, Faithful Pastors: Covenant Expectations for Thriving Together
Congregations want to support their pastors, but don’t know how. Pastors love their congregations, but they don’t know what to ask of their congregations to garner needed support. Everyone wants to thrive together, but so often we get stuck. This clear and engaging guide helps pastors and congregations bridge communication gaps and set mutual goals and expectations.
Reverend Keck grounds his framework of expectations on both scholarly research and on interviews he’s conducted with pastors and lay people. He finds many common difficulties in churches arise from failing to discuss priorities and expectations, and from not effectively working through the problems that arise when expectations aren’t met. For pastors and congregants to arrive at common expectations, they need to understand each other—their respective needs, hopes, and distinctive callings.
This book provides concrete steps to aid congregants and pastors communicate their mutual expectations. Keck presents fifty “expectation statements”—examples of what pastors and congregations can expect of one another; a vital resource to anyone who seeks to initiate a discussion of expectations in their own church. Elucidating goals and expectations allows congregations and pastors to support one another and flourish, and fosters church health and harmony.
Reverend Keck grounds his framework of expectations on both scholarly research and on interviews he’s conducted with pastors and lay people. He finds many common difficulties in churches arise from failing to discuss priorities and expectations, and from not effectively working through the problems that arise when expectations aren’t met. For pastors and congregants to arrive at common expectations, they need to understand each other—their respective needs, hopes, and distinctive callings.
This book provides concrete steps to aid congregants and pastors communicate their mutual expectations. Keck presents fifty “expectation statements”—examples of what pastors and congregations can expect of one another; a vital resource to anyone who seeks to initiate a discussion of expectations in their own church. Elucidating goals and expectations allows congregations and pastors to support one another and flourish, and fosters church health and harmony.
207 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 1, 2013
2 people are currently reading
17 people want to read
About the author
David Keck
14 books51 followersDavid Keck is a New York based writer and teacher who grew up in Winnipeg, Canada.
His novels are published by Tor.
On long winter evenings, he filled pads of newsprint with drawings, cartoons, and stories. His mother made him write on both sides.
After completing degrees in English Literature/History and Education in Winnipeg, he traveled to Britain’s University of Sussex where he earned an MA in creative writing and indulged his taste for exploring the medieval and the Neolithic.
Over the years, he has had the chance to climb through countless castles, cathedrals, tombs, and henges from the South of France to the Orkney Islands. There is something about really being in these places--getting chased by the farmer's dog--that brings the past to life.
David loves to dig up stories that show traces of earlier ways of thinking. He’s endlessly curious about how people actually lived in other times and places, and he wants his readers to join him in an older, stranger world.
In 2004, he moved to New York to marry editor and author Anne Groell. They met in Montreal at the World Fantasy Convention in 2001, and now have an intrepid young daughter together.
For twelve years, he has been teaching English at a public middle school in Washington Heights. He tries to bring his drawings and his imagination to every class, and has become a great proponent of educational technology.
From the streets around the school, you can often see the tower of The Met Cloisters museum, with its medieval treasures, peeking out above the trees. The past is never far away.
David recently fulfilled his childhood ambition of getting his cartoons into print, placing work with The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Analog Magazine, and Random House’s Suvudu website, before it became Unbound Worlds. He currently enjoys populating snapshots of New York's subways, streets, and secret forests with pop-eyed monsters. But, in his fiction, a reader will find the darker side of his imagination.
His novels are published by Tor.
On long winter evenings, he filled pads of newsprint with drawings, cartoons, and stories. His mother made him write on both sides.
After completing degrees in English Literature/History and Education in Winnipeg, he traveled to Britain’s University of Sussex where he earned an MA in creative writing and indulged his taste for exploring the medieval and the Neolithic.
Over the years, he has had the chance to climb through countless castles, cathedrals, tombs, and henges from the South of France to the Orkney Islands. There is something about really being in these places--getting chased by the farmer's dog--that brings the past to life.
David loves to dig up stories that show traces of earlier ways of thinking. He’s endlessly curious about how people actually lived in other times and places, and he wants his readers to join him in an older, stranger world.
In 2004, he moved to New York to marry editor and author Anne Groell. They met in Montreal at the World Fantasy Convention in 2001, and now have an intrepid young daughter together.
For twelve years, he has been teaching English at a public middle school in Washington Heights. He tries to bring his drawings and his imagination to every class, and has become a great proponent of educational technology.
From the streets around the school, you can often see the tower of The Met Cloisters museum, with its medieval treasures, peeking out above the trees. The past is never far away.
David recently fulfilled his childhood ambition of getting his cartoons into print, placing work with The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Analog Magazine, and Random House’s Suvudu website, before it became Unbound Worlds. He currently enjoys populating snapshots of New York's subways, streets, and secret forests with pop-eyed monsters. But, in his fiction, a reader will find the darker side of his imagination.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
August 1, 2024
I loved the way that this book helps explain better interactions and prayerful considerations between congregations and pastors to create healthy church communities. The mutual ministry review is also excellent for churches that do not regularly engage in reviews of their ministers or service leaders in the church. I found the section on the church manse and pastor family to be somewhat repetitive in their principles. I also would have liked the structure/organization to work better as a "book study." We are using this for a transitional period between pastors, and it's been tricky to figure out the order in which to read the sections and apply them to our circumstances. This could be modified in structure to work well for a transitional church study.
July 10, 2019
Useful tool(s) for both pastor and congregation when reviewing mission and ministry.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews