A Minister's Journal

About the Book

A MINISTER’S JOURNAL is an interior monologue on what it is like to be a minister of a church. Incidents and occasions are described as little vignettes telling of the work of a minister, the role he is expected to play, and the spiritual tasks he is to perform. He is interpreter of the word, petitioner in prayer, visitor to the sick, counselor to the bewildered, officiate of the deceased, and pastor to the flock. These tasks are executed in the context of a social expectancy of what a minister is supposed to be—a spiritual and high minded person. But the expectancy is not always met, either in the mind of the minister or the minds of parishioners. Sometimes it is veiled in the secrecies of a hidden life. This is often the case with clergy persons. The congregation sees one side of the individual while not knowing the other. Sometimes it is shown through wrong decisions and mistake made in carrying out tasks. Sometimes it is displayed in open conflicts with church leaders over religious and personal issues. The road a minister has to walk is not an easy one. It is narrow and often bumpy because of the fine line between the spiritual and the human.

About the Author

Born in Denver Colorado, the author was a university teacher and professor at Emory University in Atlanta, Tufts University in Boston, Texas Tech in Lubbock, and the University of Redlands in California. He folds five degrees: B.A., M. Div., M.A., Ed.S., and a Ph.D degree from Vanderbilt. His specialty is philosophy and philosophy of education with a doctor’s dissertation on Alfred North Whitehead, the founder of process philosophy and its developments into process theology. After 25 years of teaching and part-time preaching, the author accepted a full-time pastorate in the Mid-west. The book is a record of the experiences he had as a senior minister of a congregation that began in the Western Reserve in the year 1803.