Directions of a Pastoral Lifetime

About the Book

These pastoral notes concern an effort to provide a pastoral input to my congregations in a way that is not sermonic in nature. The “Letters to Anna” deal with reflections on spiritual matters addressed to a young girl asking about matters of faith. The “Occasional Pamphlets” represent various other writings of a largely pastoral nature.

About the Author

I have served as a minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) from the time I finished seminary in the spring of 1976. I retired in October 2007 and have continued in a modest role since then. Out of my ministry came an impulse to come to terms with the rich spiritual and theological, pastoral and personal ferment that I encountered. The basis of that search lay in my reading and my study, in my prayer and in my pastoral practice. My background includes a BA from the College of Wooster with a major in chemistry and a MS from Purdue University, working in the school of chemical engineering. I left Purdue as a PhD student, having completed everything except the dissertation in January 1973. I received my DMin from Christian Theological Seminary in 1976 and was then ordained to Christian Ministry by the Region of Indiana and First Christian Church in Lafayette, Indiana. Over the years, I found that my writing in a variety of formats served me well in growing my understanding and capacity as a pastor, sharing the writings as I went along with friends and colleagues and parishioners. These I am collecting in major part in the series I am calling Directions of a Pastoral Lifetime. I hope that the value I have found in them may be more broadly shared.