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<\/a><\/p>\nThe book by my good friend Hal Senkbeil, The Care of Souls:\u00a0 Cultivating a Pastor\u2019s Heart,<\/a>\u00a0is the winner in the category of Church\/Pastoral Leadership in the 2020 Christianity Today Book Awards<\/a>!\u00a0 It also tied for the best book on Ministry in the Gospel Coalition Book Awards.<\/a><\/p>\n I wrote about this book earlier this year in my blog post A Book Every Pastor Should Read.\u00a0\u00a0<\/a>Rev. Senkbeil, who has extensive experience in all kinds of parishes and as a seminary professor, has a ministry to pastors called\u00a0Doxology,<\/a>\u00a0which helps them deal with the problems they may face in the ministry today face (such as discouragement, burnout, temptations) and teaches them the art of pastoral care and the cure of souls (which is not the same as psychological counseling!).\u00a0 This book does the same.<\/p>\n As such, it would make the perfect Christmas present for your pastor!\u00a0 (You can buy it here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n Here is the citation for the Christianity Today Book Award<\/a>:<\/p>\n The Care of Souls: Cultivating<\/span> a Pastor\u2019s Heart<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n Harold Senkbeil (Lexham Press)<\/p>\n \u201cI will be returning to this book again, to read it carefully and slowly. The rhythms and the wisdom in\u00a0The Care of Souls<\/span>\u00a0reminded me of the books by Eugene Peterson that shaped my soul as a young pastor\u2014books that God, in his mercy, used to keep me from boarding my own ship to Tarshish. Senkbeil\u2019s images and analogies aren\u2019t drawn from boardrooms but from agrarian themes of shepherding, sheep dogs, and farming, all of which are far closer not only to biblical images but also to the realities of pastoral life, in which anything good grows slowly and follows the contours of a particular place. Many books on pastoral ministry convey information; this book renewed my joy in being a pastor and, every once in a while, traced a tear at the corner of my eye.\u201d \u2014Timothy Paul Jones, professor of family ministry, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Here is the citation for the Gospel Coalition Book Award<\/a>:<\/p>\n Preaching typically gets the most ink under the category of pastoral ministry, but there\u2019s far more to shepherding a congregation than writing and executing sermons\u2014important as that work is. Harold Senkbeil has spent five decades preaching, but also shepherding the people of God, and\u00a0The Care of Souls<\/i>\u00a0is a product of wisdom treasured up during his half-century in local church ministry. Having grown up on a dairy farm in the Midwest, Senkbeil builds this compelling manual for loving church members around insights gained taking care of animals and crops. The result is a well-written book on shepherding that gives equal time to the care of souls and the pastor\u2019s own pursuit of holiness. This will be a must-read for young pastors for years to come.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Here is the endorsement I wrote for the book:<\/p>\n A pastor is not primarily a psychologist, an entrepreneur, or a C.E.O.\u00a0 According to classical Christianity, a pastor is a physician of souls. What physicians do for their patients\u2014give them long-term care for their physical health and specific treatments when disease strikes\u2014pastors do for their congregations, offering on-going spiritual care in their relationship with God and curing their souls in times of trial.\u00a0 This book recovers that dimension of the pastoral office, showing how to diagnose spiritual problems and how to treat them.<\/p>\n Drawing on vivid personal examples from his own ministry, Rev. Senkbeil covers the whole range of what pastors are called to do (from evangelism to ministry to the dying, from mundane administration to spiritual warfare) and the problems pastors must struggle with, both in their members and in themselves (sexual sin, spiritual boredom, burnout).<\/p>\n Rev. Senkbeil also takes the pressure off by reminding pastors that their ministry does not rest on their own doing, but that, by virtue of their office, Christ Himself is working through them.<\/p>\n You don\u2019t have to be a Lutheran to learn from this Lutheran pastor.\u00a0 And you don\u2019t have to be a pastor to find this book inspiring.\u00a0 As a layman, I found that this book opens up what all of my pastors have done for me.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n
The Church \/ Pastoral Leadership<\/h4>\n
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Ministry (tie)<\/h3>\n
<\/a>Harold L. Senkbeil,\u00a0<\/b>The Care of Souls: Cultivating a Pastor\u2019s Heart<\/i><\/b><\/a>\u00a0(Lexham Press)<\/b><\/p>\n