{"id":627,"date":"2018-11-16T18:44:16","date_gmt":"2018-11-16T23:44:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/practicalresourcesforchurches.wordpress.com\/?p=627"},"modified":"2023-10-04T20:01:37","modified_gmt":"2023-10-05T00:01:37","slug":"loving-and-leaving-a-church-a-book-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.prcli.org\/staging\/3075\/2018\/11\/16\/loving-and-leaving-a-church-a-book-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Loving and Leaving a Church"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Let\u2019s face it \u2013 for many pastors the perception they have of their ministry when they set off to their first pastorate and the reality of that ministry are two very different things. Barbara Melosh\u2019s Loving and Leaving a Church: A Pastor\u2019s Journey<\/a> <\/em>tells the story of an older, second career, female pastor and her experiences with the small blue-collar congregation in Baltimore where she \u201clearned how to be a pastor.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The neighborhood is undergoing gentrification and the church has been in decline for forty years but Melosh optimistically thinks that she can change the congregation and save the church. That doesn\u2019t happen and yet it would be wrong to call her time there a failure. She is faithful to the congregation who drives her to laughter and to tears and they, in turn, learn to love and accept her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Melosh uses pseudonyms in the book and refers to her church as \u201cSaints and Sinners\u201d and her congregation as \u201cthe Saints.\u201d But these Saints are not the ones we refer to as holy and virtuous in anthologies; they are ordinary people who constantly surprise their pastor and are full of contradictions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyone who has ever tried to bring renewal to a church can appreciate Melosh\u2019s frustrations. Although the sign on the church declares \u201cA Warm Welcome Awaits You Here,\u201d the Saints are an insular group. As Melosh notes: \u201cWhat they wanted was to come to church\u2014this church\u2014on Sunday, to take their familiar places in the pews, to worship the way they\u2019d done for years, with the people they\u2019d known for years.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Melosh plans a peaceful Advent with \u201cmidweek services and encouraging people to observe Advent at home,\u201d she is ambushed by Winter Wonderland \u2013 a church fair with lavish decorations including more than twenty artificial trees; secondhand goods, handmade crafts, and hot dogs for sale; and a throne for Santa which just happens to have been taken from its usual place next to the altar. To her credit, Melosh buries her disappointment as her Advent dreams recede and has a rush of affection for the Saints who had worked for more than three days to create what they considered a thing of beauty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are serious moments in the book too as Melosh describes with honesty her empathy for those she ministers to: Saints now in nursing homes, a young mother facing cancer, and the family of the victim of a violent crime whose funeral Melosh presides over.  When she finally realizes it is time to move on, she struggles with guilt at the thought of leaving the Saints to soldier on and disappointment at her failure to save the church. She is heartbroken and writes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

I had been called to ministry, and I\u2019d given my heart to it. But I\u2019d been distracted by the wrong dream, deluded into thinking I could save the Saints. They already had a Savior, and it wasn\u2019t me. I was called to be faithful: to do the work in front of me, to serve the people I\u2019d been called to serve, to love the people I\u2019d been given to love\u2026I was beginning to realize the precious gift that was already mine. Saints and Sinners might well not survive as a congregation. But in the candlelight of the healing services, I saw that the kingdom of God was already among us, and in us.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Let\u2019s face it \u2013 for many pastors the perception they have of their ministry when they set off to their first pastorate and the reality of that ministry are two very different things. Barbara Melosh\u2019s Loving and Leaving a Church: A Pastor\u2019s Journey tells the story of an older, second career, female pastor and her […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10359,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[452],"tags":[261,355],"class_list":["post-627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-book-review-blog","tag-barbara-melosh","tag-loving-and-leaving-a-church"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prcli.org\/staging\/3075\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prcli.org\/staging\/3075\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prcli.org\/staging\/3075\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prcli.org\/staging\/3075\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prcli.org\/staging\/3075\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=627"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.prcli.org\/staging\/3075\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10360,"href":"https:\/\/www.prcli.org\/staging\/3075\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627\/revisions\/10360"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prcli.org\/staging\/3075\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prcli.org\/staging\/3075\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prcli.org\/staging\/3075\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prcli.org\/staging\/3075\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}