PRESS RELEASE: LANCASTER THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY
Received: Friday, Oct 23, 2009 at 12:05 PM
We are pleased to note two new books by Lancaster Theological Seminary faculty, David Mellott and Bruce Epperly. Look future mailings regarding book signings on campus.
Bruce Epperly and Katherine Gould Epperly, Tending to the Holy: Practicing the Presence of God in Ministry (Book signing, October 29, 4:00 p.m.)
Tending to the Holy: The Practice of the Presence of God in Ministry invites pastors to embody their deepest beliefs in the routine and surprising tasks of ministry. Inspired by Brother Lawrence’s classic text in spirituality, Tending to the Holy integrates the wisdom and practices of the Christian spiritual tradition with the commonplace practices of pastoral ministry. Bruce and Katherine Epperly utilize a variety of spiritual disciplines especially Benedictine, Celtic, Ignatian, Rhineland, and process spiritualities to provide a framework for helping clergy nurture the awareness of God, creative imagination, and personal well-being in every aspect of their ministerial lives.
Practicing God’s presence in the ordinary tasks of ministry inspires wholeness, spiritual transformation, vision, imagination, endurance, and healthy self-differentiation in ministry. Commitment to joining spiritual practices with the routine and repetitive tasks of ministry provides an important antidote to unhealthy stress, burnout, and loss of vision in ministry. By seeing their congregational leadership in terms of spiritual transformation, imaginative practice, and relational interdependence, ordinary ministerial practices can become ways pastors can deepen their relationship with God.
David Mellott, I Was and Am Dust: Penitente Practices as a Way of Knowing (Book signing, December 9, 4:00 p.m.)
There are a variety of people, practices, and celebrations in the Catholic Church. At times some of these can be dismissed too easily as extreme, superstitious, or uninformed. Such is the case with the Penitentes of New Mexico. In I Was and I Am Dust, David M. Mellott shares his experiences of the Penitentes as an outsider. He explains their struggles with the institutional church, and some of the seemingly extreme rituals they facilitate during Holy Week. Through the voice of Larry Torres, one of the senior members of the Penitentes, Mellott poignantly provides readers with a more intimate picture of this community of practitioners. Yet so much more than an analysis written by an outsider, this work attempts to understand the experience of those within a group whose practices are considered outside the mainstream. With Mellott and Torres, readers may be surprised to discover a depth of meaning in these practices — and to realize the beauty of being dust.
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