Directions of a Pastoral Lifetime

About the Book

I had been asked to do a Bible study when I began my first church out of seminary. I agreed, so long as I could do it my way. In the fourth year of my work at Hilltop Christian Church in Mantua, Ohio, I chose to do the Song of Solomon (known in many circles as the Song of Songs). I was guided in the development in part by the then-recent anchor Bible commentary by Marvin Pope. The study influenced me greatly. In the next decade or so, I indulged a variety of works on the Song of Songs, largely but not exclusively in the Christian mystical tradition. In 1997, I found a way to work on a devotional development from the Song of Songs, resulting in a work I found satisfying. From those two major efforts, a few minor ones arose. I have collected here the ways in which the Song of Songs has woven into my work as a pastor.

About the Author

I have served as a minister in a 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 bases of that search lay in my reading and 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 an 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 2003. 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.