A conversational discussion of the impact of John Henry Newman on Catholic thought, especially where it concerns the importance and involvement of the laity in all facets of the Church, including the formulation of what we believe.

DISCOVER AND LIVE YOUR PURPOSE IN LIFE THROUGH YOUR LAY VOCATION! The Church's mission is to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ to everyone. As lay disciples of the Savior, our shared mission is to bring the message of His saving life, death and resurrection to all men and women through our words and deeds. Your personal lay vocation is even more focused: God has created you for a unique purpose only you can accomplish for Him! As you read this book you will discover the intensely interesting history and theology of the lay vocation and how our Church's reemphasis on the role of the laity in our day is meant to help awaken this "sleeping giant." But this is not simply a book of history and theology-it's about your mission in life and your eternal destiny. Russell Shaw's insightful work makes a direct connection between the teachings of the Bible, Vatican II, John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and Francis I and your everyday life as a lay follower of Jesus. Here you will learn how to begin discerning your unique personal lay vocation and how to establish, deepen and maintain your friendship with Jesus while you live out your lay vocation in the "real world." Jesus told us: I have come that they might have life, and have it more abundantly." Read this book and find that life through your lay vocation!

Experts on congregational life tell us that ministry in the next century will depend more on called, trained, and committed lay leadership than it has since the days of the early church. But how will congregations recruit these lay leaders? How will they develop new models for training and equipping them for all the ministries of the church? What will the role of clergy be in adopting this new partnership that Leonard Sweet calls "ancient-future ministry"? Equipping the Saints seeks to help congregational leaders answer these and other questions related to mobilizing lay ministry in the years ahead. The chapters include: "Shall We Abolish the Clergy or the Laity?" by Michael Christensen; "Team Building Through Spiritual Gifts" by Brian Bauknight; "The Loss and Recovery of the Biblical Basis for Ministry" by Russell Moy; "Out of the Pew, Into the World" by Jessica Moffat; "The Seeker Service in the Mainline Church" by Eric Park; "Circuit Riding in the 21st Century" by Rob Duncan; and, "Life Together: Reclaiming the Ministry of Small Groups" by Christine Anderson. Key Features: - Responds to emerging trends that promise to be determinative of the shape of ministry in the next century - Addresses an important practical need in congregations - Offers help in formulating new models for congregational ministry Key Benefits: - Readers will understand the important emerging need for called, trained, and committed laypersons to engage in ministry - Readers will learn how to recruit and train lay leaders - Readers will identify a new model of clergy/lay ministry partnership

Theological reflections explore the genuine role of the Catholic laity, leading to proposals for a "lay liberation theology" and structural reform of the Catholic church. "Throughout, Lakeland does an admirable job of balancing his style to make the work useful for both general and specialized readers. Lakeland surveys the contributions of an impressive number of historical and contemporary writers on the laity."QWilliam A. Clark, "Catholic Books Review."Continuum Books

Every church has far more work than any one person can do. Even a team of professionals is not enough. The New Testament solution was for every member to be a minister. Though the priesthood of all believers was a key idea in the Reformation, it is little practised today. Following secular models, churches usually organize around the clergy, who are paid by the laity to do the ministry. Paul Stevens argues that, according to Scripture, the primary task of a Christian leader is not to do the work but to equip the saints to do it. Exploring new options for pastors, tentmakers and laypeople, this book provides structures and strategies to best equip all the saints for ministry.

The sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church has been exacerbated in the minds of many by the dismal response of church leadership. Uncovered along with the abuse of power were decisions that were not only made in secrecy, but which also magnified the powerlessness of the people of the church to have any say in its governance. Accordingly, many have left the church, many have withheld funding—others have vowed to work for change, as witnessed by the phenomenal growth of Voice of the Faithful. Common Calling is indeed a call—for change, for inclusion, and a place at the table for the laity when it comes to the governance of the church. By first providing compelling historical precedents of the roles and status of the laity as it functioned during the first millennium, Common Calling compares and contrasts those to the place of the laity today. It is this crossroad—between the past and the possible future of the Catholic Church—where the distinguished contributors to this volume gather in the hope and expectation of change. They examine the distinction between laity and clergy in regard to the power of church governance, and explore the theological interpretation of clergy-laity relations and governance in the teachings of the Second Vatican Council. They look at how church officials interpret the role of the laity today and address the weaknesses in that model. Finally, they speak clearly in outlining the ways governance may be improved, and how—by emphasizing dialogue, participation, gender equality, and loyalty—the role of the laity can be enhanced. Speaking as active believers and academic specialists, all of the contributors assert that the church must evolve in the 21st century. They represent a variety of disciplines, including systematic theology, sacramental theology, canon law, political science, moral theology, pastoral theology, and management. The book also includes an essay by James Post, cofounder of the Catholic lay movement Voice of the Faithful, the organization that was in part responsible for the resignation of Boston's Cardinal Bernard Law. Common Calling looks to a future of transparency in the Catholic Church that, with an invested laity, will help to prevent any further abuse—especially the abuse of power.

Tilling the Church is a theology for the pilgrim church. In this book, Richard Lennan shows how the ecclesial community looks toward the fullness of God’s reign but lives within the flux of history, the site of its relationship to the trinitarian God. In this way, God’s grace “tills” the church, constantly refreshing the tradition of faith and prompting the discipleship that embodies the gospel. Tilling the Church explores the possibilities for a more faithful, just, and creative church, one responsive to the movement of grace. Fruitful engagement with grace requires the church’s conversion, the ongoing formation of a community whose words and actions reflect the hope that grace engenders.

While dissolute bishops and priests around the world grab headlines for their untoward words and deeds, too many other unfruitful priests minister as little more than glad-handing bachelors doing social service work. Top and bottom, is this the Church that Christ intended? Are these the priests we need? “No!” cries author Kevin Wells in these compelling pages that showcase how heroic priests can faithfully tread the narrow path of holy self-sacrifice first blazed by the apostles themselves. From scores of insightful interviews with modern priests, exorcists, seminary formators, and even disillusioned laity, Wells here draws forth a blueprint for priestly holiness that can once again fill our Church with priests abounding with sincere, supernatural faith, on fire with God's love, and moved by the irresistible impulse to save souls, no matter the cost to themselves. Reading this book will deepen your own faith and help you understand what all

Searching for answers in the midst of the sexual abuse crisis in the church, many blamed the clerical culture. But what exactly is this clerical culture? We may know it when we see it, but how can we 'whether clergy or laypeople 'go about dismantling it and putting in place a new, healthy culture? George Wilson has spent decades working with organizations to help them discover, and often recover, their foundational calling. He is also a Jesuit priest engaged in the lives of congregations. In Clericalism: The Death of Priesthood he brings together both capacities and gives his sense of the challenges facing the church. As members of the church, Wilson maintains, we are all responsible for creating a clerical culture. And we are also responsible for that culture's transformation. Clericalism aids this transformation by helping us examine some underlying attitudes that create and preserve destructive relationships between ordained and laity. After looking at the crisis and establishing where we are now, this book challenges us with concrete suggestions for changing behaviors. We are lay and ordained, but all baptized into the royal priesthood of 1 Peter 2:9, all called to spread the Gospel and do the work of God's love in the world. Ultimately, this is a hopeful book, looking for the restoration of a genuine priesthood, free of clericalism, in which we become truly united in Christ..

Lenny Duncan is the unlikeliest of pastors. Formerly incarcerated, he is now a black preacher in the whitest denomination in the United States: the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). Shifting demographics and shrinking congregations make all the headlines, but Duncan sees something else at work--drawing a direct line between the church's lack of diversity and the church's lack of vitality. The problems the ELCA faces are theological, not sociological. But so are the answers. Part manifesto, part confession, and all love letter, Dear Church offers a bold new vision for the future of Duncan's denomination and the broader mainline Christian community of faith. Dear Church rejects the narrative of church decline and calls everyone--leaders and laity alike--to the front lines of the church's renewal through racial equality and justice. It is time for the church to rise up, dust itself off, and take on forces of this world that act against God: whiteness, misogyny, nationalism, homophobia, and economic injustice. Duncan gives a blueprint for the way forward and urges us to follow in the revolutionary path of Jesus. Dear Church also features a discussion guide at the back--perfect for church groups, book clubs, and other group discussion.