Transitional Ministry Today - by Norman B Bendroth (Paperback)

About the Book

Transitional ministry can be tremendously helpful for congregations in times of change, and yet, to be successful today transitional ministers and churches need to take into account the major changes in the religious landscape. This book offers ten essays to help transitional ...

Book Synopsis

Transitional ministry can be tremendously helpful for congregations in times of change, and yet, to be successful today transitional ministers and churches need to take into account the major changes in the religious landscape. This book offers ten essays to help transitional ministers and congregations understand the current climate and transition successfully.

Review Quotes

Norman Bendroth assembles a dozen chapter authors, each with special expertise in some area of church transition, to help wise churches that want to address their needed changes. There are numerous applications in each chapter that could be applied to any church transition, so reader would do well to read more than the chapters that specifically draw them to this book. . . .There is ample analytical material, including looking at the context of church life today and a theological basis for transitional ministry. Lengthy end notes, bibliography and index will help serious scholars who want to dig further. In fact, Transitional Ministry Today is a textbook for a doctoral seminar at Dallas Baptist University. The strength of the book, however, is the gift of being extremely practical. In every instance, it provides practical definitions of the basic issues, clear descriptions of the challenges that will be faced and tasks that must be accomplished to address each transition situation--usually from the chapter author's own ministry. This book will remain close at hand to refer to again and again.

Norman Bendroth has collected an ensemble of contrasting voices to address the needs of congregations in transition. In these pages, readers will find inspiration, challenge, and a variety of ideas that are worth a try.

This book is an excellent compilation of new thinking about the context, theology, and tools for interim/transitional ministry. Knowing that all congregations are in transition, this offers new thought about how they are able to think about and manage their time in-between.

This is a profound book. This book shows the deep currents at work in the churches that make ALL pastors sojourners in a changing world. We are ALL transition ministers, lay and clergy, all the time. To be alive in ministry today, you are in a confusing wilderness. This book can be a guide to your never-ending transition.


Transitional Ministry Today is an invitation to fresh thinking and new practices and directions regarding pastoral transition in congregations. This book will help shape this important conversation and is "must" reading for those who work with local faith communities in times of pastoral change.

About the Author

Norman B. Bendroth is the coordinator for clergy and church resources for the New England Pastoral Institute and a professional transitional minister ordained in the United Church of Christ. He has contributed articles to the Christian Century, Congregations, Reformed Worship, Perspectives and Sojourners.