Meet the Author
Kathleen A. Cahalan is an associate professor of theology at St. John’s University School of Theology-Seminary, which is a Catholic and Benedictine school that educates both ordination candidates and lay ecclesiastical ministers. Previously, she taught at Christian Theological Seminary and as an evaluation coordinator for the religion division of the Lilly Endowment. Cahalan is the author of three books: Introducing the Practice of Ministry (2010), Formed in the Image of Christ: The Sacramental Moral Theology of Bernard Haring (2004), and Projects that Matter: Successful Planning and Evaluation for Religious Organizations (2o03).
Book Basics
For the last ten years, Cahalan has taught a course titled Introduction to Pastoral Ministry at St. John’s, which explores basic questions about ministry. With an awareness that no text exists that considered these matters to her satisfaction and based on her experience teaching the course, Cahalan wrote Introducing the Practice of Ministry.
The text is designed for those seeking to discern their call to ministry and helpful for those already in ministry positions as well as those in lay leadership positions who encourage or provide support for those considering graduate level theological education or already engaged in it. The first two chapters provide a solid framework for the Christian life and the last three offer a robust consideration of the practice of ministry, however, sandwiched between these is the book’s greatest treasure: an exploration of the six practices of ministry.
In this middle chapter, Cahalan crafts six practices of ministry, which is based on Jesus’ ministry and that of the early apostles and first ministers. For each practice, she identifies three charisms – one related to being, one related to knowing, and one related to doing.
So What?
Far too many books about ministry, especially those designed to help people discern and better understand their own calls, are sectarian in nature. Cahalan’s text is intentionally written for Catholics, but carefully crafted to be inclusive of Protestants. While all who are baptized are called to a general vocation of discipleship, a much smaller group is called to a vocation she names as ministry. Importantly, those who become ministers remain disciples.
Cahalan’s book is filled with quotes worth pondering and discussing. Those that follow are a diverse sample:
- To be a disciple means to be a follower of Christ, committed to learning his ways; to be a worshiper, joining Christ and the community in praise of God’s wonders; to be a witness who proclaims the good news to the world; to be a neighbor by living mindfully of others’ needs and reaching out to them with compassion; to be a forgiver by practicing reconciliation, healing, and peacemaking; to be a prophet willing to tell the truth about the injustices that harm neighbors; and to be stewards of the creation, the community, and the mysteries of the faith (p.22).
- Discipleship is the shared communal calling to a life of service for the sake of God’s world (p.27).
- Ministry is the vocation of leading disciples in the life of discipleship for the sake of God’s mission in the world (p.50).
- Christian ministry is a profession that requires its members to profess a commitment to serve an ecclesial community, to represent that community and its members, and to conduct themselves in a way consistent with the religious claims of the group (p.120).
- . . . human persons need many names for God. If God is incomprehensible and yet known partially through our experience and naming, the more names for God we claim and use, the more this divine mystery opens up to us and the less rigid and narrow our religious language becomes (p.160).
Kathleen A. Cahalan. Introducing the Practice of Ministry (Liturgical Press, 2010). ISBN: 978-814631690.