Fit to Be a Pastor

G. Lloyd Rediger believes that pastors should be at the forefront of the battle against the unfitness of body, mind, and spirit that is endemic in America. Living life to the fullest has become, for most, only a vague possibility.For, Rediger argues, the "land of plenty" has become a place where unfitness is so common we think it is normal, and "leading the good life" has brought us to lead the world in the incidence of life-threatening and disabling diseases.Rediger stresses that clergy exhibit the same symptoms of unfitness that most parishioners do: stress, depression, and role confusion. His urgent message to pastors is that they need to reinvent a healthy pastoral role if they are to model the wholeness concept of fitness by which a person can be a truly fit witness to God.Rediger emphasizes the importance of integrating fitness of body, mind, and spirit as pastors move toward fulfillment of personhood and calling. He devotes a chapter to each of these components of total fitness and discusses the disciplines necessary to achieve them.Rediger also explores the interrelationships between fitness, healing, and love. Full fitness, he says, cannot be achieved without healing, for all of us need to be healed from something and for something. Love, too, is a function of fitness, he asserts, because the love that Jesus lived and taught is only possible when we are fully fit.Finally, Rediger describes how human needs, motivations, and potentials are fulfilled through the integrated fitness he prescribes -- generating inner peace and confidence that are the foundation of effective ministries.Read less