New Book: Shaped for Service

Shaped for Service: Ministerial Formation and Virtue Ethics is a new book from Paul Goodliff (full disclosure he's my dad). It seeks to explore what is going on when we are preparing ministers for Christian ministry in the church. Where Anglicans churns half a dozen books on ministry out a year, Baptists have been reluctant or indifferent to a proper exploration of what we think ministry is and what we are doing in the period of formation/training. Building on his doctoral research published as Ministry, Sacrament and Representation, Goodliff argues that character formation is at the heart of all ministerial formation and the practices of ministry are linked to the person, spirituality and wisdom of the practitioner.

Part 1 Formation and Virtue Ethics                               

1. Formation for Ministry
2. History and Landscape
3. Virtue Ethics and Practitioners
4. Creation, Eschaton and the Formation and the Practice of Ministry

Part 2 Models of Ministerial Formation

5. Formation and Wisdom
6. Focused Discipleship.
7. Ministerial Formation as Apprenticeship

Part 3 Forming the Person

8. Intellectual Formation
9. Spiritual Formation
10. Character Formation

Part 4 Forming the Practices of Ministry

11. Formation of the Practitioner
12. Forming the Liturgist
13. The Formation of Pastoral Integrity
14. Ministry as Guidance
15. Ministry as Mission
16. Forming the Preacher
17. Forming the Administrator
18. Forming the Leader