Roots and Routes

<p>Randy Litchfield's fresh look at the perennial question of vocation combines theological reflection on the development of personal spiritual identity with a thoughtful look at the significant dimension of place - how the realities of our contexts call for particular responses to vocation in specific times and places.</p><p>Roots and Routes helps pastors and leaders claim a rich vocational imagination for recognizing God's ongoing call to partnership in the specific concrete locales of ministry.</p><p>The Carnegie Institute's rich ethnographic studies of graduate education in the professions reveal that guiding experiences of risk are at the heart of professional development - combining call with experiences in the actual realities of professional life. Hence the emphasis on field education and internships. But how can we help pastors and leaders see calling as a life-long process of discernment and response? With ministerial burnout (and confusion) at an all-time high connecting the dots between the ongoing call of God and the specific locales of ministry is an interpretive life-skill necessary for pastors leaders and disciples of Jesus Christ.</p><p>Failed vocational imagination obstructs the effectiveness of individuals and the church as a whole in fulfilling their mission of partnership with God's creating redeeming and sustaining work in the world.</p><p>The primary audience for the book is seminary educators and students and pastors. It also has congregational leaders in mind.</p><p> </p>