Book 4 of 2015 -- There's a Woman in the Pulpit

On July 5 this blog will have been in existence for 10 years.  A few months after I started it I was invited to join what was at that point a new group -- RevGalBlogPals.  Early in their existence RGBP put together a couple of books of devotionals (one for Advent and one for Ordinary Time).  This year they have created a new book called There's a Woman in the Pulpit, a title that in part raises the fact that for some people that would still be a scandalous situation.

The book (which I actually finished a couple weeks ago but time for writing this post has continued to escape me) is a collection of essays, stories, poems about being in ministry.  Some of them speak directly to the interesting challenges that being female in ministry brings, some of them speak to the challenges and idiosyncrasies of ministry in general.

To use a phrase often used in movie reviews: I laughed, I cried.  Therre is great poignancy in many of these pieces.  There are some that you giggle your way through.  There are some that are hard to read because the page keeps getting blurry.  There are some that build a degree of rage--because what does gender or orientation have to do with one's fitness for ministry anyway?

I loved this book.  The short pieces made it easy to fit in a brief spurt of reading in short down times.  OTOH, the appeal of the pieces made it hard to put down at the end of those short down times.  I do think it would be interesting to see how someone not in ministry, or not attuned to the reality of ministry life would find it.  Some things are universal, but are there also things which you need to share an experience to appreciate?

Whether women in ministry is old hat to you or a brand new idea I suggest you read this book.