{"id":2897,"date":"2007-11-15T00:30:10","date_gmt":"2007-11-15T00:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/2007\/11\/the-advent-of-crucifixion-1.html"},"modified":"2007-11-15T00:30:10","modified_gmt":"2007-11-15T00:30:10","slug":"the-advent-of-crucifixion-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2007\/11\/the-advent-of-crucifixion-1.html","title":{"rendered":"The Advent of Crucifixion 1"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It is almost Advent so that means it is time to think about the Good Friday. An odd statement, you might say to yourself, especially if you are a pastor. But in Andrew Purves&#8217;s new book, <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&amp;location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FCrucifixion-Ministry-Surrendering-Ambitions-Service%2Fdp%2F0830834397%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dbooks%26qid%3D1194985804%26sr%3D1-1&amp;tag=jescre-20&amp;linkCode=ur2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325\">The Crucifixion of Ministry<\/a><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=jescre-20&amp;l=ur2&amp;o=1\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" style=\"border:none !important;margin:0px !important\" \/><\/em>, we are given a tour into the kind of ministry that lasts, a kind of ministry where we surrender our ambitions to the service of Christ. <!--more|inline--><br \/>\nWe&#8217;ve posted before about burnout, but how many of us have had to learn this lesson about putting to death the self at the center of ministry?<br \/>\nThis book is good news. It is the good news that self-denial, even of our ministries, is the way to be raised into the power of God&#8217;s Spirit. Andrew Purves is a professor of pastoral theology at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and this book is intended for &#8220;busy, tired, somewhat depressed, midcareer and fed-up ministers who can&#8217;t carry the load of ministry any longer&#8221; (11).<br \/>\nEither Jesus is nothing more than a continuing moral influence and ministry is all up to us or Jesus is God active in the life in the world. If the latter, the issue is not &#8220;how does Jesus get in on our ministries?&#8221; but &#8220;What is he up to, and how do I hitch a ride on whatever he is up to?&#8221;<br \/>\n&#8220;The first and central question in thinking about ministry is <em>Who is Jesus Christ and what is he up to<\/em>?&#8221; (13) The second question is &#8220;How do we get in on Jesus&#8217; ministry?&#8221; (13).<br \/>\nWe must be displaced and that means the death of <em>our <\/em>ministries. That is, Purves is calling for the crucifixion of ministry. Self-denial and death with Christ in baptism and dying with Christ includes our ministry.<br \/>\nOne word sums up what this book is designed to address: burnout that derives from ambition, the kind of ambition that has too much self in it, the kind of ambition that doesn&#8217;t let us rest even for a minute.<br \/>\n&#8220;Ministry,&#8221; he says, &#8220;is just not much fun anymore&#8230;.. We are tired, often overworked, usually overstressed and underpaid, theologically confused, often ill-educated for the tasks before us, bored and probably guilty for feeling that way&#8221;! (18). He speaks of a flawed educational process and critiques the dilution of christology in mainline seminaries.<br \/>\nJesus is the answer. This books develops the &#8220;vicarious humanity and ministry of Jesus Christ&#8221; (20). Join us as we go through this book chp by chp on Tuesdays and Thursdays.<br \/>\nEven more, pastors, speak up and shed some light on the important topics of this book.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It is almost Advent so that means it is time to think about the Good Friday. An odd statement, you might say to yourself, especially if you are a pastor. But in Andrew Purves&#8217;s new book, The Crucifixion of Ministry, we are given a tour into the kind of ministry that lasts, a kind of&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":298,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pastoring-and-preaching"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Advent of Crucifixion 1 - Jesus Creed<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2007\/11\/the-advent-of-crucifixion-1.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Advent of Crucifixion 1 - Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It is almost Advent so that means it is time to think about the Good Friday. An odd statement, you might say to yourself, especially if you are a pastor. But in Andrew Purves&#8217;s new book, The Crucifixion of Ministry, we are given a tour into the kind of ministry that lasts, a kind of&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2007\/11\/the-advent-of-crucifixion-1.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2007-11-15T00:30:10+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=jescre-20&amp;l=ur2&amp;o=1\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"xscot mcknight\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Advent of Crucifixion 1 - Jesus Creed","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2007\/11\/the-advent-of-crucifixion-1.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Advent of Crucifixion 1 - Jesus Creed","og_description":"It is almost Advent so that means it is time to think about the Good Friday. An odd statement, you might say to yourself, especially if you are a pastor. 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