Is Pastoring More Like a Startup or a Garden?

About this episode

Randy and Kyle discuss a new vision of pastoral ministry with Matt Erickson, focusing on the pastor as a gardener rather than a CEO.

Text us your questions! Randy and Kyle sit down with Milwaukee pastor and author Matt Erickson to explore a different vision of pastoral ministry: not the pastor as CEO, brand manager, or religious expert, but the pastor as gardener. Matt’s book, The Pastor as Gardener: A Renewed Vision for Ministry, grows out of real ministry pressure, including moral failures, church decline, the pandemic, and the strain of navigating racial justice and polarization in a multiracial congregation. We dig in...

People in this episode

Hosts: Randy Knie, Kyle Whitaker

Guest: Matt Erickson

Topics covered

• pastoral ministry
• gardening metaphor
• church decline
• racial justice
• moral failures

Keywords

• pastor
• gardener
• ministry
• church
• racial justice
• moral failures
• pandemic
• multiracial congregation

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: The Pastor as Gardener: A Renewed Vision for Ministry

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