When All Else Fails: Rethinking Our Pastoral Vocation in Times of Stuck

The condition of stuck is a condition well known by pastoral caregivers and leaders. In When All Else Fails, Wayne Menking argues that the way out of stuckness is not through the acquisition of faddish techniques, but through a deep rethinking of our pastoral vocation and what our pastoral work is to be about. Pastoral care and leadership are not indistinguishable, just as priestly work can never be separated from prophetic work. They are always one and the same. Pastoral care and leadership, then, are not about helping people relieve their anxiety through the offering of palliative comfort, but rather helping people to engage the powers that have hold of their life so as to leave what is old for what is new. In this engagement, the caregiver will always encounter powers against which niceness and unconditional love will not work. Using biblical images and narratives that depict God as a deeply empathic and compassionate God, yet one who is never adaptively sympathetic, Menking asserts that pastoral caregivers and leaders must shed their niceness and adaptivity so as to employ their God-given power if they are to help people effectively leave what is old for what is new.

Wayne Menking is a retired pastor of the ELCA and an ACPE Emeritus Certified Educator. He received his BA degree from Capital University in Columbus, Ohio, his MDiv degree from Luther Theological Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota, and his STD degree from San Francisco Theological Seminary in San Anselmo, CA. He received his clinical pastoral education at Hennepin County Medical Center, Lutheran Deaconess Hospital, and Metropolitan Medical Center in Minneapolis. He then received his Clinical Educator training at Children's Medical Center in Dallas, Texas. He has served congregations in North Dakota, Wisconsin, and Fort Worth, Texas. As an ACPE Certified Educator he has held positions at Children's Medical Center in Dallas and Texas Health Resources in Fort Worth. He has served on the extension faculty of Wartburg Theological Seminary as the director of the Lutheran Seminary of the Southwest (now Centro Teologico Luterano Multicultural), and presently serves on Wartburg's adjunct faculty as a clinical pastoral education instructor.

His doctoral dissertation advisor was Dr. James Nestingen, and his dissertation's title was "Luther's Small Catechism as a Resource for Spiritual formation in a Culture of Affluence." He has a life long interest in the application of Luther's theology of the cross and catechetical teachings for discovering Christian vocation in our culture's affluent and self absorbed life styles.

Wayne lives in Fort Worth with his spouse, Nancy. His retirement hobbies include photography, bread baking, cooking, gardening with Nancy, and writing.

Craig L. Nessan is William D. Streng Professor for the Education and Renewal of the Church and professor of contextual theology and ethics at Wartburg Theological Seminary. He is the author of several books, including Wilhelm Loehe and North America (2020).