VULNERABLE MISSION

BOOK REVIEWS
BRYAN P. STONE AND CLAIRE E. WOLFTEICH. Sabbath in the City: Sustaining
Urban Pastoral Excellence. Louisville: Westminster John Knox
Press, 2008. 168pp. $15.60.
Stone and Wolfteich challenge the missional reader with the reminder that “while the
Bible begins in a garden, it ends in a city” (90). Sabbath in the City: Sustaining Urban Pastoral
Excellence records the discoveries of 96 urban pastors who are given the opportunity,
through the Boston University School of Theology and the Lilly Endowment, Inc., to
examine their missional approaches to ministry. The project seeks to answer two questions:
“What constitutes pastoral excellence in the urban context? What sustains it?”
(ix). Excellent urban pastoral leadership requires a unique approach to ministry, one
that involves serving the city as well as serving oneself. “If your . . . soul and spirit is not
growing and at peace with God, the sheer intensity of urban problems will overwhelm
and crush you” (63).
While defining four needs of urban pastors—partnership, spiritual renewal, Sabbath,
and study—the authors specify each need as an individualized spiritual discipline. Spiritual
friendships are to be interpreted as one enjoys Christ as a friend: a life-giving addition
to pastoral ministry. Spiritual renewal is found in embracing spiritual disciplines
that continually refocus one’s energies on the purpose and presence of God. Sabbath, a
challenge for an overworked and understaffed urban pastor, is a reminder that the work
of God can find completion while the man or woman of God carves out mandatory
rest. Study allows the pastor to contemplatively hear a sermon for the people as well as a
sermon for oneself while lounging in the Word.
Through their partnership with urban pastors, the authors discover that excellent urban
pastors know and love their cities. This means that they also know and love the people:
To know and love the people of the city and to practice a solidarity with them creates a
space for confession, pardon, and forgiveness. To know and love the people of the city is
to treat no one like a heathen, a demon, or an outcast, and this honoring of ‘the other’
we encounter allows us first to hear them; second to serve them; and third, to be open to
allowing them to creatively transform our ministries. (xiii)
A warning repeats throughout the book, from authors as well as pastors, that if urban
pastors overlook the practice of Sabbath, they will not effectively serve the city. Urban
ministry presents many needs and few resources. With the focus on required renewal,
the participating pastors also receive a four- to eight- week compensated sabbatical. “We
cannot talk of sustaining pastoral excellence without talking about the pastor’s ongoing
spiritual renewal, for receptivity to God’s Spirit precedes any work of ministry” (63).
Sabbath not only includes rest, but play, setting higher boundaries, and a fresh commitment
to one’s family. Counsel from one pastor’s spiritual director reminds her that, “Just
because you have the time to do something doesn’t mean you should do it” (55). Rest is
a requirement for renewal.
The honest voices of the 96 urban pastors should be heard by all pastors, not just those
in the urban setting. Sabbath in the City should inform the students in seminary who begin
with a vision of excellence and are often extinguished by exhaustion and frustration. The
stories of the participants will powerfully inform future decisions for current readers.
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