Lillian Daniel – författare

This Odd and Wondrous Calling offers something different from most books available on ministry. Two people still pastoring reflect honestly here on both the joys and the challenges of their vocation. / Anecdotal and extremely readable, the book covers a diversity of subjects revealing the incredible variety of a pastor's day. The chapters move from comedy to pathos, story to theology, Scripture to contemporary culture. This Odd and Wondrous Calling is both serious and fun and is ideal for those who are considering the ministry or who want a better understanding of their own minister's life.

Sloppy talk about the Christian religion has become an acceptable prejudice, especially on the part of people who pride themselves as being unprejudiced. Daniel's book provides humorous yet intellectual commentary on the way religion gets talked about today. She explains Christian ideas and practices in non-academic, yet non-facile terms. In her signature style, popularized in widely debated articles for The Huffington Post and Christianity Today, she outlines four types of non-church-goers: no-longer, no-way, never-have, not-yet and with experiential insight from more than a decade as a pastor, she explains how churches of all denominations and doctrines can provide them intellectual rigor, reasons for belief and authentic religious community. No one should have to check their brain at the door of the church, she says and churches must deal with present-day issues and be intellectually open, inviting people to bring questions, rather than dispensing old, easy answers.

The popular preacher continues to take on the SBNRs (the spiritual but not religious) and shows Christians how to reach them.

Lillian Daniel shares how her congregation re-appropriated the practice of testimony one Lenten season, a practice that would eventually revitalize their worship and transform their congregational culture.