The Pastor as Servant examines the servant task of pastoral ministry If the church's attention is fixed upon its Master, its role in the world must reflect Jesus' perception of himself as the servant Lord of a servant people Three themes are addressed: First, the appropriate response to God, who requires absolute loyalty and obedience, is characterized servanthood. The church is to serve God, revealed in Jesus Christ, and its members are to manifest that relationship in their service of others Second, this relationship is unique, for, unlike the secular notion of master and servant, that between God and God's people is characterized by a mutual bondage of each to the other-a bonding that is pecuhar to the Judeo-Christian scriptures. Third, the essays argue that the servant responsibility of God's people consists of two bold and interdependent facets being a servant entails a commitment to the well-being of individual persons, and to that of society.

The Pastor as Servant thus reiterates a theme identified in its predecessor, The Pastor as Prophet: the pastoral task of the church must encompass concern for social justice as a societal issue, as well as expressing a response to the individual needs of people in crisis. These issues are addressed from both biblical and theological perspectives that illustrate the inseparable connection between servanthood and pastoral care. The authors concur that servanthood expresses the esse of the church, which is called to exist as a sign of the activity of God's justice and love in the world; if the church fails to fulfill this function, it ceases to be the church. But it is not enough that these concerns are addressed by the church as an organic entity Each congregation and each pastor and member is called to servanthood.

Developing the servant theme as a means for a renewed understanding of the church's ministry, the book provides pastors, seminary teachers, and students with insight into the nature of the church's ministry, with special concern for pastoral ministry, relating theology to ministry

Contributors include James H. Cone, Tom F. Driver, Langdon Gilkey