What People Are Saying about STUCK

“This book is simply outstanding, and it comes to us not a minute too soon. Pastors will find this research to be not only invaluable, but also a healing balm for their souls. With laser-like precision, Ferguson and Packard name the primary factors afflicting pastors today, and I have never felt so understood. I am deeply grateful for the insights contained in these pages, which were personally illuminating and also filled me with hope.”

—Sharon Hodde Miller, teaching pastor at Bright City Church, Durham, NC

 “Stuck offers a poignant and important sociological analysis of a growing crisis in Christian life: the alienation of clergy from their callings. Given the importance of clergy in helping all Christians discover their callings in diverse vocations, this crisis cries out for the kind of urgent attention and action reflected in Ferguson’s and Packard’s analysis.”

——L. Gregory Jones, president, Belmont University, and co-author of Resurrecting Excellence: Shaping Faithful Christian Ministry

“This book should be required reading at any seminary that aims to prepare ministers for the challenges ahead. Beautifully written with unmistakable compassion for pastors and their congregations, Ferguson and Packer show us pastors feel stuck not because of spiritual failings, but because of changing economic, social, organizational, and cultural realities that make their job seem impossible. Though the calling to ministry needn’t change, the pastoring profession must change. Ferguson and Packard tell us why, then show us how.”

—Samuel L. Perry, associate professor of sociology and religious studies, University of Oklahoma

“Ever felt like larger forces were at play and you just couldn’t name them clearly? Stuck unveils the underestimated forces affecting clergy and offers an unforgettable framework that just might help clergy get unstuck.”

—Rae Jean Proeschold-Bell, research director, Duke Clergy Health Initiative; research professor, Duke Global Health Institute

“This week, as I finished reading Ferguson and Packard’s Stuck, Christianity Today magazine posted a headline: “The Pastors Aren’t All Right: 38% Consider Leaving Ministry.” Not only does this book beautifully explain why pastors aren’t all right, but it also explains why so many consider leaving ministry but only consider leaving. In a helpful mixture of sociology and practical theology, these authors offer a description of the problems their respondents face, but with the questions they pose to pastors and congregations, also push both parties to consider solutions to those problems. An important book about spiritual burnout, this should be week-one assigned reading in any training environment for clerical aspirants.”

—Richard Pitt, author of Divine Callings: Understanding the Call to Ministry in Black Pentecostalism and Church Planters: Inside the World of Religion Entrepreneurs

“In this valuable volume, sociologists Ferguson and Packard examine and explain why a growing number of Protestant clergy feel stuck between a rock and a hard place in ministry in that they find themselves wanting and even needing to leave the very places and people they have been called to lead. If you are, or know of, such a minister, then you would do well to read, reflect upon, and be guided by this timely work. As one who leads a seminary that exists to educate and equip God-called people for gospel ministry in and alongside the church, I found Stuck to be simultaneously sobering and illuminating. This book will both inform and transform the way that I seek to serve and to shape (future) ministers.”

— Todd D. Still, Charles J. and Eleanor McLerran DeLancey Dean, George W. Truett Theological Seminary, Baylor University