SPE History

Begun in 2002 through a grant from Lilly Endowment Inc. to Memphis Theological Seminary, Sustaining Pastoral Excellence is a ministry to support Christian pastors, their families, and their congregations...


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What we are learning 

Excellence in pastoral ministry is a gift of the healing and sustaining grace of God in the life of the whole person. Through faithful relatedness to God and others, good pastors maintain balance (wholeness) in their lives and ministries. 

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Books To Consider


Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers

Christian Smith

Read a description of the book at

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This web site – The National Study of Youth and Religion  -- has lots of information related to the research project.


Branded: Adolescents Converting From Consumer Faith

Katherine Turpin

Branded, the second title in the YOUTH MINISTRY ALTERNATIVES series, addresses and examines three key elements:

1) the distortion of adolescent vocation in a consumer-focused culture;

2) the dream that adolescents would discover the freedom to live into a vocational path not dominated by consumer culture; and

3) an educational process of enlivening agency and imagination that would allow for such freedom of vocational development.