Where does a pastor’s voice come from? Not just the voice you hear on Sunday mornings, but the voice necessary to speak healing into our broken world. In his book, The Pastor As Minor Poet: Texts and Subtexts in the Ministerial Life, M. Craig Barnes delves into the complexities of the pastoral vocation and offers an assessment that goes beyond the practical tools that you often find in popular books today. Instead he offers us the image of “pastor as minor poet” as a way to re-imagine the role of pastor. Are we seeking to find the next best marketing technique to “grow” our churches, or are we more interested in something that will make a lasting difference in people’s lives – namely “pointing to the true image of God ‘in whom we live and move and have our being’”? As poets we “knock on the door of the ordinary” and find amazing miracles. Barnes says that “the poet stands in the midst of a world that has grown jaded with reality and speaks in such a way as to open the doors into the Kingdom of Truth.” If you are looking for a step-by-step guide on how to be a pastor, look somewhere else. If, however, you are seeking a book that will help you to probe the deeper meaning of your pastoral call, then this book is for you.