This year 2020, Rev Dr Rowland Croucher turns 83. Because he is still young, Rowland says, he writes a new book annually (he says - God willing).
The last two were titled Questions&Responses1 and Questions&Responses2.
Rowland writes
Guess this year’s title. You got it: Questions&Responses3. And I’ve begun already writing the next volume - Questions&Responses4. (Just today I finished 4000 words on ‘Politics’.
There’ll be another chapter or two on China, and another one or two on Islam etc.)
The genesis of this one-book-a-year series? I’ve spent the last thirty years counselling clergy, speaking at a three-figure-number of pastors’ conferences, and preaching everywhere.
It’s now time to put all this material into more easily digestible form. These are the questions serious Christians - pastors and others - ask their mentors / counsellors. Many of course are issues thrashed out in pastoral counselling situations with parishioners.
Just one question: why are Australian churches dwindling in numbers? Is it only the Pentecostal congregations which are growing? An Anglican Bishop took me aside at one pastors’ conference and said: ‘Rowland, thanks for the material you’re sharing on stress and burnout, which is our topic this year. But the guys (the clergy were all male) are asking another question: how did Blackburn Baptist Church grow to 1000 people?’ (way back in the 80s)
That story is backdrop to these three volumes...
The love of my life - for 60 years - my pastor-wife passed away the year before the first title came out, and there’s some wisdom about grief (among other chapters) there. The second book (also fairly brief - 120 pages, and also easy to carry to read on your travels) includes three chapters on What a Healthy Church Looks Like - plus lots
This volume - #3 –
Takes on some more big Issues: How to Get Along with the People You Live With, Women (and men), Climate Change, LGBTIs, Dealing with Hate, Creativity and Religious Institutions, Growing Old Gracefully, Death and Dying, plus four biographies of special friends: Richard Rohr, Rod Bowers, Tim Costello, and Ken Manley.
How to get one or more of these titles? Contact Coventry Press, Bayswater +61 (0) 477 809 037. Or email me - rcroucher@gmail.com and ask for a discount ($20 each including postage if you buy all three). Or pay online (John Mark Ministries 063 191 0090 1840): include your name and postal address.