Joyful Perseverance: Staying Fresh Through the Ups and Downs of Ministry

How to Remain Joyful about Ministry Despite Inevitable Challenges

Life in ministry is not detached from disappointment. Threats to one’s integrity, harmful expectations from celebrity culture, and the tendency toward loneliness, insecurity, and pain can put a strain on ministry leaders. How can they remain faithful to their work for Christ’s kingdom without letting bitterness seep in?

Joyful Perseverance encourages ministry leaders to rely on God’s grace to find joy, energy, and the freshness to serve well, despite inevitable disappointments. It offers practical ways to combat the negative effects of ministry such as embracing God’s joy-giving presence, guarding one’s integrity, leaning into one’s God-given identity, groaning with God, settling sin issues through repentance and forgiveness, cultivating friends, and more. By adopting a life of thanksgiving, readers will experience abundant joy, resulting in an ongoing passion for ministry.

• Written to Pastors, Elders, and Ministry Leaders: Intended to help people joyfully stay in their ministry role despite discouragement and struggle
• Empathetic: Written by veteran ministry leader Ajith Fernando, this book addresses the inevitable difficulties presented to ministry leaders
• Concise: This short format makes this book practical and accessible for busy leaders
• Foreword by Thomas R. Schreiner

Ajith Fernando (ThM, Fuller Theological Seminary) is the teaching director of Youth for Christ in Sri Lanka after serving as the ministry’s national director for thirty-five years. He and his wife, Nelun, are active in a church ministering primarily to the urban poor, and his ministry includes counseling and mentoring younger staff and pastors. He is the author of twenty books published in twenty-four languages. Ajith lives in Colombo, Sri Lanka, with his wife, and they have two adult children and four grandchildren.