Pastor's Life - Property

Pastoring includes faithful stewardship of church property by Rev. Eileen Lindner An undervalued skill in ministry is the capacity to prioritize. Each day offers opportunities for allocating time to meetings, hospital calls, sermon preparation, counseling, civic engagement, staff meetings and the like. An on-going struggle for many pastors is in reserving time for personal prayer and Bible study to say nothing of family commitments and adequate rest. Little wonder then that issues of church property often take a backseat to dozens of other demands. Indeed, if the church roof isn’t leaking it seldom comes to mind. Yet, today the church is confronted with a large and growing challenge regarding property. Faithful stewardship of this our largest financial asset seems, by turns, to be both illusive and potentially a key component of renewed witness and mission for the church of the future.

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The Reverend Eileen W. Lindner is an Honorably Retired Minister of Word and Sacrament of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) In her varied career she has served as an Overseas Associate of the PC(USA) in Egypt and Lebanon and has been an active participant in the World Council of Churches in Geneva, Switzerland, serving on the Worship Design Committee for the World Assembly in Canberra, Australia. In the United States she directed the Child Advocacy Office of the National Council of Churches USA. President Jimmy Carter appointed Dr. Lindner to the United States Commission for the International Year of the Child in 1979. She later served the NCCUSA as the Director of Research and Planning and finally as Associate General Secretary. Lindner holds a Ph.D. degree from Union Theological Seminary in New York and a M.Div. degree from McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago. She is the author of several books and numerous articles within periodicals. As a pastor, Lindner has served parishes in Illinois, New York and New Jersey. For a decade she served as Senior Pastor at the Presbyterian Church at Tenafly, NJ. In retirement, Lindner has led a four- year research effort on behalf of the Presbyterian Foundation focused on congregational transitions and property sales.

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