At once “travel guide” and vision for the future, the Transformation series is good news for the Episcopal Church at a time of fast and furious demographic and social change. Series contributors - recognized experts in their fields - analyze our present plight, point to the seeds of change already at work transforming the church, and outline a positive new way forward. What kinds of churches are most ready for transformation? What are the essential tools? What will give us strength, direction, and purpose to the journey?

Each volume of the series will:

• Explain why a changed vision is essential
• Give robust theological and biblical foundations
• Offer a guide to best practices and positive trends in churches large and small.
• Describe the necessary tools for change
• Imagine how transformation will look

In the Episcopal Church, it seems the only real purpose and end of Christian discernment is professional ordination, either to the priesthood or to the vocational diaconate. This book deals with such questions as, How can both communities and individuals discern a call from God within the vocations and tasks in which they find themselves? How can the Church deal creatively with its confusion about the differing roles and authority of ordained and lay ministers?

Sam Portaro is a priest of the Episcopal Church. A graduate of the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill and the Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria, he served two years as Corporate General

Manager of a retail firm in North Carolina. Ordained in 1975, he served as Vicar of the Episcopal Church of the Epiphany in Newton, North Carolina.

He was Episcopal Chaplain to the College of William & Mary and Associate to the Rector of Bruton Parish Church in Williamsburg, Virginia, from 1976 until 1982.

In 1982 Mr. Portaro earned the Doctor of Ministry from Princeton Theological Seminary.

As Episcopal Chaplain to The University of Chicago and Director of Brent House from 1982 to 2004, he oversaw the restoration and modernization of this historic property and a revitalization of its program as a vibrant center on its own campus and a national resource for student and young adult ministry.

He has regularly conducted Quiet Days, retreats and served as a consultant and preacher nationwide and in England, and has served interim posts on the faculties of both Seabury Western Theological Seminary and The University of Chicago Divinity School. He is a Trustee of the Pullman Educational Foundation in Chicago.

He is co-author (with Gary Peluso) of Inquiring & Discerning Hearts: Vocation & Ministry With Young Adults on Campus (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1993) a book on the modern history of and new directions in young adult ministry on campus. He is author of Brightest and Best: A Companion to Lesser Feasts and Fasts, issued by Cowley Publications (Cambridge, Massachusetts; www.cowley.org) in 1997; Crossing the Jordan: Meditations on Vocation (Cowley, 1999); Daysprings: Meditations for the Weekdays of Advent, Lent & Easter (Cowley, 2000); Conflict and a Christian Life (originally published by Morehouse Publishing,1996; now in a second edition from Cowley, 2003); Sheer Christianity: Conjectures on a Catechism (Cowley, 2004), and Transforming Vocation (Church Publishing, 2008).

"Clergy and lay leaders should find much that is pertinent in Transforming Vocation. Others who are yearning for a richer spiritual life or who are perceiving a possible call to some form of ministry probably will devour this."—The Living Church, June 8, 2008