I absolutely loved The Last Pastor by Gail Cafferata. The Last Pastor explains a study that Cafferata conducted about Minsters that had Churches that had closed for one reason or another. The author uses the analogy of sailing to explain how God/The Holy Spirit can and does move during a Church closure. As a Minister, I appreciated that the author did not gloss over the struggles and realities that a Minister goes through while Pastoring a Church. The author explains in details what Ministers go through in the process of closing--the good, bad, and ugly. While the closing of a Church is bittersweet and heartbreaking, sometimes the end is a good thing and leads to new things that God wants them to do. The message I got from the book is the closure of a Church is not necessarily the end. There is still hope because we, as individuals, are the Church as long as we don't give up on God. I highly recommend this book to anyone that is involved in Ministry in any capacity as well as church attendees. Thank you to NetGalley and the Publisher for the opportunity to read this book! I really enjoyed it! (This review is also on GoodReads.)

Great read, with much information from pastors that have experienced closing a church and problems they dealt with.

I’ve always felt sad at the closing of another church, but reading The Last Pastor made me realize that closing a church can also be a time of rich ministry. With its many examples of pastors and churches serving faithfully until the end, this book offers hope and a way forward. Far from being a nightmare, when a church needs to close, it can do so with dignity and in life-honouring and life-giving ways.

There is an intense need for books on the topic of church closure as increasing numbers of clergy are faced with leading congregations through the final phase of their community's life together. Especially needed are good tools for navigating the pastoral care of congregants at such a time. Cafferata has interviewed a range of American clergy about their experiences of closing churches and organizes the data she has gathered into themes based on the metaphor of sailing. The metaphor is far too detailed and distracts from the useful information in the book, at times drawing out chapters until reading becomes tedious. Good qualitative research on closing churches is certainly needed, but yet another book on church leadership that uses a sailing metaphor is not.