Reflective Practice Groups For Clergy

This book brings together research into, and experience of, the practicalities, benefits, limitations, and ways of thinking theologically and pedagogically about Reflective Practice Groups for Clergy, and advocates this as providing opportunity for enhancing well-being, theological development, pastoral supervision and spiritual formation in community.

Enriching Awareness and Practice in the Pastoral and Reflective Supervision of Clergy increases and enriches the awareness, knowledge, and skills of pastoral and reflective supervisors who work with clergy in a pastoral/reflective supervision context. The content is also applicable to supervisors within a Clinical Ministerial Education context, and to all clergy who want to develop their awareness of, and skills in, interpersonal dynamics. This book explores themes such as theological reflection in pastoral/reflective supervision, the place of prayer in pastoral/reflective supervision, working with stuckness in pastoral/reflective supervision, understanding trauma in pastoral/reflective supervision, working with shame in pastoral/reflective supervision, developing an awareness of culture and diversity in pastoral/reflective supervision, the importance of self-care in pastoral/reflective supervision, and understanding context in pastoral/reflective supervision.

This groundbreaking study offers an innovative critical analysis of poetry as a resource for reflective practice in the context of continuing professional development. In the contemporary drive in all professions for greater rigour in education, training, and development, little attention is paid to the inner shape of learning and meaning-making for individuals and groups, especially ways in which individuals are formed for the task of their work. Building on empirical research into the author’s professional practice, the book takes the use of poetry in clergy continuing ministerial development as a case-study to examine the value of poetry in professional learning. Setting out the advantages and limitations of poetry as a stimulant for imaginative, critical reflexivity, and formation within professional reflective practice, the study develops a practical model for group reflection around poetry, distilling pedagogical approaches for working effectively with poetry in continuing professional development. Drawing together a number of strands of thinking about poetry, Practical Theology, and reflective practice into a tightly argued study, the book is an important methodological resource. It makes available a range of primary and secondary sources, offering researchers into professional practice a model of ethnographic research in Practical Theology which embraces innovative methods for reflexivity and theological reflection, including the value of auto-ethnographic poetry.

Enriching Ministry offers a more detailed and wide-ranging overview of pastoral supervision and its relationship to other disciplines and fields of study. It describes an approach to supervision which is theologically rich, psychologically informed, contextually sensitive and praxis based. It is intended for those seeking support for their own ministries as well as for those who supervise in the areas of initial and continuing ministerial formation; healthcare; executive coaching, spiritual direction. The final chapters consider the professional development and training of supervisors.

This book on ministerial formation and supervision provides an accessible and thorough resource. It explores the nature of ministry and formation for 21st Century church and public life. It argues for the importance of supervision in the learning contexts of placement, parish and pastorate and presents an exciting model of supervision as reflective practice that draws on existing literature from different disciplines, including other helping professions, literature and practical theology and the methods and insights of Clinical Pastoral Education, interpreted within a British context. Chapters cover stimulating and useful areas for consideration by the theological educator and ministerial student, such as doing theological reflection in context; resistance to learning; coping with loss and failure; dynamics of power in ministry and issues of transculturalism in ministry and issues of gender and sexuality. It also offers ways in which the effectiveness of placement learning can be evaluated.