The Bloomsbury Guide To Pastoral Care

The Bloomsbury Guide to Pastoral Care provides a framework for reflection on pastoral care practice and identifies frontier learning from the new and challenging practical contexts which are important in pastoral care research today. In this collection of essays from leading practitioner-scholars, Bernadette Flanagan and Sharon Thornton set out core principles underpinning professional identity and the practice of pastoral care in rapidly changing social settings. Such pastoral challenges as, developing compassionate and effective companioning to those who have suffered trauma, torture, catastrophic events, social disintegration, the moral wounds of war and cultural dislocation are treated with insight and deep care. The new frontiers of pastoral care in more familiar circumstances such as family, health settings where patients facing life-challenging medical events and multi-cultural communities are also explored. With contributions from Kevin Egan, Michael O'Sullivan SJ, Rita Nakashima Brock and Julia Prinz VDMF, The Bloomsbury Guide to Pastoral Care is an essential reference for the theory and practice of pastoral care.

How can teachers deal with the growing pastoral needs of pupils aged 11-16 in schools? This critical guide explores the pastoral role which teachers play in schools, and argues that today's schools continue to offer children an invaluable source of support. This guide explores a number of serious pastoral issues, drawing on contemporary research to outline the impact which these issues can have on children aged 11-16 and offering practical strategies for providing support on a whole-school and individual classroom level. Consideration is also given to how schools can use the curriculum proactively to help pupils be more prepared to deal with serious pastoral issues. Topics dealt with include: - supporting children who are experiencing separation or divorce - helping to prevent and deal with bullying, including cyber-bullying - identifying and responding to possible child abuse - understanding the impact of domestic violence - supporting children through bereavement - responding to self-harm and suicide This is the essential guide for those training to teach in the secondary sector and for practicing teachers who have recently taken on pastoral responsibilities.

The essentials of pastoral care involve the pastor's distinctive task of caring for those who are estranged--the lost sheep. Taken from the biblical image of the shepherd, the pastor by virtue of his or her professional calling cultivates wise judgment in order to hear the hurting and offer guidance, reconciliation, healing, sustaining presence, and empowerment to those in need. This book will outline the quintessential elements pastors need to wisely minister in today's context by discussing four major kinds of lostness: grief, illness, abuse, and family challenges. The purpose of the Abingdon Essential Guides is to fulfill the need for brief, substantive, yet highly accessible introductions to the core disciples in biblical, theological, and religious studies. Drawing on the best in current scholarship, written with the need of students foremost in mind, addressed to learners in a number of contexts, Essential Guides will be the first choice of those who wish to acquaint themselves or their students with the broad scope of issues, perspectives, and subject matters within biblical and religious studies.

What is Christian Spirituality? How does it relate to non-Christian traditions? Where does it arise from and where is it going? These are some of the key questions addressed in this innovative new guide from Bloomsbury. The Bloomsbury Guide to Christian Spirituality is written by foremost academics in their fields who distill their knowledge for a wide intelligent audience. They do this with huge skill and attention to the needs of modern readers. Appealing equally to those studying the tradition for religious formation or those wishing to acquaint themselves with this fascinating subject, this guide is destined to become an essential text in the field.

What is pastoral care? Being present to others in a loving way, a relationship rooted beyond yourself, and what you say and do in this relationship. Sound complicated? Sharyl B. Peterson recognizes that as students learn more about specific areas of—facilitating pastoral conversations, making hospital visits and planning funerals, offering bereavement care, and celebrating weddings and births—they also learn to draw connections to care and its theological foundations. "The Indispensable Guide to Pastoral Care" helps to link these elements by helping you to practice pastoral caregiving while you learn to explore various areas of care.

At the heart of the local church is the Christ-like care it manifests to its own members and those in the community. Increasingly, with fewer full-time ministers, this role is falling to the laity, often without formal training. This book will help ordained and lay members of the church to be more confident and better equipped in pastoral skills. Included are sections on understanding pastoral ministry, how to minister safely, developing appropriate skills for use in church and in the wider community and how to minister to oneself. A practical, hands-on book that all in pastoral ministry should read, and one that will help new pastors to survive and thrive in a long-term ministry in the church.

'Howard Stone has given a very useful gift to parish ministers and their congregations in this very concise, clearly written, practical, lucidly illustrated book. (His) contribution... grows out of the accumulation of practical experience, as well as scholarship.'---David K. Switzer, Journal of Pastoral Care