This ground-breaking book is a guide to non-religious pastoral care practice in healthcare, prisons, education, and the armed forces in the UK. It brings a new perspective to our understanding of care services traditionally offered by chaplaincy departments. The book charts the progress from a Christian to a multi-faith and on to a fully inclusive care service. Compelling evidence is presented showing strong and broad support for non-religious pastoral care provision. A practical guide, it outlines the beliefs and values on which this care is founded and its person-centred approach. The role, skills, competencies, and training requirements for non-religious pastoral carers are described. Institutions need to consider their policy responses to the rapid development of non-religious pastoral care provision. A number of policy aspects are explored, including understanding service users’ needs, recruitment, and communications. This book is essential reading for non-religious pastoral carers and those thinking of entering this field. Chaplains and institutional managers responsible for chaplaincy or spiritual care departments will find this book gives them valuable insights into the positive contribution non-religious pastoral carers can make in building stronger, more inclusive pastoral, spiritual, and religious care services.

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.

Trends and skills for those who offer pastoral care Christian pastoral care has changed a great deal in the past few decades in response to many factors in our rapidly changing world. In part 1 of Nurturing Hope, Lynne Baab discusses seven trends in pastoral care--shifts in who delivers pastoral care, the attitudes and commitments that undergird pastoral care, and societal trends that are shaping pastoral care today. She illustrates them with stories from diverse congregations where Christian caregivers are meeting those challenges in creative and exciting ways. In the second half of the book, Baab presents four practical, doable, energizing skills needed by pastoral carers in our time. Focusing on skills that help carers nurture connections between everyday life and Christian faith, she explores the need for carers to understand common stressors, listen, pray with others, and nurture their personal resilience. Grounded in an understanding of God as the true caregiver and healer, the author offers tips for readers who are training other pastoral carers or developing their own understanding and skills. Each chapter ends with discussion and reflection questions, making the book helpful for groups. Lynne Baab brings readers hope for their caring role and for their own spiritual journey.

"This introduction to ethical reflection traces the long developing alienation between psychology and religious ethics. It also offers a concrete model of practical moral thinking than can help to reverse that movement and restore pastoral care as the bridge between theological and the psychological disciplines. Students and practitioners in the psychological and social sciences can learn much here about their own implicit ethical concerns. Ministers and congregations will value theologically and psychodynamically integrated approach to care, counseling, and the maintenance of a meaningful world."--from back cover.

This open access volume is the first academic book on the controversial issue of including spiritual care in integrated electronic medical records (EMR). Based on an international study group comprising researchers from Europe (The Netherlands, Belgium and Switzerland), the United States, Canada, and Australia, this edited collection provides an overview of different charting practices and experiences in various countries and healthcare contexts. Encompassing case studies and analyses of theological, ethical, legal, healthcare policy, and practical issues, the volume is a groundbreaking reference for future discussion, research, and strategic planning for inter- or multi-faith healthcare chaplains and other spiritual care providers involved in the new field of documenting spiritual care in EMR. Topics explored among the chapters include: Spiritual Care Charting/Documenting/Recording/Assessment Charting Spiritual Care: Psychiatric and Psychotherapeutic Aspects Palliative Chaplain Spiritual Assessment Progress Notes Charting Spiritual Care: Ethical Perspectives Charting Spiritual Care in Digital Health: Analyses and Perspectives Charting Spiritual Care: The Emerging Role of Chaplaincy Records in Global Health Care is an essential resource for researchers in interprofessional spiritual care and healthcare chaplaincy, healthcare chaplains and other spiritual caregivers (nurses, physicians, psychologists, etc.), practical theologians and health ethicists, and church and denominational representatives.

Research shows that non-responsive patients benefit significantly from spiritual and pastoral care. This book equips chaplains with the confidence and skills to deliver excellent care in this challenging context. With exercises, worksheets, small group activities and case studies, it sets out how best to use words and body language, foster trust and respect, and involve patients' loved ones. It provides practical ways to recognise and affirm the humanity of the patient, and how to engage with the patient by employing skills of listening and presence.

The place of religion in society has changed profoundly in the last few centuries, particularly in the West. In what will be a defining book for our time, Taylor takes up the question of what these changes mean, and what, precisely, happens when a society becomes one in which faith is only one human possibility among others.

Respond to God's unfolding drama to bring healing and reconciliation. In this major revision of his classic book, Dr. Edward Wimberly updates his narrative methodology by examining current issues in African American pastoral care and counseling.

James Fowler's work as the originator of faith development research -- his use of the theories of Jean Piaget and Erik Erikson for theology -- has been widely acclaimed for its profound impact on the field of religious education, and for its promise for other fields.