Exploring the historical, social, political, economic, and ecological dynamics that shape who we are and how we relate to one another, Smith and Riedel-Pfaefflin uncover the many layers and complexities of race, gender, class, and violence that make change difficult to achieve and sustain, and discuss the significance of an intercultural sibling metaphor for the teaching and training of pastoral care and counseling. They incorporate art, myth, history, social sciences, and scripture to demonstrate how the concepts of intercultural realities, systemic thinking, and narrative agency help us to understand historical processes that still have an influence on today's problems of violence between cultures, races, gender, and religions. Smith and Riedel-Pfaefflin offer their own life experiences, enlightenment from theological giants, teaching tools, group exercises, and case studies to build more culturally competent counseling and teaching and to enhance personal and social transformation.

Teaching Our Story is based on the premise that as congregations become intentional story-forming communities, they can shape the lives of millions of generative, faithful, and civic-minded adults. To do so, a framework that relates narrative work to the full range of congregational life is needed. This book offers such a framework, featuring essays that examine crucial shapers of narrative, outline a course in preaching that addresses crucial questions for today's church leaders, illuminate the creative power of listening to the collective stories of a faith community, and observe what can happen when first-year seminary students are asked to become story brokers -- integrating the stories from their communities with biblical stories, their own personal stories, and the theological doctrines formed within the story of their tradition

Every single person occupies a point in the planet earth. Everyone belongs to a community of persons which starts with one’s family and roots. This book is set prove the fact as it is an enquiry into the life of a clan of which most of members have no clear knowledge of how they are related to one another; regular internal strife is the consequence. The book is made in three parts. The first and second parts trace the origin of the clan; through people’s names and events show how the people are connected to one another. Part three uses the discovery on the people’s experiences to educate the rest of us on the way forward in many issues of human life.

Exploring the historical, social, political, economic, and ecological dynamics that shape who we are and how we relate to one another, Smith and Riedel-Pfaefflin uncover the many layers and complexities of race, gender, class, and violence that make change difficult to achieve and sustain, and discuss the significance of an intercultural sibling metaphor for the teaching and training of pastoral care and counseling. They incorporate art, myth, history, social sciences, and scripture to demonstrate how the concepts of intercultural realities, systemic thinking, and narrative agency help us to understand historical processes that still have an influence on today's problems of violence between cultures, races, gender, and religions. Smith and Riedel-Pfaefflin offer their own life experiences, enlightenment from theological giants, teaching tools, group exercises, and case studies to build more culturally competent counseling and teaching and to enhance personal and social transformation.

Midwifing—A Womanist Approach to Pastoral Counseling: Investigating the Fractured Self, Slavery, Violence, and the Black Woman, is an investigation of intergenerational trauma. Exploring the impact of slavery, violence, racism, sexism, classism, and other isms on the self of the Black woman. This examination of the complexity of pain speaks to the multidimensional reality of some Black women and the necessity for a therapeutic technique that invites the fullness of the Black woman’s historical narrative. Dr. Thurmond-Malone’s work exposes hidden pain in a safe and sacred space that speaks to the deep-rooted anguish experienced through generations of Black women and invites her readers to understand the necessity for a rebirthing to occur. This work also empowers women of African descent to become unarmored through the naming, claiming, and reauthoring of their story, and empowers therapists to become midwives adept at empathizing with the intense pain carried by some Black women. Lastly, the book provides clinicians with insight into how to become midwives capable of holding the accounts of Black women while illustrating the author’s approach as a method of interdependence, communal, and cultural competency. Taking an analytical look at the counselee’s past then births hope for their future as a whole and transformative self.

Ulrike Elsd rfer has collected texts from the most diverse traditions that discuss relationships between psychology/psychotherapy and religion(s) in the context of care and counselling. A special dialogue on the encounter between psychology and religion in post-war Europe is presented by Jewish and Christian counsellors; various other religious accesses to care and counselling turn the spotlight on the emerging intercultural encounter in this field. Dr. phil. Ulrike Elsd rfer is a Protestant theologian and supervisor.

Living Our Story explores how good narrative work—the retrieval, construction, and performance of valued stories—takes place in ministry. Authors Larry A. Golemon, Lee Ramsey, N. Graham Standish, Tim Shapiro, Carol Johnson, Mike Mather, Niles Elliot Goldstein, and Diana Butler Bass examine this question from a variety of perspectives, including the role of the pastor or rabbi as narrative leader, the sacred and mundane stories that shape congregational life and identity, storytelling as a means of community building, and story sharing as a practice of hospitality. Through the stories they themselves tell, these authors show how stories witness to God's presence in the unfolding of human life, and how the best leaders craft stories that reveal how God is at work among the people and inspire them to become a part of this larger story.

Explore the concept of formation in pastoral counseling from a variety of perspectives Two dozen of the most prominent clinicians and scholars in the field reflect on The Formation of Pastoral Counselors from clinical, theological and theoretical perspectives. This unique book explores the challenges to the personal and professional formation of pastoral counselors in a cultural and historic context that’s radically different from the era when the profession first emerged as a specialized ministry. Contributors examine formation from a variety of contexts and perspectives, including spirituality and gender, address theological education and intercultural issues, and present emerging models for pastoral counselors. The Formation of Pastoral Counselors is a practical guide for educators working to shape curricula and training programs to the shifting context in which pastoral counselors are formed for ministry, service, and lifelong learning. This unique book examines ideas about appropriate content and processes for the formation of pastoral care professionals and looks at specialized contextual training models that form their emerging identities. The book’s contributors call on extensive experience in pastoral theology, care, and counseling to explore the essential components of formation across different contexts; how those contextual realities change the delivery systems; the epistemological nature of formation; reasons for the limited roles that formal theological education and spiritual experience seem to play at the moment; and why formation is rarely formally addressed in pastoral counseling training. Topics discussed in The Formation of Pastoral Counselors include: the turn to formation the goals of theological education core elements of pastoral theology developing spiritual practices diversity pastoral counseling training programs race and ethnicity in the formation of pastoral counselors cultural identity intercultural contexts practical relevancy in training gender identity and sexual orientation economic disparity Models and practices examined in The Formation of Pastoral Counselors include: parallel charting clinician narratives group supervision Benedictine spirituality academic and clinical training at the Claremont School of Theology the model of formation at the Virginia Institute of Pastoral Care (VIPCare) and much more The Formation of Pastoral Counselors is an essential guide for pastoral counselors, faculty in pastoral theological care and counseling, and training directors in pastoral counseling centers.

Studies in neuroscience demonstrate that a focus on mindfulness meditation and contemplative spiritual practice has the capacity to increase our non-anxious awareness and significantly lower our stress. Not only is this finding of immediate importance for pastoral counselors and psychotherapists, it will even necessitate a paradigm shift in the way that pastoral and spiritual practitioners approach the general care of souls. The starting point for such a paradigm shift is an acknowledgement of the built-in negativity bias of the brain, and how certain beliefs and theological views may inadvertently reinforce the bias to the detriment of individuals and faith communities. Once necessary for human survival, the ingrained bias can often be excessive for today’s world, resulting in negatively disproportionate assessments of life events and human relationships. To balance the neural predisposition toward negativity and anxious awareness, it is necessary for pastoral and spiritual caregivers, and those in their care, to cultivate a regular contemplative-meditational practice. The Power of Neuroplasticity for Pastoral and Spiritual Care focuses on the groundbreaking finding of contemporary neuroscience—that the brain is built for change across the entire lifespan. It is designed to make the research accessible to and relevant for those engaged in the work of pastoral and spiritual care in order to help clients and congregants effect lasting and transformative changes in the mind and brain. Through the regular practice of contemplative prayer and meditation, we can literally calm the stress region of the brain in order to live less anxiously and experience more fully the peace and joy of the present moment. The introduction of mindfulness- and acceptance-based counseling approaches will provide pastoral and spiritual practitioners with an important therapeutic framework to situate their work, from which they can make more informed and effective interventions geared toward using the mind to change the brain.

The industrial era organizations used dualistic leadership theory, which regarded followers as objects of leaders’ influence to socialize them into passive followership irrespective of context and outcome. Consequently, organizations focused on leadership and condemned active followership as a toxic behavior that sabotages organizational processes and outcomes. However, the emergence of relational leadership theory in the information era flattened organizational structure, which created a greater need for collaboration within and across sectors. In this new era, organizations cannot survive without responsible individuals who could be productive as both leaders and followers. As a result, organizations are experiencing high demand for active followership throughout organizational ranks, roles, and relationships. Nonetheless, since followership studies are still in their infancy, there is hardly any information on how followers develop and enact active followership. Whereas some studies established followership identity, role, and behaviors, and identified factors influencing their development, none has explored how they do so. This study offers a theory of followership development and enactment anchored in a seamless paradigm that can be used to expand leadership theory beyond dualistic tendencies that absolutized the differences among leadership variables despite their seamlessness. Therefore, it enhances organizational desire and capacity to develop and engage star followers effectively.