Book Updates in Missions & Pastoral Care

On By missionmusingsIn Uncategorized

I’ve been working on books again after being a bit…. lackadaisical. Here are the updates on the two books I am working on.  (My other books can be found in My Books tab above.

Dialogue in Diversity:  Christians in Conversation with a Pluralistic World.  ‘

I have been SLOWLY working on this for a few years, but as of only two months ago, I had only about 30 pages done. The title is related to my previous missions book “Ministry in Diversity.” However, the first book is about cultural anthropology and this one is on interreligious (or interfaith if you prefer) dialogue, so the connection is only modest. Now I am over 90 pages. I really should be further along than that since I will be teaching the course starting on October 9. However, my goal right now is to have over 100 pages done, and then give electronic copies for my students to use… and critique. Based on the results of the course, I hope to publish by May 2009.  The folloowing are the chapters (as I have them now):

  1. What is Dialogue
  2.  Interreligious Interaction in the Old Testament
  3.  Religious Interaction in the Early Church Era
  4.  Dialogue in the 20th Century
  5.  Models of IRD
  6.  Relativism, Syncretism, and Doubt
  7.  Respect and Mutuality
  8.  Relationships Between Religions and God
  9.  Views that Christians Have Regarding Other Religions
  10.  Rules of Dialogue
  11.  IRD and Evangelism?

There may be one or two more chapters eventually. Time will tell.

Dynamics in Pastoral Care. 

I feel like we have been working on this book forever. My wife and I wrote The Art of Pastoral Care years years ago and started on Dynamics even before the first was published. The two are meant to complement each other, and is used especially for our Clinical Pastoral Education trainees. It is over 100 pages so far, but I have to think it will take longer than my previous book to finish. The reason is that there is a couple of chapters of this book that we really need to research more. Hopefully, however, it will be ready (at least electronic copy) or our CPE trainees starting in March. The chapters are grouped into three sections.  Integrated Principles (ch 1-5), Spiritual Care Priniciples (ch 6-9), and Dynamic Systems (ch 10-15) . Prayerfully will be done by June 2019.

  1.  Pastoral Theology
  2.  Metaphors
  3.   Theological Reflection
  4.  Pastoral Identity
  5.   Culture and Pastoral Care
  6.   Spiritual History
  7.   Pastoral Diagnosis/Spiritual Assessment
  8.   Spiritual Direction
  9.   Religious Symbols and Rituals
  10.   Ambivalence
  11.   Family Systems
  12.   Pastoral Care in Life Stages
  13.   Group Dynamics
  14.   Group Work Process and Case Study
  15.   Supervisory Relationship


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