The practice of pastoral care (cura animarum) over the ages has been informed and influenced by the need to develop creative ways (interventions) to respond to people’s contextual challenges. These ...approaches have been well documented. However, the history, developments and emerging pastoral care practices in Africa have not been documented. This article, by way of a survey, considers the pastoral care approaches that emerged in Africa from the period when Christianity was introduced to the continent. It addresses three interlinked questions. Firstly, to what extent has pastoral care approaches and practices in Africa been influenced by the African context and developments? Secondly, to what extent has the context and the emerging pastoral care approaches in Africa been discerned from historical developments and documented? Thirdly, what links can be drawn between pastoral care practices in Africa and its historical as well as cultural context? In answering these questions, the article retrieves pastoral care developments in Africa by discerning pastoral care during the periods of Christianity in Africa. The notion of cura animarum as ‘soul care’, referring to care for the whole person (holistic care, i.e., nephesh care) from a Christian spiritual perspective, will be employed as a framework. The assumption guiding the article is that pastoral care practices and approaches in Africa have arisen as responses to the contextual realities being experienced at the interface of Christianity and the African people. These realities arose and persist to this day as a struggle to relate, apply and live out an authentic African Christian life to cope with life in a meaningful way. It concludes by suggesting ways on how pastoral care in Africa should be practiced in the current period and going forward.
Pastoral care is an intervention that relies on good and quality relationships between the caregiver and the cared individual, if effective and positive outcomes are to be realised. With increased ...intermixing of people due to migration, globalisation and other technological advances, caregivers find themselves in complex and awkward situations when attempting to ‘care for other’ persons from different cultural contexts. This challenge presents opportunities for developing and strengthening innovative care. On the other hand, the challenge poses a threat of worsening the situation or failure to positively alter it. Within this context, the critical humane factor of “being with the other person”, enshrined in African humane thinking, as indicated by the notion of Ubuntu, provides a lens of “doing” care across cultures. Care, humaneness and being with the other people are notions that bind humanity universally and yet their expression differs across cultures. This article proposes a framework for positioning pastoral caregiving within a global context as well as suggests guidelines on how global pastoral care utilising the notion of ‘being with the other’ in global context can be done. Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: The article explores the notion of pastoral care from the perspective of care within the global context of pastoral ministry. It draws from the African concept of Ubuntu to develop a care approach that is humane and relational in an effort to foster relevant care across different contexts. The study has direct implications for practical theology particularly pastoral care within cross cultural missions and anthropology.
The relationship between secularity and religion/religiosity is a main topic of practical theology and ecclesiastical pastoral care. However, several research papers on religious studies show that ...the thesis that with disappearing institutionalized religiosity, plural and differentiated forms of religiosity increase is not convincing. In fact, the development shows that where people do not experience religion, it becomes irrelevant to them. This fact is an urgent question for the Church: With and from which basic attitude can and will she be able to encounter religious and secular people in such ways that the Christian gospel of human emancipation and redemption can become a reality in their lives? The Church can realize such a fundamental attitude in reference to the biblical Exodus and by generating a pastoral exodus.
Staff-Care by Chaplains during COVID-19 Tata, Beba; Nuzum, Daniel; Murphy, Karen ...
The journal of pastoral care & counseling,
04/2021, Letnik:
75, Številka:
1_suppl
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
The aim of this study was to understand how chaplains delivered spiritual care to staff during the Covid-19 pandemic. The researchers analyzed data collected from an International Survey of Chaplain ...Activity and Experience during Covid-19 (N = 1657). The findings revealed positive changes that emerged and new practices evolved around the use of technology as useful tools for maintaining contact with staff.
The period of the first COVID-19 total lockdown in Italy and in the world offered a very interesting context to evaluate the use of Mobile Information and Communication Technologies (MICTs) by ...Catholic shrines for their pastoral care. This research was carried out through a survey and interviews with leaders (rectors) of sanctuaries of Lazio, the region of Italy where Rome is placed. The sample chosen evaluates which initiatives the rectors of these sanctuaries have undertaken to keep in touch with the faithful and other constituencies during the first pandemic lockdown. As in the case of telework, which allowed working at a distance, we focus our attention on the way those shrines maintained contact with people using digital technology. While according to the Catholic Church, there are elements of faith in which the physical presence is mandatory (e.g.: for the validity of a sacrament), that does not exclude the many pastoral activities which can be done online, as some Catholic shrines managed to do. Besides offering relevant case studies on the integration of ICTs within the Catholic Church during Covid19, this research could inspire further reflections about the place of ICTs in the Church pastoral.
In late 2019, a new coronavirus emerged and began to spread globally, causing a once in a lifetime pandemic. Personalizing the Pandemic offers a snapshot of how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted the ...professional and personal lives of theological and religious studies librarians, especially as they balanced meeting patron needs and institutional expectations while caring for themselves and their communities. It seeks to personalize the disruptive, chaotic, and tragic event we lived through while offering a record of this professional community’s experience for generations of librarians to come.
A large metropolitan hospital in the southeastern United States implemented the Grant Riverside Staffing Process (GRASP) in its pastoral care department. This staffing recommendation model provides a ...practical approach to inpatient unit assessment and may assist in providing chaplains with evidence to demonstrate staffing needs. However, more research must be done to understand how methodological approaches might curtail its limitations and provide a model for generalized use in different contexts.
Millions of children are at risk in Ethiopia due to child trafficking, forced migration, illegal adoption, harmful traditional practices, vulnerability, orphanhood, and rape. These risks can only be ...understood adequately as part of the larger social, economic, political, traditional, spiritual, religious, sexual, patriarchal, and cultural web. National and international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and the Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus (EECMY) are trying to provide holistic care for at-risk children. However, neither the church nor the NGOs are succeeding in this. The church's program is mostly spiritual and educational, and the NGOs are developmental and social in focus. This paper uses insights from pastoral theology, scripture, and social science to show the way to provide holistic ministry for at-risk children in Ethiopia. The new model of pastoral care in the living web for at-risk children in Ethiopia derives from Bonnie Miller-McLemore's metaphor of pastoral care in the living human web and Gudina Tumsa and the EECMY's holistic ministry and theology. Pastoral care in the living web for at-risk children will be resistant, nurturing, empowering, and liberating to provide holistic development and care for at-risk children in Ethiopia.
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