What are believers to do when belief and lived experience collide? Must the experience of suffering be hidden or pushed aside in favor of only “positive” expressions of praise during corporate worship? Focusing on the premise that “worship is not pain denial,” this book seeks to reveal the dearth of soul care within modern corporate worship, and the multidisciplinary approach needed to build and implement a more thorough approach that calls and enables believers to weep with those who weep, to bear one another’s burdens, and continue Christ’s ministry of reconciliation.

The Iraq War caused emotional, physical, psychiatric, relational, and spiritual challenges to an untold number of military reservists and their families. This book takes you through the war's critical stages of pre-deployment, deployment, and post-deployment. Reservists' families, usually living far from military bases with professional staffing, are often among the most affected wounded of the Iraq War. Injured reservists often return home to discover that civilian medical resources are insufficient and civic organizations unequipped to help manage the range of combat-related wounds and psychiatric trauma, especially post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury. The lack of needed services causes alienation between reservists and their families in relation to the civilian communities in which they live. Using a practical theological method, this book analyzes the various impacts of the Iraq War and recommends a soul care approach for chaplains and pastors to use in support of reservists and their families suffering from their experiences of the Iraq War, and to guide any persons interested in participating in such support.

A critical resource for anyone who wants to help women with the pressures, frustrations, and trauma they face Women today often have sources of tremendous pain in their lives such as infertility, divorce, domestic violence, eating disorders, and more. Yet, most leaders are not prepared to help women who have real pain from such traumatizing issues. If you want to be better equipped to help women in pain, this book was written for you. Designed to give leaders and care givers greater understanding and insights, Shepherding Women in Pain is a compilation from contributors who have expertise and experience on the given issue. Learn about domestic violence from expert Stacey Womack, founder and executive director of Abuse Recovery Ministry & Services; or learn how to help women who struggle with eating disorders from Kimberley Davidson, founder of Olive Branch Outreach. The reader will be provided concise, practical, and grace-infused information designed to help women deal constructively with the trauma of their life experiences. This book will serve as a key resource--to read and re-read often--for those who serve women in pain. A remarkable blend of expertise and empathy, Shepherding Women in Pain is a perfect resource for pastors, church staff, and women’s ministry leaders alike who want to help women in pain experience Jesus, joy, and wholeness again.

Textbook of Palliative Medicine provides an alternative, truly international approach to this rapidly growing specialty. This textbook fills a niche with its evidence-based, multi-professional approach and global perspective ensured by the international team of editors and contributing authors. In the absence of an international curriculum for the study of palliative medicine, this textbook provides essential guidance for those both embarking upon a career in palliative medicine or already established in the field, and the structure and content have been constructed very much with this in mind. With an emphasis on providing a service anywhere in the world, including the important issue of palliative care in the developing nations, Textbook of Palliative Medicine offers a genuine alternative to the narrative approach of its competitors, and is an ideal complement to them. It is essential reading for all palliative care physicians in training and in practice, as well as palliative care nurses and other health professionals in the palliative care team

Apart from the work of God in creation, it’s notoriously difficult to explain the presence of beauty in the world and man’s appreciation for it. Indeed, the aesthetic realm (with its array of phenomena which engage the senses, the mind, and the heart) not only suits the biblical account of the universe, but also points toward it. In making this case, sixteen writers address the shortcomings of naturalistic narratives, the virtues of theistic accounts (particularly those grounded in Christ), and the manner in which the various arts resonate with Scripture. Along the way, readers will encounter the peacock’s tail and Farnsworth House; a Schubert piano sonata and “chopsticks”; Kintsugi and Kitsch; Hugh of St. Victor and Hans Urs von Balthasar; Kandinsky and Eisenstein; the Lydian and Phrygian modes; eucatastrophe and liminal space; McDonald’s and Don Quixote; Sméagol and the Blobfish; Stockhausen and Begbie; Adorno and Kinkade; Mount Auburn Cemetery and Narnia; Fujimura and Schopenhauer.

Jesus made claims about redemptive community throughout his ministry when he called people to extravagant grace. Even in the midst of the oppression of his day, Jesus preached and taught that redemptive community was possible if his followers would simply stop hoarding, hiding, and excluding. What a prophetic word for today in the midst of modern day oppression and fears of scarcity! In this edited volume, in honor of religious education scholars Jack Seymour and Margaret Ann Crain, eight of their PhD advisees--each scholars in their own right--join Seymour and Crain to lay out their vision of redemptive community. Rooted in their own scholarship, each contributor proposes ways in which Jesus' vision of redemptive community can become reality in churches and congregations, and in our larger world. In addition to essays by Jack Seymour and Margaret Ann Crain, scholars contributing to this volume include Dori Grinenko Baker, Reginald Blount, Evelyn L. Parker, Mai-Anh Le Tran, Leah Gunning Francis, Carmichael Crutchfield, Debora B.A. Junker, and Denise Janssen. The foreword by Mary Elizabeth Moore and afterword by Seymour and Crain set the volume in the larger context of the church and academy.

Enables individuals to find a deeper sense of self by nurturing their souls, focusing on relationships, spiritual and personal growth, healing, and living out God's purpose for their lives. Original.

First book addressing the concerns and issues of people of color in spiritual direction “These essays speak of how we have incorporated our contemplative practices into our family life; our urban, non-religious background; how we have been nurtured in struggles for health and life through our contemplative prayer practices and our courage to survive and even thrive in the midst of dire circumstances. We speak of the unfolding bridge between faith and culture; our conflicts with an Interspiritual journey with a Christian foundation; our sexuality; our journey to healing and authenticity; and how we are taking this practice that began in the first centuries of the church with the desert mothers and fathers to the present and into the future with spiritual direction through the Internet across the world.” —from the Introduction