This, below, is a liturgy which took its reference point liturgically from the Act of Remembrance of 11 November. It aims to give expression to recognising and lamenting the extinction of species on 30 November each year –Lost Species Day. It’s written as a spiritually non-specific act so God is implied but not explicitly mentioned. I […]
pastoralia
materials relating to learning about pastoral care
A questionnaire on social prayer
What happened and and How During March and April 2015, I Tweeted to likely accounts (like @C_of_E, @247Prayer and other church related organisations national and local) and then invited, by personal message, known Christian contacts related to my Facebook account. These were invitations to go to a survey hosted on Qualtrics.com where 14 questions were […]
Mindfulness meditation -shorter training may help de-stress
I’ve been mulling over the reporting by attenders at mindfulness sessions that I run of a sense of calm even after a half hour session. And while I’ve been relating that the studies tend to show benefits over time, nevertheless it is clear that there are reported benefits even for one-off or irregular practice. So […]
Cracking the Binary Code: homophile relationships and Evangelical consciences
A freely available article from Anvil journal offering an evangelical affirmation of homophile relationships when exclusive life-long intention is present. Abstract: This paper offers a critique of the ‘binary’ nature of much biblical interpretation and ethical belief in the Church, rejecting simplistic ‘either-or’ approaches to both. Instead there is offered an interpretation of key biblical […]
Why Ministerial Reflection
Helpful reminder of why we should make time and effort to do theological reflection on ministerial practice. ministerial reflection is the crucial key to all of the work of ministry. For only through careful consideration can you put together pieces that otherwise seem disjointed, irrelevant, or confusing. Reflection enables you to weave the integrative thread […]
Conflict as friend rather than foe
I found Joyce Huggett’s book “Conflict, friend or foe” helpful because it helps the reader realise that conflict is inevitable and can be positive if handled aright in the right circumstances. This article goes over some of that briefly. What is helpful is the summary of the implications for church leaders. First, leaders need to […]
Starting in a new church
The Alban institute are pretty helpful in resourcing practical theology: they produce a range of books that are focussed on ministerial issues and which are mostly helpful and insightful as well as theologically well-grounded. Part of the offshoot of that is articles relating to books which are short and helpful in themselves. This is one […]
Simplicity lies on the other side of complexity
When I saw this, the ‘maps’ of systems reminded me of the kinds of things that mighht be poduced as a rich picture, mapping a situation for theological reflection. Sometimes, in duscussion our theological reflections can feel like they get mired in detail and ‘not seeing the wood for the trees’. The hope held out […]
People are Resources
A very common problem in human thinking is to objectify things and forget that we or other people are subjects as well as objects. We forget, for instance, that we are part of the environment; it isn’t just out there; it is us too. The pastoral equivalent is to think of congregants as recipients of […]
What to Keep, What to Cut
It’s very unlikely that church leaders will never have to deal with this kind of dilemma at some point; having to make cutbacks in a budget. And it’s definitely not like cutting budgets in more commercial organisations; for reasons that are made clear in this section of the article: Some, including me, argued that reducing […]