Renewing Pastoral Practice: Trinitarian Perspectives on Pastoral Care and Counselling

by Neil Pembroke, Jeff Astley, Leslie J Francis, Martyn Percy, Nicola Slee

Overview

This is the first comprehensive treatment of the relationship between the doctrine of the Trinity and pastoral care and counseling. Neil Pembroke contends that an in-depth reflection on the relational dynamics in the Godhead has the capacity to radically renew pastoral practice. Pembroke applies the notion of relational space to care in a parish setting. The life of the triune God is defined by both closeness and open space. Pembroke shows how this Trinitarian virtue is at the center of three key counseling dynamics: the counseling alliance, empathy, and mirroring.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781409477075
Publisher:	Ashgate Publishing Ltd
Publication date:	05/28/2013
Series:	Explorations in Practical, Pastoral and Empirical Theology
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Neil Pembroke teaches in the religion and psychology area at the University of Queensland, Australia. Prior to this he lectured in pastoral care and counselling at the Adelaide College of Divinity and the School of Theology, Flinders University. Over the past five years he has delivered papers at a number of conferences on topics such as the moral context of pastoral counselling, personal presence in spiritual direction, and the metaphor of hospitality in counselling and in Christian community. Prior to his academic career, he was engaged in parish ministry for eight years. Books published include Working Relationships: Spirituality in Human Service and Organisational Life, The Art of Listening: Dialogue, Shame, and Pastoral Care.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Setting the Scene: The renewal of the doctrine of the Trinity: relationality and triune 'marks'
Part I Trinity and the General Ministry of Care: Managing Relational Space: Pastoral care as polyphony
Hospitality in pastoral ministry
Community and spiritual friendship. Part II Trinity and Pastoral Counselling: Participation in Love: Building the counselling alliance
Empathy, communion, and identity
Mirroring as an act of love
Concluding with Theodicy: The Trinity and suffering
Bibliography
Index.

Editorial Reviews

’Standing between being caught up in the vision of God and being aware of human dynamics is one of the most important places to be, and no reader can fail to be stimulated by these reflections from that meeting place.’ Crucible ’Neil Pembroke has courageously done what many of us in the field of pastoral theology have not dared and that is to seriously engage with that most elusive of doctrines, the Trinity, and its implications for the theory and practice of the ministry of care. Moreover, he has succeeded in doing this in a most creative and grounded way, informed by his and others’ reflective pastoral practice. Pembroke’s undoubted flair for developing creative descriptions of the concepts at the heart of his Trinitarian pastoral theology enables him to fulfil his book’s main aim. This was not just to show that the doctrine of the Trinity has relevance for pastoral care and counselling, but to reveal how engagement with Trinitarian theology 'has the capacity to renew our vision of the ministry of care.'’ Journal of Practical Theology

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