Author Biography: John David Connolly is an ordained minister of word and sacrament in the ELCA and a retired chaplain from the US Navy. As a chaplain, he served on various ship and shore assignments including Naval Hospitals. He is married to Emma, and they have one daughter, Maggie.
Description
Introduction
A brief introduction advocates for an understanding that pastoral caregivers can access a common liturgy, independent of Christian tradition, in our provision of pastoral care and advocates for practitioners to attune themselves toward it. Such a shift moves practitioners beyond the function of pastoral care as visiting with care receivers to one of worshipping with Gods people. The introduction also gives an overview of each chapter, which include best practices to consider for each element of a liturgy of pastoral care.
Chapter One: Pastoral Care as a Worshipful Experience
This chapter sets a foundation for a common understanding and definitions of pastoral care, liturgy, and worship. It defines liturgy as broadly as possible, allowing practitioners from non-liturgical traditions to realize the patterns inherent in their worship as a liturgy. Each definition draws on themes or concepts from Catholic priest Henri Nouwen, Anglican priest Tish Harrison Warren, and those from other traditions. Exploring these various definitions sets the foundation to see the liturgy emerging in their pastoral care. The provider will be pushed to experience the worship they facilitate, much as Howard Vanderwell, renowned for his work with the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship, expressed how he experienced change through the liturgy.
Chapter Two: The Gathering
This chapter examines the gathering aspects within a liturgy of pastoral care, encouraging both caregiver and recipient to see this initial greeting as the opening of a time of worship - even in a hospital room, office, or prison. Foundationally, the church gathers to proclaim the story of faith and support one another in struggles. In that light, this chapter expands on Vanderwells work, where he considers the care that a person receives by gathering in congregational worship, to envision ways that the care-provider--and even the care receiver--invites one to enter into shared space with the goal of experiencing Gods presence among them.
Chapter Three: The Word
The word component of liturgy includes reading scripture and sharing Gods alongside the context of our lives. Pastoral care encounters include discussion, connecting the Holy with day-to-day lives. This chapter includes the fact that the word is also the shared story in the everyday life of joys and struggles of the pastoral care recipient, placed alongside the biblical story of hope by the care provider. Guidance to the pastoral care provider is drawn from Elaine Ramshaw, pastoral theologian and ELCA laywoman, and her work on the attentiveness to the needs of those receiving care. Possible approaches like Lectio Divina are also presented.
Chapter Four: The Meal
Ramshaw discusses way that ritual elements like the Eucharist could be in pastoral care settings. In this chapter, I stretch the conventional understanding of the meal portion of the liturgy and sacramental to begin seeing other components that caregivers may incorporate in the liturgy of their pastoral care that do not meet the strict definition of sacramental but could prove as meaningful in the pastoral care encounter. Such elements could be the Eucharist, but they could also be baptism, anointing, laying on of hands, etc.
Chapter Five: The Sending
Tyler C. Arnold and Ross Johnson, LCMS leaders of pastoral care, both emphasize the importance of benediction in pastoral care. This chapter shares that philosophy, arguing for the provider to offer greater intentionality in structuring the sending element of the pastoral care encounter. How Gods people part ways in sending is as important as how they gather. Concluding pastoral care encounters with a sending is equally important to help acknowledge that the care giver and care seeker have worshipped together and are now being sent out renewed and refreshed. As with congregational worship, the sending functions as a benediction for shared ministry.