Spiritual Care Basics and Beyond: What Do I Say? What Should I Do? Interpersonal Tools and Resources for Spiritual Care

Joel Hempel

feb 2023 · Wipf and Stock Publishers

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This book is a practical guide for any lay or professional minister or seminarian who wants to become more competent in providing spiritual (pastoral) care within a congregation or institutional setting. Through the use of personal stories, spiritual care theory, Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) methodology, and his experience as an educator and practitioner, Joel Hempel offers concrete ways to be helpful to those we serve. The book is rich in empowerment, grace, and encouragement, with a hefty dose of challenge. It will provide practical advice on how to handle real-life problems that a spiritual caregiver will encounter. The reader will also be invited to identify his or her healed and unhealed psychological and emotional wounds that impact ministry, and to clarify their living faith, which undergirds spiritual care. Spiritual Care Basics and Beyond also addresses important questions such as: What is spiritual care, and who needs it? How does a minister assess what the other person needs? What do you do when you get in over your head or mess up? What about sensitive subjects such as confrontation and boundaries? And the most important question: How do you grow in trusting the guidance of the Holy Spirit?

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Joel Hempel has an MA in pastoral counseling from the Athenaeum of Ohio and an MDiv from Concordia Theological Seminary. He is an emeritus ACPE educator and certified pastoral counselor with the American Association of Pastoral Counselors. Previously a pastor in the LCMS, Hempel now serves as a writer, teacher, and director of deacons in his home congregation. He has been married to Marcia for five and a half decades, and together they have two sons, a daughter-in-law, and three grandchildren.