Counseling Bundle, S (9 vols.)

Based on her 20 years of teaching and on her own experience in pastoral care, Jeanne Stevenson-Moessner has written a basic pastoral-care text to assist in the emotional and spiritual preparation of pastoral caregivers.

Stevenson-Moessner sees pastoral care as the interconnection and interplay of the love of God, the love of neighbor, and the love of self. Her brief book engenders confidence and caring from the outset, and assuages the fear and anxiety that naturally occur when one accompanies people in life-changing pain and travail. Through biblical parables—especially the Good Samaritan and the Good Shepherd—and stories from her own experience, Stevenson-Moessner imparts genuine wisdom and meaningful support to those who courageously dare to offer caregiving ministry in whatever situation or through whatever method or paradigm.

Clergy, students of pastoral care, and lay visitation volunteers will find Nancy Gorsuch an effective guide in developing an intentional, proactive program of pastoral visitation in the local church. To increase the pastoral visitor’s positive experiences of effectiveness, the author presents basic how-to information in a straightforward manner characterized by vivid illustrations and case studies. The book provides a theological basis for pastoral visitation and goes on to explore the types and purposes of visitation, preparation and resources, training and basic helping skills, assessment and follow-up, and methods of sustaining pastoral visitation as a means of building a caring community of faith.

Deeply rooted in the traditions of the church, Charles Taylor brings both the resources of faith and the skills of contemporary psychology to bear in the crucial arena of premarital guidance. Taylor also provides helpful guidelines for churches in establishing congregational policies for both premarital counseling and the design of the wedding service itself. An ideal resource for clergy, premarital counselors, and congregational wedding committees, Premarital Guidance provides the theological and practical knowledge and skills necessary for guiding those seeking marriage in the church.

More than half of mainline Protestants are over the age of 60. Older adults have special needs to which many pastors are not adequately prepared to minister. Pastoral Care of Older Adults addresses such problems, many of which were identified in an extensive survey of clergy. The book provides practical guidance for parish pastors, and other counselors, to deal with such issues as Alzheimer’s disease, the chronically ill, relocation, health crises, grief, depression, anxiety, gender differences, poverty, and the issues faced by the children of older adults.

This book is an introduction to the worlds, lives, and struggles of diverse kinds and communities of girls that ministers and youth leaders are likely to encounter in the church. Issues such as spirituality, family relationships, sexuality, and school are explored from a cultural and contextual perspective. Problems typically associated with girls are explained, such as eating disorders, depression, and violence against girls. Pastoral care approaches to these issues and problems are provided. These helpful suggestions take seriously girls' spirituality and social context.

This book was written as a practical response to many ministers who approached the author after they did not know what to say to a woman suffering violence from her abusive husband. The focus and audience is the Christian community, and the particular issues that are raised in a Christian context. Although a pastor in a congregational setting is used in most examples, the recommendations can be helpful to hospital and college chaplains, deacons, and youth chaplains as well as pastoral counselors.

Counseling Men opens the way for men to discuss and discover their fears and losses in conversation with clergy, pastoral counselors, and lay caregivers.

What the Bible Says About . . . Suffering was written to prepare its readers to understand and conquer suffering personally; and to learn how to counsel others who are not prepared.

This useful volume is a logical presentation of the subject which allows an individual to understand why, how, and even the benefits of suffering. It offers a systematic theology grounded in scripture that can be utilized in place of psychological programs currently being used for counseling. The subject of suffering is handled solely from the Biblical viewpoint; there has been no attempt to modify God’s Word to make it compatible with human philosophies, psychology, sociology, religious views or public opinion.

Fugate intends that his book will bring suffering unbelievers to the Great Physician and that it will reveal the false doctrines that enslave thousands of believers today. Beyond the issues of salvation, What the Bible Says About . . . Suffering shows how suffering works in a believer’s becoming spiritually mature in his Christian walk. This is a Bible study for pastors, counselors, teachers, and serious students of God’s Word.

What the Bible Says About . . . Suffering does not shy away from questions such as: What about catastrophes that kill and injure hundreds of people indiscriminately? or How about the suffering of the innocent, like babies and good people? or If Christians suffer, isn’t it because of their sin? Fugate answers these and many other similar questions so that you might understand your own suffering and the suffering of those around you.

This unique book-length bibliography enables the reader to bring known Biblical counselors into the home via book, audio cassette, video cassette, and the World Wide Web. Painstakingly researched over a 15-year period, it is a gold mine of Biblical wisdom. The 5,700 titles by 2,300 authors include little known and hard to find books, for example, 273 Reformed classics. The breadth of the collection evidences the interrelationship of absolute truth, life, moral behavior, the law, freedom, obedience, social stability, and the positive sanctions of God. Therefore, it is a strong apologetic for the Biblical Christianity of our forefathers, that aimed to be true to Christ.

In this volume, David K. Switzer presents a clear, illustrative and practical manual for pastoral caregivers which covers the entire range of pastoral care emergencies typically faced by clergy, pastoral counselors, and lay caregivers. The chapters deal with issues such as situational crises, hospital emergencies, ministry to the dying, bereavement, suicide, divorce, domestic violence, substance abuse, and psychiatric emergencies. The question of when and how to refer is discussed in the final chapter. This book is highly practical in approach, but still extremely sensitive to the theological issues at hand in ministering to those experiencing great emotional, mental, and physical distress.

When a religious caregiver visits a person who is suffering and dying or who is grieving a tragic death, questions arise concerning faith in God’s goodness and power. This book deals with the pastor’s preparation to deal with personal and cosmic issues of suffering and justice. Zurheide includes suggestions for conducting conversations with the dying.

In this book written for counselors and pastors, Wayne Oates shares ideas from a lifetime of ministry on how to help people who have suffered loss—not only to death, but also to such life situations as separation, divorce, and job loss.

This book represents a significant departure from most contemporary writing about spiritual direction. While most writers focus on long-term relationships of guidance, specifically envisioning long listening sessions, Bidwell changes focus. Spiritual direction, he insists, typically requires intervention in a specific crisis or situation or question, is not formal, lasts fewer than five sessions, and must be actively and intentionally focused on the person’s growth. Bidwell’s work shows what spiritual directors can learn from the short-term therapy model, especially about enabling people briefly but effectively to “learn to listen on their own and with others for God’s presence.” Focusing on how God is already active in the directee’s life allows the participants to identify God’s action and respond in ways that collaborate with that identified movement of the Spirit.

Adultery, divorce, racism, teen pregnancy, white-collar crime, living wills—these are among the many complex moral issues that Christians face and for which they often seek guidance from their pastors. This book is designed to assist pastors in developing their skills in providing moral guidance to their parishioners in a culture characterized by both ethical confusion and increasingly complex moral choices. Rebekah Miles, a gifted thinker and writer, guides the reader through the landscape of the moral life and offers a simple but profound map of the moral terrain along with practical tools to enable pastoral caregivers to serve more effectively as moral guides.

Ministers—both clergy and lay—are often the first recourse for people in crisis, and people expect them to navigate through emergency, tragedy, disaster, loss. Often these persons are paralyzed and they expect help to get in motion again.

Crisis Counseling is written for persons who seek to provide such assistance, whether as ministers or hotline volunteers or pastoral counselors. Here, Howard W. Stone unites the historic skills of pastoral care and counseling with the recent methods of crisis intervention from the fields of psychology and psychotherapy. The insights of marriage and family systems also have been incorporated into this book, even though crisis intervention arose out of individual psychotherapeutic theory and practice.

This thoroughly revised book includes new material on suicide, working with the family of Alzheimer patients, crisis counseling by telephone, intervention in volatile or hazardous situations, and the minister’s personal safety.

This book is a biblical study on how to establish and maintain a happy and successful marriage. Understanding and practicing the principles in this book will strengthen the fabric of your marriage relationship.

Based on first-hand experience, Ray Comfort offers practical principles to help others overcome panic attacks. Ray shares how he was able to conquer paralyzing, irrational fear, overcome despair, restore peace, joy, and confidence and live fully again. He is confident that, if you suffer from panic attacks, his discovery of the scriptural way out of them will work for you.

God in Everyday Life speaks to people with whom we live and minister today. This expositional commentary on the book of Ruth is a joint effort between Brad Brandt and Rick Kress, whose pastoral experience and deep appreciation for the words of Scripture make this commentary well-suited for both biblical study and pastoral ministry.

This book is an attempt to combine the various elements and styles of different types of study aids into one resource in order to facilitate the biblical exposition and application of the book of Ruth. This volume is not a detailed exegetical work, but rather an expositional commentary, an expository sermon, and a collection of tools to help apply the biblical text.

Pastoral counselors, therapists-in-training and clergy are usually introduced to one method of family assessment and treatment, which works better in some situations than in others.

Integrative Family Therapy introduces the major schools of family therapy, proposes a tested model that integrates the various approaches, and illustrates how this model functions both for assessing and treating family problems.

Seven central concepts are discerned as a way of understanding the various family therapies as a group. Then the major family therapy theories are discussed, including cognitive, family life cycle-developmental, interactional-communication, multigenerational, object relations, problem solving and structural family. After examine their deep structures, an integrated model of six discrete moments is presented and illustrated.

This book demonstrates how counselors can help people to use the resources they already have so they can address issues that come up in life. The authors show that most people have within themselves the strengths and resources to confront the issues positively that trouble their lives. The counseling method elicits resiliency, assets, and successful experiences from the client’s past to foster positive change in the present. Case studies are included, drawn especially from marriage and family counseling.

In this volume, Ronald W. Richardson helps us to understand how congregations function emotionally. Without being simplistic, he gives clear directions on how to improve their quality of life together and function more effectively in achieving mission goals. This book offers:

• A theory about human behavior that will aid understanding of how things can get out of control in the human community of the church.
• Guidelines for how to behave in the midst of upsetting and conflict circumstances
• Personal steps that leaders in the church can take to become more positive forces for healing and cooperation.

Journal of Modern Ministry covers a wide spectrum of topics that are applicable to scholars, pastors, and anyone wishing to pursue good Christian living. Highly accessible to all, this journal contains practical information on all aspects of life, as well as a vast array of theological materials. Counseling, pastoral care, parenting, family life, book reviews, and medicine are just a few of the subjects covered in the 17 issues.

Founded by senior writer Dr. Jay Adams, the Journal of Modern Ministry was first published in May 2004 with two issues, and continued in 2006 with three issues planned each year. Kevin Backus is the General Editor, and the section editors include John Street, Robert J. Burrelli Jr., Lou Priolo, Bill Slattery, Steve Vogel M.D., Kurt Goedelman, and Donn Arms. This extraordinary group of ministering author-editors also solicits articles from the finest men known today for their uncompromising biblical emphasis, and receive from lesser known writers articles they believe worthy of publication.