The Trinity, Creation and Pastoral Ministry

The Trinity, Creation and Pastoral Ministry PDF

Author: Graham Buxton

Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers

Published: 2007-01-01

Total Pages: 347

ISBN-13: 1597527602

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In this book the author proposes a three-way conversation between theology, science, and pastoral ministry. His approach draws on a Trinitarian understanding of God as a relational being of love, whose life spills over into all created reality, human and nonhuman. By locating human meaning and purpose within God's creation-community this book offers the possibility of a transforming engagement between those in pastoral ministry and the scientific community.

Reconstructing Pastoral Theology

Reconstructing Pastoral Theology PDF

Author: Andrew Purves

Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press

Published: 2004-01-01

Total Pages: 280

ISBN-13: 9780664227333

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In Pastoral Care in the Classical Tradition, Andrew Purves argued that pastoral care and theology has long ignored Scripture and Christian doctrine, and pastoral practice has become secularized in both method and goal, the fiefdom of psychology and the social sciences. He builds further on this idea here, presenting a christological basis for ministry and pastoral theology.

Participating in God

Participating in God PDF

Author: Paul S. Fiddes

Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press

Published: 2000-01-01

Total Pages: 326

ISBN-13: 9780664223359

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Participating in God claims that a doctrine of the Trinity cannot be developed in isolation from pastoral experience. It is not sufficient to view the persons of the Trinity as offering a mere example for human relationships; actual participation in this triune communication shapes both our knowledge of God and the pastoral practices that flow from it. Paul S. Fiddes develops a radical understanding of the "persons" in God as nothing other than relations, or as movements of divine relationship into which we are drawn. This important new book engages in conversation with recent thought about the Trinity in Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox theology. But it does so always through theological reflection on pastoral concerns. Fiddes brings the doctrine of the Trinity into dialogue with key issues, including the relation of the individual to community, the nature of power and authority, the effect of intercessory prayer, the problems of suffering, the power of forgiveness, the threat of death, the use of spiritual gifts, and the living of a sacramental life. Participating in God is essential reading for all those interested in Christian doctrine and pastoral care.

Ministry in the Image of God

Ministry in the Image of God PDF

Author: Stephen Seamands

Publisher: InterVarsity Press

Published: 2009-09-20

Total Pages: 190

ISBN-13: 0830876359

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Merit winner in the 2006 Christianity Today Book Awards! "As the Father has sent me, so I send you." Those of us called to Christian ministry are commissioned and sent by Jesus, just as he himself was called and sent by the Father. Thus we naturally pattern our ministries after Christ's example. But distinctively Christian service involves the Spirit as well, just as Jesus himself accomplished his ministry in the power of the Spirit. Thus the whole Trinity--Father, Son and Holy Spirit--gives shape to truly authentic Christian ministry. Though as Christians we all affirm the doctrine of the Trinity, many of us might struggle to explain how understanding the Trinity could actually shape our ministry. Stephen Seamands demonstrates how a fully orbed theology of the Trinity transforms our perception and practice of vocational ministry. Theological concepts like relationality and perichoresis have direct relevance to pastoral life and work, especially in unfolding a trinitarian approach to relationships, service and mission. A thoroughly trinitarian outlook provides the fuel for our ministry "of Jesus Christ, to the Father, through the Holy Spirit, on behalf of the church and the world." Essential reading for pastors, parachurch workers, counselors, missionaries, youth ministers and all who are called to any vocation of Christian ministry.

On the Trinity

On the Trinity PDF

Author: Saint Augustine of Hippo

Publisher: Aeterna Press

Published:

Total Pages: 630

ISBN-13:

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The following dissertation concerning the Trinity, as the reader ought to be informed, has been written in order to guard against the sophistries of those who disdain to begin with faith, and are deceived by a crude and perverse love of reason. Now one class of such men endeavor to transfer to things incorporeal and spiritual the ideas they have formed, whether through experience of the bodily senses, or by natural human wit and diligent quickness, or by the aid of art, from things corporeal; so as to seek to measure and conceive of the former by the latter. Aeterna Press

Pastoral Ethics

Pastoral Ethics PDF

Author: W. Ross Hastings

Publisher: Lexham Press

Published: 2021-10-27

Total Pages: 184

ISBN-13: 9781683595458

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Ethics is freedom in Christ to pursue the good, true, and beautiful. Pastors regularly face concrete ethical questions. And they, too, pursue a moral life. In the busyness of ministry, it can be tempting to think pragmatically or derive one's ethics from the latest cultural concerns. But standard approaches to ethics, whether deontological, utilitarian, or virtue--ethical, all fall short of being distinctly Christian. Ethics ought to be grounded in the gospel and in our triune God. In Pastoral Ethics, W. Ross Hastings provides pastors an evangelical and trinitarian framework for moral formation and ethical discernment. For Hastings, ethics must be reclaimed as theological. Theology without ethics becomes gnosticism. Ethics without theology leads to legalism and death. Christian ethics participates in God's life and God's work. This communion with God leads to obedience to his commands as summed up in the Decalogue, and over several chapters Hastings provides a rich exposition for pastoral formation. Pastors find their identity in God, and this inspires right thinking and acting with regard to authority, life and death, sexuality, work and rest, speech, and desires. An approach to ethics that prompts faith, hope, and love, Pastoral Ethics is an essential guide for Christians in all ministry contexts.

The Entangled God

The Entangled God PDF

Author: Kirk Wegter-McNelly

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2012-03-12

Total Pages: 210

ISBN-13: 1136651691

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In The Entangled God, Kirk Wegter-McNelly addresses the age-old theological question of how God is present to the world by constructing a novel, scientifically informed account of the God–world relation. Drawing on recent scientific and philosophical work in "quantum entanglement," Wegter-McNelly develops the metaphor of "divine entanglement" to ground the relationality and freedom of physical process in the power of God’s relational being. The Entangled God makes a three-fold contribution to contemporary theological and religious discourse. First, it calls attention to the convergence of recent theology around the idea of "relationality." Second, it introduces theological and religious readers to the fascinating story of quantum entanglement. Third, it offers a robust "plerotic" alternative to kenotic accounts of God’s suffering presence in the world. Above all, this book takes us beyond the view of theology and science as adversaries and demonstrates the value of constructively relating these two important areas of intellectual investigation.