Care Ministry

A curious thing happens when Jesus comes into his ministry: He touches. Jesus touches the sick and the outcast, the bleeding and the unclean. What could it mean for families, singles, marriages, churches, communities, and the world to have healthy, pure, faithful, ministering touch? Somewhere in the mess of our assumptions and fears about touch, there is something beautiful and good and God-given. As Jesus can show us, there is ministry in touching.

Adopting or fostering a child brings its own unique set of challenges only another parent facing the same uphill climb could possibly understand. From parenting children with traumatic pasts, to dealing with attachment issues, to raising a children with special needs, it can sometimes be a struggle just getting through the day. Mike Berry knows the loneliness and isolation you can easily feel in your particular parenting role - because he's been there.

To be pastoral is to create a sacred space and time for the other person who needs support. The caregiver is fully present, listening critically and attentively to locate the "pastoral pillars" on the way for continued support. In order to provide effective pastoral care ministry and also be able to nail down and address the core issues bothering an individual, the caregiver should look beyond the ordinary and superficial, and companion into the deep ("the shadow") with the counselee, mentee, directee, client, patient, and the like.

For Pope Francis, the appreciation of our everyday lives is a spiritual undertaking. Joy is a divine attribute, and creating joy around us an essential part of faith. Every homily and speech in this audiobook delivers, in warm, engaging language, a key lesson, instructing listeners on finding love and happiness in a chaotic world. Along the way, Pope Francis discusses the sanctity of women's rights, talks about how the love of sports can bring out our best qualities, and explains why fighting discrimination is the essence of loving thy neighbor.

How do Christians account for the widespread presence of goodness in a fallen world? Richard Mouw, one of the most influential evangelical voices in America, presents his mature thought on the topic of common grace. Addressing a range of issues relevant to engaging common grace in the 21st century, Mouw shows how God takes delight in all things that glorify him - even those that happen beyond the boundaries of the church-and defends the doctrine of common grace from its detractors.

Health care is on the brink of monumental change. Innovations in care and cost are making health care more available than ever. And yet, health insurers and government bureaucrats have yet to catch up to these advances, making traditional health insurance practices not only out-of-date, but overly expensive and unnecessarily cumbersome and frustrating. Moreover, their decision on what to pay for and what not to pay for may have an even bigger role in determining the health care you receive than you and your doctor. There's a better way!

Stop caring what others think. Stressing over other people's opinions of you? You are not alone. Many of us struggle with worrying about what others think. Life-changing transformation cannot take place unless we choose to stop worrying about what other people think of us.

In Biblical Counseling and the Church, Bob Kellemen and Kevin Carson have assembled over twenty respected ministry leaders who examine the relationship between counseling and the church. This comprehensive resource, part of the Biblical Counseling Coalition series, helps leaders and counselors develop a vision that goes beyond being a church with a biblical counseling ministry to becoming a church of biblical counseling—a church culture that is saturated by "one-another" ministry.

Soul Custody calls listeners to pay attention to the state of their soul - and free it to thrive. Every day, inner and outer violence ravages the soul, leaving us weak, fearful, and malnourished. In Soul Custody, Stephen W. Smith presents eight choices to help listeners reclaim custody of their one and only life - choices about silence, community, vocation, honoring the body, finding one’s true self, and more.

Jesus has a beautiful plan He set in motion at creation, and He’s not giving up on what He wanted from the start. This book will anchor you in biblical hope, setting you on a path to be free from the fleeting cares of this age and engage wholeheartedly with the mission of God. It’s a must-listen for missionaries and church leaders to get a glimpse into the burning heart of God for Israel and to see why Jerusalem is epically important in Jesus' mission for the earth.

Horses nuzzle their way into our hearts and have a way of teaching us a lot about ourselves, about life, and even about God. Explore the timeless wisdom of God's word through this beautiful horse devotional from horse enthusiast Cara Whitney. Through years spent working with these majestic animals, Whitney has learned countless spiritual lessons that have brought her closer to God.

Seamus O'Mahony charts the realities of work in the 'ministry of bodies', that huge complex where people come to be cured and to die. From unexpected deaths to moral quandaries and bureaucratic disasters, O'Mahony documents life in the halls and wards that all of us will visit at some point in our lives with his characteristic wit and dry and unsentimental intelligence.

Bill Johnson es el pastor de una iglesia donde los encuentros sobrenaturales con Dios son la orden del día, los milagros son comunes y la congregación tiene una contagiosa pasión por el crecimiento espiritual. ¿Cómo lo hace? Es sencillo: El hace que el experimentar una profunda e íntima relación con Dios sea una prioridad tanto para sí mismo como para el resto de su congregación.

In Health-Care and the Church: A Shared Focus, Phyllis C. Riles draws upon her extensive experience and specialized background in both arenas to reveal the complimentary parallels between the operation and goals of the Church and healthcare to promote health and wellness for spirit, soul, and body. God’s covenant promises of health to Abraham and his provision of healing through redemption by Jesus Christ are activated by a collaboration of belief and action. God and man working together has always been the divine intent.

You keep hoping and believing in faith that your circumstances are going to shift, but the longer time goes on and you don’t see your circumstances change, the more it builds, until finally, it bursts out of you: ”God, don’t you care?” If you’re in the middle of the storm right now, this book is for you. It won’t patronize your pain or give you all the cliche answers. You don’t need to feel ashamed of your questions, but instead you can walk through the steps of how to navigate the pain of struggle from a biblical perspective.

Filled with real-life stories and practical advice, Called to Care starts by helping you honestly assess your motivation to help - sometimes the wrong motivation sets the stage for an unsuccessful experience. From there, the book shows what adoption and foster care really look like in a variety of situations, from domestic and international adoptions to short-term foster care and foster-to-adopt arrangements. Also included is how churches and individuals can minister to refugees.

Sarah Thebarge, a Yale-trained physician assistant, nearly died of breast cancer at age 27, but that did not end her deeply felt spiritual calling to medical missions in Africa. Risking her own health, she moved to Togo, West Africa - ranked by the United Nations as the least happy country in the world - to care for sick and suffering patients. Serving without pay in a mission hospital, she pondered the intersection of faith and medicine in her quest to help make the world "well".

When you bring a new dog into your home, a wash of great joy can become a trial of perseverance as your furry pal chews, digs, yaps, and yes, piddles her way through every room in the house. Allison Pittman learned this all too well when she adopted a "tiny, shiny puppy of indefinable breed(s)". What Allison didn’t expect was the spiritual benefit she would receive as each Saturday dog-training lesson revealed a fascinating spiritual metaphor.

Does God care about His creatures? Does He care about you? Sadie, a golden retriever, gives us a hint as Rhonda weaves for us a beautiful story of dog and master. Revel in Sadie’s quirks about the smell of socks and the taste of popcorn. What divine lessons can we learn from this zany duo?

A very wise physician has said that "every illness has two parts - what it is, and what the patient thinks about it." What the patient thinks about it is often more important and more troublesome than the real disease. What the patient thinks of life, what life means to him is also of great importance and may be the bar that shuts out all real health and happiness....