Latest from the Wayne Oates Institute

Seminar on Pastoral Care and Suicide Added in May

bookcov-suicide In light of the current discussion around suicide currently taking place in the United States, we are adding a seminar in May to provide help with pastoral responses to suicide. The seminar explores the nature of depression that can lead to suicide, the effects it can have on family and friends, and community resources that are available for help. The seminar will be held online May 6-24 and provide participants with 12 contact hours of continuing education credit as well as a deeper understanding of the topic.

Details: Published: 11 April 2013

Register Now for May Online Seminars

Butterfly-01s May is coming and with it the second group of spring online seminars at the Oates Institute. This is an exciting lineup of seminars with topics ranging from palliative care to being spiritual but not religious to providing care for bereaved parents. The seminars will run May 6-24, and each offers 12 contact hours of continuing education credit for chaplains, counselors, social workers, and pastors. It is a great time and opportunity to participate in continuing education from wherever you are according to your schedule.

Details: Published: 07 April 2013

Palliative Care Seminar Offered Again in May

flowers-2010-011-s At the request and encouragement of prior participants in this seminar, we are offering Chris Hammon's seminar on Breaking the Myths: Spirituality and Palliative Care one more time in 2013. This three week online seminar will be offered May 6-24 and registration is limited to 12 persons. While the presenter continues to explore this topic both as a pastoral educator and as a palliative care patient, participants will be invited to engage in conversation around how this field is changing and the opportunities for spiritual care.

Details: Published: 06 April 2013

Back Online with a New Look for Spring

Chris Hammon Over St. Patrick's Day weekend the Oates Institute's main website was attacked by people wanting to turn our site into a source for malware. Since this is our primary campus, it was a serious problem. We caught the problem quickly and took care of the threat. However, some of our foundations were damaged in the process. Thankfully, we were able to restore the site from our backup, but we were no longer able to make changes to it.

During this time, Google also took notice and promptly put a big warning and a block on the Oates Institute's site. Many of you noticed this and let us know. We thank you for that. And we thank you for standing by patiently as we rebuilt the site. The new site is up and the Google warnings are gone.

Bringing forth new life and a fresh look seems appropriate for this season, and we will be continuing to explore that.

Details: Published: 02 April 2013

Psychosis: A Service User's Perspective

An autoethnographical account of a psychiatric patient’s experience and its relevance to chaplains.

When researchers do autoethnography, they retrospectively and selectively write about epiphanies that stem from, or are made possible by, being part of a culture and/or by possessing a particular cultural identity. (Ellis et al, 2011)

It was a particularly stressful time that summer of 1998. My mother had just died and my only sister had been told her breast cancer was back and she didn’t have long to live.

Details: Published: 22 March 2013

Revisiting Spaceship Earth

chris-may12-02 A large screen image of the planet earth rising over the moon's horizon greeted me as I walked into a Southern Illinois University classroom to begin the winter term of 1970. At the time it was still a new image for us; a fresh look at the evidence of a new cosmology. It was the beginning of a new decade, which we greeted with a sense of world changing optimism in the face of a world divided by war, racial and ethnic hatred, and economic inequities. We were part of a design class focused on envisioning new solutions to world problems.

Details: Published: 21 March 2013

Ministry to Children in Peri-crisis:

Understanding the Need for Crisis Ministry with Children & Families

l wood-01 Weeks after the 1997 floodwaters receded in Iowa, young children still experienced nightmares that caused thrashing and moaning in their sleep. Long after the dust settled in the area around Ground Zero following 9/11, sobbing children clung to mothers and fathers as the parents tried to leave for work each day. Even now, as a community works to remove mounds of debris from a F4 tornado that ripped through the city of Henryville, Indiana last year, terrified children run screaming to hide under their beds and in closets as heavy winds roar outside their windows during spring thunderstorms. These examples are but a few manifestations of post-traumatic stress syndrome that affect children long after the initial crisis has passed.

Details: Published: 21 March 2013

Imagining the Congregational Care Network

pcs-01s If your congregation is like many, pastoral care is at the heart of its sense of being a caring community. If you are like many, pastoral care needs are increasing as members live longer and the congregation’s median age increases. The needs of younger families are also increasing in the midst of job losses, marriage breakdowns, concerns for children, and the concerns for aging parents that entangle so many. And if you are among the congregations where member families have been caught up in the wars of the last decade, you are no doubt experiencing increased pastoral care needs among veterans and their family members.