Lifelong Learning @ Oates.Org

In this edition:

2007 Oates Award Recipient Announced
Scholarship Deadline for Pastoral Care Specialist Certificate - Fall 2007
A few seats still available for July Online Seminars
Coming in November: The Healing Power of Forgiveness Online Conference
New in the Center for Oates Studies: The Presence of God in Pastoral Counseling
-- Subscriber Bonus

2007 Oates Award Recipient: Dr. Brooks R. Faulkner

The Oates Institute is pleased to introduce Dr. Brooks R. Faulkner as the 2007 Wayne E. Oates Award Recipient. His ministry, leadership, and personal service have exemplified the criteria of the Wayne E. Oates Award.

Dr. Faulkner has trained military, industrial, and institutional chaplains from around the world. As an accredited Compassion Fatigue specialist, Dr. Faulkner will present "Renewing Compassion Boundaries" at the 2007 Oates Institute Annual Gathering and Oates Award Dinner. The Compassion Fatigue Specialist program was implemented after the 1996 Oklahoma City bombings and it has been sanctioned by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

To hear more, save the date of October 4, 2007 and join us for the 2007 Oates Institute Annual Gathering and Oates Award Dinner in Louisville, Kentucky.

For more information, click here.

Scholarship Deadline is July 15 for Fall Pastoral Care Specialist Certificate

Pastors, deacons, and other congregational leaders are often the first persons that individuals and families turn to when they suffer trauma or experience a crisis. The Pauline Oates Pastoral Care Specialist Certificate offered by the Oates Institute in affiliation with the American Association of Pastoral Counselors provides training to enhance one's ministry during those occasions that call for brief and supportive pastoral care and counseling.

For more information about the Pastoral Care Specialist Certificate, click here.

There are still a few seats available for July Seminars

It is not too late to register for several of the July online seminars. Most of these seminars will run from July 9-27 and will offer participants 12 contact hours of continuing education credit -- including CCEs (Healing Power of Stories goes from July 9-August 17 and provides 24 contact hours or CCEs). Registration is free for Oates Institute members and only $60-90 per seminar for non-members. (Registration prices vary based on the length and number of CE units available.)

Art and Healing
12.0 contact hours / Facilitator: Cherry Moore, M.Div., MFA

What role does art play in our spiritual development and our health? To explore this topic of growing interest, seminar participants will be asked to reflect on two exhibits in the Online Learning Center art gallery: "Faith Squinting, Love Reaching, Hope Walking" by artist C.J. Phipps and "Spirituality, Art, and Health" by art historian Lynn Meckler. A third resource will be utilized from an Oates Journal article, "Art and Healing: A Personal Reflection" by artist Cherry Moore.

For more information about this seminar, click here.

Healing Power of Stories -- 6 weeks
July 9-August 17 / 24.0 contact hours / Presenter: Canon Marlin Whitmer

This online seminar led by the Rev. Canon Marlin Whitmer will help participants learn how to identify and reflect on the metaphors and metaphorical patterns found in stories they are told. Participants will then explore the connections between these patterns, Biblical stories and their personal stories.

For more information about this seminar, click here.

Nurturing Silence and Sabbath
12.0 contact hours / Facilitator: Lynn Smith, M.Div., RN

In the process of giving care to others, care givers often overlook their own practice of self-care. During this summer month, participants will reflect on their own care through rest and personal renewal, while learning to observe the sacrament of the present moment. This seminar will affirm both the gift and necessity of rest.

For more information about this seminar, click here.

Coming November 5-16, 2007
The Healing Power of Forgiveness Online Conference

November 5-16, 2007, the Oates Institute will host The Healing Power of Forgiveness online conference that will include presentations by Rick Rouse (author of Fire of Grace: The Healing Power of Forgiveness), Kathy Manis Findley (Director of the Center for Healing and Hope in Little Rock), and Sue Wintz (chaplain and mother of a teenage child killed in an automobile accident) as well as segments from The Power of Forgiveness by Journey Films and discussions with the producers.

The Power of Forgiveness documentary features interviews with individuals such as Elie Wiesel, Rev. James Forbes, Thomas Moore, and individuals from several different faith traditions. Journey Films has dynamically captured stories of forgiveness in the context of gang violence, while building a Garden of Forgiveness at Ground Zero, and through the Amish teachings following the loss of young lives. This conference will examine the mental, physical, and spiritual health benefits of forgiveness and the costs of unforgiveness. We encounter the need for forgiveness and the ability to forgive in both dramatic and everyday events. This conference will enable all participants to grow in understanding of the healing power of forgiveness. More information will be coming soon.

The Presence of God in Pastoral Counseling by Wayne E. Oates
is the latest book to be added to the Center for Oates Studies

Wayne Oates described his purpose in writing this classic book as a desire to explore the difference it makes when we "make the Presence of the Eternal God the central dynamic in our dialogue with counselees." In essence, he said, "I want to move from dialogue to trialogue in pastoral counseling."

We are currently republishing this out-of-print work in the Center for Oates Studies as part of the Wayne E. Oates Library Collection. To read the first chapter, "Some Meanings of the Presence of God," click on the link below. If you are not a member of the Oates Institute, you are invited to subscribe to Lifelong Learning @ Oates.Org to receive access to the full text of this chapter (and the chapters to follow).

Click here to read Chapter 1
The Presence of God in Pastoral Counseling by Wayne Oates

Non-WEOI members, click here