In
this edition:
Registration
Is Open for September Online Seminars
Registration is now open
for the first group of fall seminars, which are scheduled
for September 10-28. Six seminars are offered, including
two that have not been offered before.
One of the new seminars, Care
of Troublesome People, will feature
a study of the book of that title by Wayne Oates.
It is an opportunity to learn how to approach troubled
and troublesome people in your congregation in ways
that are caring, affirming, and grounded in God's
grace. Dr. Oates combines family systems theory,
insightful analysis of five types of behavior that
often create conflict in churches, and biblically
based approaches for dealing with such behavior in
this practical guide for pastoral care givers.
The other new seminar, Hope
in Conflict, introduces a new approach
to conflict as a hopeful sign of God's transforming
mercy for a congregation. Using case studies from
his new book by that title, David Sawyer will introduce
participants to the three keys that help unlock the
deep mystery of congregational conflict: looking
at structures, listening to stories, and learning
from symptoms.
The other seminars offered
during September include Hope as a Dynamic for Healing,
Integrating Spirituality and Health, Ministering to an
Aging Society, and Spiritual Assessment: It's a SNAP.
Seminar registration is
free for WEOI members and $60 per seminar for non-members
($90 for Integrating Spirituality and Health). Registration
is limited to 12 participants in each of the seminars.
For more information and
to register for September seminars, click
here. 
Application
Deadlines for PCS and Health Ministries Certificates
Application deadlines are
rapidly approaching for the certificate program groups
scheduled to begin this fall. The next peer group for
the Pauline Oates Pastoral Care Specialist Certificate
is scheduled to begin in September and the deadline for
applying to participate in this group is August 1. The
2007-2008 Health Ministries Certificate group is scheduled
to begin with a retreat in Louisville, Kentucky, October
5-6. The deadline for applying to participate in this
group is August 15.
For
more information about the Pastoral Care Specialist Certificate, click
here.
For
more information about the Health Ministries Certificate, click
here.
Center
for Oates Studies Feature:
"The Presence of God: The Lasting Center of Pastoral
Counseling"
by Wayne E. Oates
Wayne
Oates wrote
in this chapter: " Even
when a pastoral counselor decides, as I did in
1952, to be biblically centered in his or her
search for a lasting center of pastoral counseling,
he or she can easily become as doctrinaire and
as ideologically off-center as psychoanalytic
or Rogerian devotees. Taking the Bible as an
end in itself and apart from the Presence of
God to which it bears witness, the pastoral counselor
misses the whole point of the Bible. The letter
of the Bible can kill; the Spirit gives life." He
went on to say, "Therefore, the purpose
of this book is to explore the guiding accounts
of the epiphanies and theophanies describing
the Presence of God in living conversation with
persons and to interpret the pastoral counseling
relationship with the Presence of God as its
lasting and abiding center."
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 2
of the Presence
of God in Pastoral Counseling by
Wayne Oates
