Pastoral Care Training

I'm working away at setting out my notes for a Pastoral Care training day that I'm doing at the end of January. It's quite a challenge because, as usual, I've got lots of ideas and no logical pattern to them! But isn't that always the way.

I'm really pleased to have been invited to do this and I'm looking forward to it, but there is a lot of work to do. I've decided to divide the day into four sessions covering a broad overview of pastoral care, the health-check document (the invitation specifically wants this covered), and then two sessions on practice and skills. My plan is to talk some of the time and then get the attendees to do some work. Rather than give them a model to apply and definition with which to work, I thought it would be better if they came up with their own definition and plan to implement in their church.

I'm using a few resources I've got including David Beer's book on Strategic Church, and two training programmes I've got on the shelves. I hope it will be a valuable day for everyone who comes along. If it works well enough, we will repeat it as part of our training schedule at UBC. If it doesn't then we'll do something different!!