Growing Up: Pastoral Nurture for the Later Years / Edition 1

by Thomas B Robb, William M Clements

Overview

Growing Up: Pastoral Nurture for the Later Years is a sensitive volume devoted to helping older adults retain their status as meaningful members of their congregations and communities. In an honest approach, based on the foundations that old age is supposed to happen, the future belongs to the old, and vocation for people of faith is lifelong, Thomas Robb provides personal and Biblical perspectives, as well as research from over 20 years as a pastor, on the life process and the feelings, worries, and expectations accompanying growing up and growing old. He then molds these concerns into a challenge for congregations and their spiritual leaders to actively assist the aged in coping with and overcoming fears and barriers limiting the fullest expression of faith in God.

This insightful book describes the tasks and suggests programs for pastors and congregations everywhere in meeting the challenge, making life for the aged more than shuffleboard and bingo, pot-luck dinners and day trips. Dimensions of pastoral ministries that nurture women and men who, at midlife and beyond, seek to find their way through the unexpected and unplanned, through the third of life following parenthood and careers, are described in detail. Pastors, church leaders, congregations, professors of courses in ministry and aging, aging church members, and seminary students will benefit immensely from the wealth of information presented in Growing Up: Pastoral Nurture for the Later Years.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781560240730
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	09/24/1991
Series:	Haworth Series in Religion & Pastoral Care
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	148
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

Table of Contents

Contents Preface

• Chapter 1: Growing Up
• My Life Has Changed
• Chapter 2: A Time for Every Purpose
• Humans Serve a Wonderful Purpose
• Humans Bear God’s Likeness
• Humans Have a Particular Responsibility
• It’s All in the Timing
• Chapter 3: Heroes, Heroines, and Role Models
• Growing Up Means Living a Long Time
• Growing Up Means Being in Covenant With God
• Growing Up Isn’t Easy
• Growing Up Means Facing Uncertainty
• Growing Up Means Saying “Yes” to God’s Call
• Chapter 4: The Play’s the Thing
• Two New Acts
• Entrances, Exits, and Intermissions
• An Analogy for Life
• Chapter 5: Still Room to Grow
• Children Become Adults
• Changes in Marriage and Family
• Changes in Physical Status and Health
• Midlife Crisis
• Learning to Grow Older
• Chapter 6: More Growing to Do
• Retiring From Work
• But Not for Lunch!
• Widowhood
• Caring for Elderly Parents
• Changes and Adjustments
• Getting It All Together
• Chapter 7: Growing Beyond Life
• Illness and Long Term Care
• The Process of Dying
• Loss and Grief
• Growing Up is Hard
• Chapter 8: A Place to Grow In
• Arguments in Favor of Older Adult Ministry
• An Argument From Design
• Chapter 9: Enabling Older People to Grow
• In Search of a Premise
• The Shape of Pastoral Nurturing
• A Kind of Case Management
• Ritual as a Form of Nurture
• Index