"AFRICAN AMERICAN PASTORAL CARE" (EDWARD WIMBERLY).   Term Paper ID:26495 Click to get this paper

Essay Subject: Reviews work on use of storytelling & narrative traditions in spiritual & moral counseling of blacks.... More...

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Paper Abstract: Reviews work on use of storytelling & narrative traditions in spiritual & moral counseling of blacks. Paper Introduction: This research will examine the book African American Pastoral Care by Edward P. Wimberly. The research will set forth the principal thesis of the work and then discuss how the pattern of ideas contained in the work and the means by which these ideas are conveyed can be applied to the practical experience of African American clergy with a pastoral ministry as well as to the individual minister's own spiritual growth. The main idea of African American Pastoral Care is that the custom and practice of storytelling that has been embedded for centuries into the culture of African peoples and African Americans can profitably be adapted, and indeed for optimum results must be adapted, along with certain modern theories and practices of developmental humanistic psychology, to the purpose of counseling and guiding parishioners and others seeking spiri Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. But just thinking up stories that can be used to illustrate a point isnot going to help a minister to do pastoral care or to grow spiritually.Wimberly makes clear that pastoral use of narrative involves learning thetechniques and strategies of intervention and counseling, as well aslearning and using narratives that are consistent with the Christianwitness and the world view of faith. The research will set forth the principal thesis ofthe work and then discuss how the pattern of ideas contained in the workand the means by which these ideas are conveyed can be applied to thepractical experience of African American clergy with a pastoral ministry aswell as to the individual minister's own spiritual growth. To drive home thatpoint in reference to black culture, Wimberly devotes another chapter towhat he terms "indigenous pastoral care," in which he shows thesimilarities between the oral traditions of Africa and African Americansand theories of psychology an personality that emphasize empathetic andintuitive responses to client narratives of conflict and crisis. Wimberly's book points out the benefits of and need for ministers tobecome completely familiar with ways of seizing opportunities to usepositive, anxiety-free narratives as an instrument of pastoral counseling,especially in the African American community, where narratives in generalare honored as instruments of life lessons. The first part of African American Pastoral Care explainsthe concept of pastoral care as it relates to the institutional-religionexperience in the black community. For example, using inappropriatesymbols and narrative myths may be destructive. Stories in which resolution and not conflictdominate function as symbols and analogies for those who are experiencingproblems in life. If thosenarratives contain positive elements, then the pastor needs to nurture whatis positive in a caring way. No lesssignificant is Wimberly's view that African American narrative traditionsconform with and indeed actually prefigure certain diagnostic and treatmenttheories and techniques of progressive psychotherapy and that AfricanAmerican pastoral counselors should feel confident about exploiting andapplying their knowledge and direct experience of their indigenous culturalroots and socialization customs to arrive at maximal outcomes for thosewhom they counsel who may be facing serious problems in the context ofcontemporary life. If the narratives that clientsbring to the counseling session are negative, then the pastor needs to findways of "editing" them toward resolution and inspiration. As he puts it: "[W]e assume that storytellingis the basic method of learning within the black culture" (82). The pastoral role in a marriage crisis is to helpcouples redefine their couple narrative in a constructive and realisticway; ideally this should be done with reference to biblical narratives. The story of Job thus becomes aninspiration for all of those who have been unfairly wounded by life. Indeed, just the narrative exercise can be helpful: Hecites the 2 -year grief of a mother who had lost a son and the beneficialeffect that followed when the pastor encouraged her to tell a story abouther son: "The very act of sharing a story about the picture [of the son]helped her to come out of her depression" (64). Nashville, Tenn.: Abingdon P, 1991. Usingexamples from his own and others' pastoral experience as a minister,Wimberly develops the view that the use of narrative, from the perspectiveof the Bible, from the perspective of the minister, and from theperspective of those who are being counseled, can result in satisfactorypastoral encounters and can most fully integrate the human experience withthat of what he terms God's narrative, or plan, for man. . . Works CitedWimberly, Edward P. Thus a discussion of the connection ofpastoral care to worship and ritual is followed by discussion of itsconnection to the emotional and psychological support systems that are afeature of the church community in general. In this regard, Wimberly focuses on developing a"conflict- and anxiety-free source of narrative" (81). African American Pastoral Care. To be sure, Job undergoes manypersonal and material tragedies, but if one follows Wimberly's advice toread the entire biblical story, the anxieties of Job and his doubts aboutGod can be resolved in the wisdom and grace Job ultimately displays inmaintaining his faith in the Lord. To illustrate his point, Wimberly gives a number ofexamples and situations in which narrative was used to provide effectivepastoral care. In animportant lengthy passage (1 ff) that uses alternative readings of thestory of Joseph in Genesis, Wimberly makes the point that it is vital forstory-oriented people to take in entire stories and not just a part of themthat reinforces stubborn views, so that the whole message of the scripture,which always points toward healing, reconciliation, and growth, will beable to work. Never very far from Wimberly'stext is the feature of narrative unity that lies in the pastoral objectiveof integrating the human experience with the implications for thatexperience that are contained in a full appreciation of the Biblicalstories and wisdom, on which counselor and client alike may draw. The main issue regarding how this book can be applied in day-to-dayAfrican American pastoral care is what Wimberly sees as the need for theblack clergy to develop and refine counseling techniques and strategiesthat can make the use of narrative an effective intervention resource forthose who may be in a crisis and to point those in need toward thepossibility of reconciling with one's best persona, and with the communityand the comforts of faith, or in other words with God's creative andanxiety-free life principle. These discussions are anchoredin the application of worship and support systems to what appear to be themost common real-world pastoral problems in the current era:addiction/marriage counseling and the emotional and spiritual crises thataccompany the experience of serious illness and death. as a positive resource"(9 ), it appears that the minister in question might have made use of thestory of Job as a conflict-free narrative. This seems to involve very serious trainingof the pastoral mind and the pastoral method, and the examples of narrativethat Wimberly gives are of great help in showing how to select stories thatillustrate resolution and closure. The main idea of African American Pastoral Care is that the custom andpractice of storytelling that has been embedded for centuries into theculture of African peoples and African Americans can profitably be adapted,and indeed for optimum results must be adapted, along with certain moderntheories and practices of developmental humanistic psychology, to thepurpose of counseling and guiding parishioners and others seeking spiritualand secular help as they confront life crises and transitions. Alsosignificant in this regard is the need to find significance in the factthat the stories can be related to God's unfailingly creative principle,i.e., God's plan for and support of man. With the foundationlaid, Wimberly proceeds to discuss in more detail the role of pastoral-carenarrative in facilitating clients' passage, continuity, and closure throughthe various stages of life, from birth stories to old-age stories of life'smemories. In effect, he iscounseling the counselors toward a strategy of availability and opennessthat allows the minister in the figure of "wounded healer" to construct hisor her own success in resolving life's problems and crises as narrativesthat can have applicability and input into the problems being faced byothers as they construct and transform their own "narratives" of lifeexperience into resolution. Wimberly. In otherwords, the religious narratives are always available as examples andsymbols of--and can always be made relevant to--the matter at hand. More generally, Wimberly argues that oral/narrative traditions ofblack culture, like secular counseling theory that draws on solidassessment and diagnostic guidelines as well as the empathy created byconnections between the relevant personal narrative experiences of clientand therapist, are, in conjunction with various Biblical narratives,uniquely suited to the needs of the African American minister who may beseeking a way of reaching the core of concern and clues to problemresolution, in a pastoral-care setting. Then the book takes a personal turn, as Wimberly engages in a dialoguewith readers who intend to engage in pastoral care. From here African American Pastoral Care turns to the mosthighly charged and difficult pastoral issues, which emerge in the contextof marital and family counseling --and which may not always be successful,depending on what life narrative people have constructed for themselves.For example, if marriage partners fail to construct a "couple narrative"that is consistent with "the biblical reference to couples cleaving to eachother" (69), with the marriage ritual, which can be interpreted as anarrative of a married-life plan, and with everyday realities about humanstrengths and weaknesses, and instead cling to the life narrative that isattached to an unattainable ideal mate or to narratives of parents andchildhood family that are brought into a marriage, there is danger ofmarital trouble ahead. The significancewas formulated as the belief "that God had given me the gift of life for aspecial purpose" (85). Wimberly cites a pastor's ownbirth narrative, which involved his being misdiagnosed, then properlydiagnosed, with an infancy ailment, and his being cured. For thatreason, the pastor must learn to make use of stories, either from the bibleor from the experience of resolving crisis issues for himself, that willallow the person or persons in crisis to reflect on their situation.Stories help people compare their situation to the situation of charactersin a story, whether in ordinary life or in the biblical text, in a way thatwill help them heal. This research will examine the book African American Pastoral Care byEdward P. Wimberly criticizes apastor who had used the Greek myth of Sisyphus, which always ends inanxiety and frustration, to interpret life as a series of tragedies (9 ).Although Wimberly does not say so, but instead stops at the point of sayingthat "the story was inadequate for use . Wimberly makes his case for the uniquely beneficial qualities ofapplying African American narrative traditions to pastoral events in asystematic way. The satisfaction of performingsuccessful interventions that can connect to narrative implies spiritualgrowth because successful pastoral care and resolution of crisis cannurture confidence and faith in the fact that if God's stories can be maderelevant to modern experience, so can God's plan. If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.