I have been told that I have a “Pastor’s heart,” and to me this is high praise, indeed. Love is my guiding star; “What is the most loving course of action here?” is a prime directive for my life that I have carried with me through all the twists and turns in my path to finding my spiritual home in Unitarian Universalism. Nowhere is this orientation more important than in Pastoral Care.<\/p>\n
For me, pastoral care happens in just about any setting one can think of. Those who are ill or have experienced a loss or life crisis, those who are homebound or in hospital or skill care facilities, and those who reach out with deep questions are often in need of a pastoral presence. In addition, I am aware that on any given Sunday there will probably be someone in the congregation whose heart is hurting. Every sermon I write, every service I create, takes into account that need, along with whatever else may be happening that day. Every conversation with parishioners has the potential to become a pastoral care moment; we all have need of nurture and care from one another.<\/p>\n
In my Clinical Pastoral Education unit (aka “chaplaincy training) at the Veteran’s Hospital in Seattle, I learned first hand that with just a bit of training, most everyone has the capacity to provide nurture and caring. During my internship, I learned from the ground up how to put together a Caring Committee of lay members and to help them feel competent to provide some initial pastoral and practical care for people in need of such. I am excited to explore the possibilities for further empowering lay leaders to be a caring presence within their church community.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I have been told that I have a “Pastor’s heart,” and to me this is high praise, indeed. Love is my guiding star; “What is the most loving course of action here?” is a prime directive for my life that I have carried with me through all the twists and turns in my path to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"parent":22,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/revlyndasutherland.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/64"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/revlyndasutherland.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/revlyndasutherland.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revlyndasutherland.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revlyndasutherland.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/revlyndasutherland.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/64\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":145,"href":"https:\/\/revlyndasutherland.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/64\/revisions\/145"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revlyndasutherland.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/22"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/revlyndasutherland.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}