Sociology of Religion Commons^™

Grief And Spiritual Coping: The Practices Of Three Generations Of Faith, Ron Bruner, Dudley Chancey

Discernment: Theology and the Practice of Ministry

Among the more important tasks of ministry is assisting congregants dealing with the grief that permeates life. This project seeks to discover and describe spiritual coping practices, positive and negative, among three-generation families within Churches of Christ. This qualitative work reviews relevant literature, defines research questions for this research, details the methodology used to obtain data, describes the sample from which these data were obtained, and reports the results. Thematic analysis of narratives obtained in this qualitative study provides an enriched understanding of spiritual coping with life stressors that is useful for practitioners of clinical and pastoral counseling.