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A New Paradigm For Ministry In The World: Spiritual Care Services Of Maine, Lori H. Whittenmore

Doctor of Ministry

With dwindling church attendance in the State of Maine, people’s spiritual needs are often unattended to, especially in times of struggle. Clergy are serving shrinking congregations with shrinking budgets, leading to reduced hours. They don’t often have time to provide pastoral care to their flock, let alone people outside of their flock. This project creates a mechanism to organize a chaplain team and make them available by contract to organizations and their staff and clients. I have conceptualized, designed, and birthed a community-based per diem chaplain/spiritual care organization that can match the world’s soulful need with professional, competent chaplains.

The …

Avoiding The Debilitating Effects Of Compassion Fatigue, James S. Caruso

Doctor of Ministry

Many clergy experience a debilitating stress condition called compassion fatigue (CF). Church leaders leave ministry for many reasons such as moral failure, financial stresses, marital problems, burnout, and CF. CF is not easily recognized, but its effects on ministry leaders are very visible. Preventive measures include observing the Sabbath observance, reliance on the Holy Spirit and other self-care techniques. This projects thesis is that CF can be avoided through Sabbath observance reliance on the Holy Spirit and proper self-care practices. Church leaders are vulnerable to CF in their care-giving role. They should understand the signs and symptoms of CF and …

Spiritual Formation: An Emerging Narrative In Clinical Supervision Of Counseling And Family Therapy, Evangeline Willms Thiessen

Doctor of Ministry

Clinical professionals in the disciplines of counseling and family therapy, despite the many decades of separation between spirituality and science, currently face the challenge to attend to the spiritual realities and resources of clients' stories. As spirituality, an aspect of therapeutic diversity, moves increasingly to the forefront of counseling and family therapy literature, many clinicians still find it uncomfortable or difficult to negotiate the experiential path of addressing spirituality in practice. Although the need to address spirituality and religion is recognized, there continues to be a lack of conceptualization and methodology to guide the training experiences and preparation of clinicians. …