Campus: Parkville
Mode: Face to Face
Delivery Notes:

WELCOME TO THIS COMMUNITY OF LEARNING

Welcome to the unit on Theology of Pastoral Care DP2500P. This unit explores the theological nature of pastoral care and the relationship between theology and pastoral skills with a view to helping students develop a theologically informed basis for their own pastoral practice.

The ‘learning outcomes’ are expressed in this way: Upon successful completion of this unit, it is expected that students will be able to:

  1. demonstrate an understanding of the biblical and theological foundations of pastoral care.
  2. articulate the integrative connections between theology and pastoral practice
  3. integrate theology and skills in their own pastoral practice.

I hope these make good sense to you. They do to me; in fact, I am passionate about the importance of this topic. It became very important in my own ministry over the last thirty years (with varied church appointments - inner city, outer suburban, five years in the South Pacific and in my role as a teacher) to marry together the so-called classical disciplines of theology (Biblical Studies, Theology, Church History) and the practice of pastoral ministry, so that I could become a theologian-in-ministry. I have never accepted one common view that says theology is obscure and abstract and has nothing to do with ministry practice. On the contrary, if ministry practice is not theological and if theology is not lived out in practice, then both theology and ministry practice are inadequate.

My aim will be to work together with you over the semester with a view to doing what I can to assist you to integrate Christian theology and pastoral skills, and to enrich your own pastoral ministry. The best way to do that will be to take seriously three things: what you already know through experience and learning, the context in which you are located, and the issues and questions which you bring. In other words, you will actually be contributing to the shape and content of this unit. Therefore I invite you to bring yourself into the unit through this semester. Please make contact with me if there are any issues for you along the way and I will do what I can to help.

There are two assessments to be completed in this unit. One is a major project which is worth 70%. This involves the writing of a 2500 word project in which you are invited to engage with the issues of theology and skills in pastoral ministry in a context in which you are engaged, or on an issue of particular interest or importance to you. The topic for this project will be a matter of consultation. I invite you to think about this in the early weeks of this course. I am open to a variety of possibilities; the main criteria will be that it is a project in which you can engage seriously with issues of pastoral care and theology, and one about which there is a good measure of passion and urgency. It will be important to finalise a topic by the end of August. The second assessment, worth 30% is a reflective journal that you will keep on a weekly basis. The journal content is to be guided by two specific questions: What have I learned today about my theology of pastoral care? …and… What are the implications for my own practice of pastoral ministry?

I take the view that the process of learning takes place relationally, in the mutual interaction of those who make up the learning community as they engage together in particular issues, themes and questions. It is my own task to maximise your learning and to assist you in the process of ‘living a theological life’. What I mean by that is ‘to act in a way that is informed by the insights of Christian theology’, so that ‘theology’ and ‘practice’ are an integrated whole.

I’m excited about the semester ahead of us. I hope you are too.

Randall Prior 19 July 2021

Contact hours 36
Total time commitment 150
Start date 26 Jul, 2021
Census date: 17 Aug, 2021
End date: 12 Nov, 2021
Academic staff: Rev Dr Randall Prior
Textbook(s): No textbook is required for this unit.

Unit code: DP2500P

Unit status: Approved (Major revision)

Points: 18.0

Unit level: Undergraduate Level 2

Unit discipline: Pastoral Theology and Ministry Studies

Delivery Mode: Face to Face

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