Herbert Anderson

Storytelling and ritual making are not merely something that humans do -- they are essential for making us whole. Combined, they enable us to make our world both habitable and hospitable, and they are the ways that faith communities frame our journeys in God. This book shows us how to return ritual to its rightful place at the core of human and Christian experience. Ministers across the range of denominations and pastoral specializations will find here an indispensable resource, both practical and prophetic.… (mais)

An excellent resource to read prior to marriage clearness committee. I think it could also be used to cousel couples who have hit a tough place in their marriage but want to do something about it.

Anderson and Fite discuss what it means to
1.leave one's family of origin before creating a new family together.
2. They discuss the usefulness of creating a genogram for both parties as a way to not only understand their own stories better, but to understand which pieces of their family life they would like to incorporate into this new paradigm they are creating and which pieces they need to jettison.
3. How to plan a wedding that actually "means something" to the marrying couple.
4. Discusses how complications impact relationships.
5. How does marriage change things? Let us count the ways....
6. Covenantal promises. They are for keeps.
7. Symbols for Genograms
8. Scripture texts commonly used for weddings… (mais)

This is the second in a series addressing pastoral care at various points in the human life cycle. As the title suggests, the authors work from the viewpoint that forming a marriage is a process that begins before the wedding and goes on after it. It emphasises the importance of couples understanding their origins in order to allow this process to be well rooted. They introduce the genogram as a tool for discussing these origins.

Moving from the pre-wedding work to the wedding itself, the authors stress that a wedding is more helpfully thought of as a parable, embracing the paradoxes of grief and joy associated with a marriage into the story, than as a myth, pretending that the grief doesn't exist and that the joy is automatic.

Following the wedding, the importance of ongoing support for the couple continuing the work of becoming married is emphasised.

Well written and practical, with several real life examples, I found this to be a thought provoking read.… (mais)

This is the first in this series addressing pastoral care issues at different stages in the human life cycle. The book has a strong base position that becoming an individual is necessary for fully becoming a disciple. It argues this from scripture and experience. The balance of the importance of community is kept in view, however the emphasis is on the task of individuation. Whether or not you agree with this base position, the book is useful in that it is packed with real life examples (anonymised) that illustrate the points made and encourage you to think through how you would pastor a family in this situation.… (mais)