This warm-hearted and practical handbook for hospital-based pastoral care considers the pastoral sensitivities surrounding patient encounters. It explores the essential skills needed for this kind of ministry: the importance of ritual, difficult pastoral tasks, deflecting anger, caring for the carers, working in multi-faith contexts and more.

Kate McClelland

Copyright information

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Foreword

Preface

Introduction

1. Expectations of a pastoral encounter

2. Understanding the person

3. Complexities of family relationships that serious illness highlights

4. Communicating in difficult circumstances

5. The importance of rituals

6. Ministering to the care-giver

7. Helping people face difficult truths – whose truth is it?

8. Dying matters

9. The challenge of mental health

10. Sustaining oneself in the face of suffering

Resources

1 Blessing of a still-born baby

2 Naming of a baby

3 Blessing of a couple when one is terminally ill

4 Blessing of a room

5 Prayers before someone dies

6 Prayers before surgery

7 Confession

8 Communion

Call the Chaplain is a passionate, first-hand account of life as a hospital chaplain, accompanying people of all ages and backgrounds as they experience some of the most intense moments of their lives. Kate McClelland's stories of the highs and lows of working in a busy hospital reflect moments of love, loss, hope, joy, grace and forgiveness.

Call the Chaplain is a passionate, first-hand account of accompanying people of all ages and backgrounds as they experience some of the most intense moments of their lives. Hospital chaplaincy is not a job for the faint-hearted. Every day, chaplains journey to the heights and depths of human experience, often in brief and transient encounters. Weakness and vulnerability lay bare the realities of life and there may be need for reconciliation as well as healing. Family members, friends and sometimes staff too, are often as much in need of support, or of somewhere to vent their fear, anger or sorrow. The stories in this book movingly reveal the highs and lows of Kate McClelland's experiences of working in a busy teaching hospital in a large and diverse city. A warm-hearted and often emotional account, these stories reflect moments of love, loss, hope, joy, grace and forgiveness, and raise important questions about dignity, freedom and choice. For ordained ministers, lay volunteers and all who work alongside hospital chaplains, this will provide invaluable insights into the nature of this pastoral calling, its complexity, its demands and its rewards. All royalties from the sale of this book will go to the Sophie Lancaster Foundation.

Kate McClelland is Head of Spiritual and Pastoral Care for the Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust, where she leads a multi-faith chaplaincy team and helps to train other chaplains and volunteers. A Methodist minister, she was the first non-medical specialist to be awarded an MSc in palliative care.

- Narrative-style reflections on the theology and practice of a key area of ministry, increasingly regarded as the front line of mission.
- Invaluable reading for all engaged in the church's healing ministry - chaplains, clergy, readers, ordinands and spiritual directors and the growing number of lay volunteers working with hospital chaplains.
- Includes a section of prayers and liturgical resources for a wide range of pastoral situations and needs.

A practical handbook for hospital-based pastoral care, addressing spiritual encounters, key biblical themes, and essential skills for chaplains and volunteers. Includes prayers and resources.

\["For chaplains and volunteers in hospital settings", "Provides guidance for sensitive patient encounters", "You will enhance your care and support skills effectively"\]

Discover essential insights for pastoral care in hospitals.

Gaynor Bracey

This book is sensitively written with both heart rending stories but practical advice on how to approach different situations that you meet as a hospital chaplain, whether employed or volunteer. Most helpful at the end of the book is the selection of services/prayers that the author has used in her own chaplaincy work.

A very readable and thought provoking Book

Call the Chaplain

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Call the Chaplain

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