Making the case for the relevance of pastoral care today, this book explores the role of pastoral care through the prism of music. Using musical analogies, the author provides a new way of understanding and practising pastoral care, grounded in practical theology. Challenging overemphasis on mission, he shows that pastoral care remains essential to the […]
Blog: Pictures-Books-Reflections
Facilitating Spiritual Reminiscence for People with dementia
Posted on by James Woodward
A Learning Guide by Elizabeth MacKinlay and Corrine Trevitt Jessica Kingsley Publishers 2015 I have recently experienced the hospitalisation of a close relative and, once again, have been surprised by the culture of care in our Hospitals. There is a kind of functionalism that serves to depersonalise an individual, their family and their well-being. This […]
Performing Pastoral Care
Posted on by James Woodward
Making the case for the relevance of pastoral care today, this book explores the role of pastoral care through the prism of music. Using musical analogies, the author provides a new way of understanding and practising pastoral care, grounded in practical theology. Challenging overemphasis on mission, he shows that pastoral care remains essential to the […]
Sarum College: A Brief History
Posted on by James Woodward
From the early Middle Ages, Salisbury was an important centre for theological training, its great cathedral and Close attracting students and scholars from the whole of Europe. The history of theological study begins with St Osmund and the completion of the first cathedral at Old Sarum in 1092. After Old Sarum was abandoned in favour […]
What kind of leadership??
Posted on by James Woodward
Crucible : The Journal of Christian Social Ethics April 2016 Editorial What kind of Leadership? The four articles that follow in this edition of Crucible all take leadership as a starting point to reflect upon the nature of the Church and its exercise of power and authority in changing and complex times. This […]
Sarum Lectures 2016 Renewing Hope – Pray, Serve, Grow.
Posted on by James Woodward
The Sarum lectures have a long and distinguished history in the life of the Cathedral Close. They are a partnership between Sarum College and the Cathedral and this year we are looking forward to four lectures from our Diocesan Bishop, the Right Rev Nicholas Holtham. Here is an outline of the lectures. Renewing Hope – […]
Gravity, Context and Choice
Posted on by James Woodward
Ministry in an Urban Context. The photograph above is one of the many aerial views of the city of Southampton available via Google images. A large group of our ministry students have just left the College after a weekend exploring the context and challenge of urban ministry. We gathered on Friday and looked at […]
Good Disagreement? Grace and Truth in a Divided Church
Posted on by James Woodward
Good Disagreement? Grace and Truth in a Divided Church Andrew Atherstone and Andrew Goddard (Editors) Lion Hudson 2015 There is a little bit of the playground and its visceral realities still in all of us. We prefer to get our own way and sometimes go to some lengths to achieve that. We easily dismiss, obstruct, even […]
Ageing – an inner and outer journey
Posted on by James Woodward
TO SEE THE FLOWERS Don’t go outside your house to see flowers. My friend, don’t bother with that excursion. Inside your body there are flowers. One flower has a thousand petals. That will do for a place to sit. Sitting there you will have a glimpse of beauty inside the body and out of […]
Learning: enlivening and enlarging?
Posted on by James Woodward
Sarum College is now almost empty with our third-year students from our Ministry programme having returned back to their homes and families. I have to say a rather wonderful silence has fallen over the building! This has been a busy and demanding weekend for all of us – but I’m glad of some space to think […]
On Reaching a Certain Age !
Posted on by James Woodward
‘Middle age starts much later than previously thought – at the age of 55, research suggests’ – this is the rather helpful advice sent to me by a friend on this my 55th birthday. Born on 23 February 1961 is no arguing any more with the realities of time and age and numbers. For the […]
Jim Birren
Posted on by James Woodward
REMEMBERING JIM BIRREN One of the towering figures in gerontology has died : James E. Birren, founding Director of the Andrus Gerontology Center, at the University of Southern California, died at the age of 97. His achievements were extraordinary Foremost among these, is creation of the Andrus Gerontology Center at USC, as well as the Leonard […]
What kind of Ministry? Chaplaincy as Mission
Posted on by James Woodward
Chaplaincy Ministry and the Mission of the Church Victoria Slater, SCM Press 2015, 160 pages, pbk, no price marked, ISBN 978 0 334 05315 6 There are three distinctive and attractive characteristics of this book. The first is the authors’ skilful ability to open up her research in an accessible and stimulating way. The […]
Sarum College – an enriching and enlarging place
Posted on by James Woodward
I have had somewhat of a break from WordPress and decided on this first day of Lent to reconnect with this medium by way of re-engaging and reflecting on what had been very demanding but stimulating past few months. During the early part of 2015 I engaged in a discernment process which led to my […]
Chaplaincy Ministry and the Mission of the Church
Posted on by James Woodward
Chaplaincy Ministry and the Mission of the Church Victoria Slater, SCM Press 2015, 160 pages, pbk There are three distinctive and attractive characteristics of this book. The first is the authors’ skilful ability to open up her research in an accessible and stimulating way. The second is the quality of theological reflection based, thirdly, in […]
Writing Methods in Theological Reflection
Posted on by James Woodward
Writing Methods in Theological Reflection Heather Walton, London: SCM Press, 2014 Most readers of this journal will be book collectors. They are necessary tools of our trade as teachers, seekers after wisdom, researchers and writers. Having recently moved house the task of downsizing a library is certainly a demanding judgement. For example it was relatively […]
Between Dark and Daylight by Joan Chittister
Posted on by James Woodward
Between Dark and Daylight by Joan Chittister I am busy at the moment embarking upon a major exercise of downsizing in preparation for my move to Sarum. This must include books! The process is illuminating. What do we attach ourselves to? All this ‘stuff’ faces me with the paradoxes and contradictions of living and even […]
The Quest for meaning in later life
Posted on by James Woodward
P. G. Coleman, D. Koleva and J. Bornat, eds., Ageing, Ritual and Social Change: Comparing the Secular and Religious in Eastern and Western Europe. Farnham and Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing, 2013. Pp. xviii, 283. Pb. £19.99. ISBN 978-1-4094-5215-7. This volume is a compelling and authoritative contribution to the literature that seeks to understand our quest […]
CONFUCIUS AT SEVENTY
Posted on by James Woodward
“At fifteen I was committed to learning. At thirty I took my rightful position. At forty, I was no longer totally perplexed. At fifty, I began to understand the unfolding of my true nature. At sixty, I was in harmony with contradictions and ambivalence. A seventy, at long last, I may follow my heart’s […]
Looking your Age??
Posted on by James Woodward
DO YOU LOOK YOUR AGE? Last month my wife and I were on a Road Scholar trip in Europe and we were having dinner with a Japanese woman. We got to talking about age and she asked how old I was. “Seventy” I replied, thinking of Gloria Steinem’s apt phrase, “This is how 70 […]