JourneyOnline
Acorn Press,
2009,
RRP $21.95
Reviewed by Rev Dr Noel Park, minister-in-association with Nambour Uniting Church.
BOTH ministers and lay people come across many difficult pastoral concerns.
Historically there have been varied ideas about how to respond to people in need.
Some ideas have been most helpful while others have been more about the needs of the carers than those for whom
they claim to care.
In the contemporary church there is often more concern with numbers than with individuals.
In that sense Jill McGilvray brings a renewed emphasis on the caring role of individual Christians for their fellow individual Christians.
God’s Love in Action is written in a way which can be used for individual reading or for group consideration with equal validity.
There is a degree of confusion regarding what the author really means by pastoral care and the introduction of the term “lay
pastoring” adds room for further confusion given the ways in which that term is already being used.
At the end of this book there is a list of support agencies.
However the list really needs expansion by giving some indication of the sort of help which may be obtained and looking at a wider range of agencies and resources.
Despite any qualifications God’s Love in Action provides a resource which many would find both encouraging and
educational.
The pitfalls signalled for pastoral carers are timely and important.
The principles espoused by the author could well be adopted in most congregations with valuable outcomes.
