Spiritual director and pastor Barbara Peacock illustrates how the practices of spiritual formation are woven into African American culture and lived out in the rich heritage of its faith community. Using the examples of ten significant men and women, Barbara helps us engage in practices of soul care as we learn from these spiritual leaders.

Embrace the Sacred Journey of Caring for Your Soul Take time to reflect, journal, and contemplate the Divine with this companion workbook to Soul Care in African American Practice as your guide. Prayers, spiritual direction, soul care, and much more are interwoven into this workbook to aid in your process of transformative empowerment. If you are yearning to go deeper, this workbook will help you reflect on the thought-provoking questions in each chapter that cover the life of ten African American leaders. Let it guide your spiritual practice to grow and draw the utmost truth from your soul and mind. *Bonus Section: Black Lives Matter Soul Care These tumultuous times call us to have a greater commitment to caring for our very souls. In this section, we reflect on and honor the life of Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd and offer a special prayer to a hero of the Civil Rights Movement, John Robert Lewis. PRAISE FOR SOUL CARE IN AFRICAN AMERICAN PRACTICE 2021 Christianity Today Award of Merit (Tie) - Spiritual Formation "A must-read for anyone interested in developing a more holistic daily spiritual practice. Reverend Peacock expertly demonstrates how spiritual direction and soul care are at the root of African American theological practices and their application for everyday life." -- NADIA E. BROWN, author of Sisters in the Statehouse: Black Women and Legislative Decision Making "Gentle teaching on soul care topics and suggestions for practicing them, while introducing the reader to some incredible heroes of the faith, combine to create a truly transformational text." --STEPHEN A. MACCHIA, author of Crafting a Rule of Life and Broken and Whole "With rich historical context and practical application for the future, Dr. Peacock does a marvelous job of contextualizing spiritual practices to transform lives." --NICOLE MARTIN, director of US Ministry for the American Bible Society

Spiritual director and pastor Barbara Peacock illustrates how the practices of spiritual formation are woven into African American culture and lived out in the rich heritage of its faith community. Using the examples of ten significant men and women, Barbara helps us engage in practices of soul care as we learn from these spiritual leaders

Beyond the Suffering offers an in-depth exploration of the rich tradition of African American soul care, showing Christians proven ways to help people find hope in the midst of deep pain and sorrow.

In recent years, many Christian clergy, laity and mental health professionals have rediscovered the ancient practices of spiritual direction. Seen as a refreshing alternative to the techniques and limitations of modern psychology, such practices offer new insights for pastoral care. But many remain unclear on what spiritual direction is and whether its methods are applicable to their own clients and parishioners. Spiritual direction is a practice of Christian soul care that is found most notably in the Catholic, Orthodox and Episcopal traditions but is also present in Wesleyan/Holiness, Pentecostal/charismatic, social justice and Reformed communities. Predating modern counseling and psychotherapy movements but sharing key principles and insights for spiritual formation, spiritual direction offers significant resources for today s pastors, counselors, therapists, chaplains and other caregivers attuned to the work of God in people s lives. In this landmark volume, editors Gary W. Moon and David G. Benner, along with a team of expert contributors, provide a comprehensive survey of spiritual direction in its myriad Christian forms. Specific chapters offer careful historical perspective and contemporary analysis of how Christians from various backgrounds have practiced spiritual direction, with particular attention to each tradition s definition of spiritual direction, the process of authentic transformation, the role of the spiritual director, indicators of mature spirituality and other aspects of the spiritual direction process. Chapters also provide psychological and clinical insight into how spiritual direction is similar to, different from and can be integrated with psychotherapy and pastoral counseling to help others experience spiritual transformation and union with God.

• A celebration of the journey of African-American women toward a new spirituality grounded in social awareness, black American tradition, metaphysics, and heightened creativity. • Features illuminating insights from Alice Walker, Toni Cade Bambara, Lucille Clifton, Dolores Kendrick, Sonia Sanchez, Michele Gibbs, Geraldine McIntosh, Masani Alexis DeVeaux and Namonyah Soipan. • By a widely published scholar, poet, and activist who has been interviewed by the press, television, and National Public Radio's All Things Considered From the last part of the twentieth century through today, African-American women have experienced a revival of spirituality and creative force, fashioning a uniquely African-American way to connect with the divine. In Soul Talk, Akasha Gloria Hull examines this multifaceted spirituality that has both fostered personal healing and functioned as a formidable weapon against racism and social injustice. Through fascinating and heartfelt conversations with some of today's most creative and powerful women--women whose spirituality encompasses, among others, traditional Christianity, Tibetan Buddhism, Native American teachings, meditation, the I Ching, and African-derived ancestral reverence--the author explores how this new spiritual consciousness is manifested, how it affects the women who practice it, and how its effects can be carried to others. Using a unique and readable blend of interviews, storytelling, literary critique, and practical suggestions of ways readers can incorporate similar renewal into their daily lives, Soul Talk shows how personal and social change are possible through reconnection with the spirit.

This book explores the relationship between the practices of pastoral care and the practices of spiritual direction with the aim of enabling pastoral caregivers to draw upon the guiding principles, resources, and techniques of spiritual direction within the Christian tradition. With an emphasis on both "practice" and "presence", the book reclaims the tradition of "soul care" for the pastoral ministry, thereby complementing the medical, or crisis intervention, model of pastoral care with a wellness/growth model of pastoral care.Listening for the Soul: -- Challenges clergy to take seriously the relationship between pastoral care and spiritual direction.-- Integrates theological and psychological insights with issues of spiritual life and formation.-- Includes a chapter on the spiritual formation of children.-- Provides practical guidance for integrating spiritual direction with pastoral care.-- Tends to the pastoral caregivers own needs for spiritual deepening.-- Includesreflection,questions and case studies to enable the text to function on both the individual reader and classroom levels.