Christianity Today Award of Merit In the midst of our hectic, overscheduled lives, caring for the soul is imperative. Now, more than ever, we need to pause—intentionally—and encounter the Divine. Soul care director Barbara Peacock illustrates a journey of prayer, spiritual direction, and soul care from an African American perspective. She reflects on how these disciplines are woven into the African American culture and lived out in the rich heritage of its faith community. Using examples of ten significant men and women—Frederick Douglass, Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, Darrell Griffin, Renita Weems, Harold Carter, Jessica Ingram, Coretta Scott King, James Washington, and Howard Thurman—Barbara offers us the opportunity to engage in practices of soul care as we learn from these spiritual leaders. If you've yearned for a more culturally authentic experience of spiritual transformation in your life and community, this book will help you grow in new yet timeless ways. Come to the river to draw deeply for your soul's refreshment.

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.

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

Maybe you long for a more intimate prayer life or deeper insight from God's Word but just don't know how to get there. Or maybe you want to learn about new spiritual disciplines like visio divina, unplugging or attentiveness. In Spiritual Disciplines Handbook Adele Calhoun gives us directions for our continuing journey toward intimacy with Christ. While the word discipline may make us want to run and hide, the author shows how desires and discipline work together to lead us to the transformation we're longing for—the transformation only Christ can bring. Instead of just giving information about spiritual disciplines, this handbook is full of practical, accessible guidance that helps you actually practice them. With over 80,000 copies in print, this well-loved catalog of seventy-five disciplines has been revised throughout and expanded to include thirteen new disciplines along with a new preface by the author. Mothers, fathers, plumbers, nurses, students—we're all on a journey. And spiritual disciplines are for all of us who desire to know Christ deeply and be like him. Here is direction for our desire, leading us to the ultimate destination: more of Christ himself.

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.

In this groundbreaking work of first-order scholarship, Eric Johnson makes a vitally important contribution to the field of Christian counseling. He first presents a detailed overview and appreciative but critical evaluation of the reigning paradigms in the field of Christian counseling, particularly biblical counseling and integration. Building on their respective strengths, he seeks to move beyond the current impasse in the field and develop a more unified and robustly Christian understanding. Drawing upon the Bible and various Christian intellectual and soul care traditions, and through a Christian reinterpretation of relevant modern psychological theory and research, Johnson proceeds to offer a new framework for the care of souls that is comprehensive in scope, yet flows from a Christian understanding of human beings--what amounts to a distinctly Christian version of psychology. This book is a must-read for any serious Christian teacher, student, or practitioner in the fields of psychology or counseling.

Spiritual Friends provides a biblically relevant training manual and relationally practical workbook for relating God's truth to human relationships. Spiritual Friends is for the layperson, pastor, or professional Christian counselor. It will equip the reader to master the personal ministry of the Word and spiritual friendships with thousands of illustrative interactions and hundreds of skill-building exercises.