Pastoral Care

Resources on Pastoral Care

9 resources on Pastoral Care, in curated order

1. Topic 31: John Calvin: Selected Readings

   PDFBy Dr. John H. LeithBibliographies2014

   Primary texts are Calvin’s Instruction in Faith (1537), selections from the Institutes covering all four books, Calvin’s Ecclesiastical Advice, and Elsie Anne McKee’s edition of Calvin: Writings on Pastoral Piety. The bibliography serves as an introduction to Calvin’s thought as a whole, tracing his theology, his pastoral practice, and his vision of the church through a carefully selected range of primary sources.

   PDF

2. Topic 36: The Nature and Practice of the Christian Pastoral Ministry

   PDFBy Dr. John H. LeithBibliographies2019

   Readings include Augustine’s On Christian Teaching, Calvin’s Institutes IV.3 on church officers, Chapter 18 of the Second Helvetic Confession, and Richard Baxter’s The Reformed Pastor. The bibliography traces the Reformed tradition’s theology of ordained ministry from patristic foundations through the Reformation and into the Puritan period, with attention to the character, calling, and responsibilities of the pastor as teacher and shepherd.

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3. May You Have a Merry Christmas and the Best New Year Ever!

   BookBy John H. LeithFoundation PublicationsWipf & Stock Publishers2010

   A collection of Leith’s Christmas letters to his former ministerial students at Union Theological Seminary in Virginia. The letters grew lengthier and richer through the years, and are gathered here for others to enjoy.

   Publisher

4. Calvin’s Ecclesiastical Advice

   PDFBy Benjamin W. FarleyJohn Calvin StudiesCalvin Studies III1986

   Farley presents three previously untranslated documents from Calvin’s Consilia in the Corpus Reformatorum, illustrating the practical pastoral and ecclesiastical advice Calvin gave through letters to colleagues, churches, and civil authorities.

   PDF, 10 pp

5. Calvin’s Illnesses

   PDFBy Ronald E. CookeJohn Calvin StudiesCalvin Studies IV1988

   Charles Cooke, a physician, surveys Calvin’s lifelong medical afflictions and considers how his persistent illness and exhaustion shaped his sense of Christian vocation, drawing on Bouwsma and earlier biographical scholarship.

   PDF, 12 pp

6. Death and Funerals in Calvin’s Geneva

   PDFBy Donald K. McKimJohn Calvin StudiesCalvin Studies VI1992

   Donald K. McKim engages William Bouwsma’s portrait of Calvin as a man riddled with anxiety about death, then offers a fuller account of how Calvin’s theology of death, funerals, and prayers for the dead in Geneva places dying within the wider network of Christian doctrine and worship.

   PDF, 12 pp

7. Pastoral Care in the Reformed Tradition

   PDFBy E. David Willis-WatkinsJohn Calvin StudiesCalvin Studies VI1992

   David Willis-Watkins works from Calvin’s commentary on John 10 to recover what the Reformer himself meant by pastoral care, showing how Christ remains the only shepherd while pastors serve in a subordinate role, and drawing constructive implications for contemporary ministry.

   PDF, 10 pp

8. The Church and Its Ministry

   RecordingBy Dr. John H. LeithSermons & LecturesThe Warfield Lectures, lecture 21989

   The second Warfield Lecture examines the nature of the church and its ordained ministry within the Reformed theological framework, drawing on Scripture and the classic Reformed confessional tradition.

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9. Pastoral Care

   RecordingBy Dr. John H. LeithSermons & LecturesThe Warfield Lectures, lecture 51989

   In the fifth Warfield Lecture, Dr. Leith examines pastoral care as a theological discipline, rooted in the gospel and exercised through the particular relationships of congregational life.

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