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Rev. Pat Hoertdoerfer Children, Family, and Intergenerational Programs Director Department of Religious Education, UUA Family Ministry: A Comprehensive Guide By Diana Garland (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1999) Families face all kinds of pressures in today's fragmented and frenetic world. Consequently, those ministering with families need a multifaceted, well-informed sense of both the purpose of family and the complex world our families inhabit. This book is it! Writing out of years of experience as a Christian leader and a social worker, Diana Garland offers a broad and comprehensive guide to this crucially important subject for all religious communities. Family Ministry begins with several chapters describing and defining the family in its modern context. Garland then explores the history of families and their interactions with the church. She dedicates three chapters to biblical understandings of the family. The remaining ten chapters of the book are devoted to the practice of family ministry, including guidance on promoting strong families; insights in dealing with divorce issues, stepfamily dynamics, and family violence; and an assessment process to build support for new ministries with families. Based on careful research and seasoned reflection, this book is a virtual encyclopedia on the theory and practice of family life ministry. I found her section on the processes of family life and her chapters on planning and leading family ministry a most informative resource for Unitarian Universalist educators, ministers, and leaders. Her articulation of the phases and cycles of family life are provided with academic clarity as well as personal stories. Each developmental phase is followed by suggestions for how family ministry can help. Her chart on levels of family ministry (page 382) illustrates how each level of the continuum of care for families builds on the one below it. These four methods of family ministry address increasingly specific structures and issues: developing a congregational life that supports and nurtures all families, organizing and facilitating support groups and networks for families dealing with specific issues, providing families with educational resources and programs, and counseling individual families. Garland gives insight on how to re-vision every aspect of congregational life from a family ministry perspective -- worship, education, care, social responsibility, fellowship, and even governance. She helps us see how we can empower families in their faith development as well as faithfully minister with families. I highly recommend this resource to you. |
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