The Art of Pastoral Care course has been developed as an experiential method of learning new pastoral care skills and enhancing those skills that may already exist within the student. It emphasizes in depth listening skills and the concept of simple presence.
The entire program is nine months in length. It begins the Wednesday following Labor Day and runs through May. Classes meet on Wednesday evenings from September through November at Trinity United Methodist Church in McLean, VA. The hospital clinical experience begins in January at the assigned sites every Saturday or Sunday for eight weeks through February. Students return to the classroom in March.
There is a Saturday Myers-Briggs session in October. This 4 hour class helps students to identify how their individual personalities will translate into a pastoral care identity. Understanding one's own Myers-Briggs type, as well as those of others, helps to empower each person to be able to offer the most beneficial pastoral care possible.
The purpose of the fall term is to acquaint students with the basics of pastoral care and to prepare each participant for the hospital experience as thoroughly as possible. That preparation is utilized in the ultimate experiential exercise in the winter term as students gain additional knowledge and understanding from the patients and families they visit and from the supervisors who oversee their work. Students return to the classroom from their hospital experience and share with their classmates what they have learned and the new insights they may have gained as a result of their time making visits in a supervised hospital clinical setting. As the spring term continues, it attempts to cover areas of pastoral care that are likely to occur in the congregational and community settings.
Each student is required to write reflections and verbatims throughout the course of the program. These assignments will be discussed at the first session of each term.
There is some required reading plus an additional extensive bibliography. Students are encouraged to use the bibliography as a reference that will lead them into areas of pastoral care in which they may be particularly interested or areas about which they want to explore more fully and have little or no knowledge or experience.
Download the AoPC application.
The Art of Pastoral Care classes meet at Trinity United Methodist Church.
Class session are on Wednesday evenings from 6PM - 9PM
The classes meet in a combined session for a fall and a spring workshop. In a addition to the spring workshop, there is one combined class session.
In January and February, students meet at a designated local hospital for 5 hours on a Saturday or Sunday for the supervised clinical phase of the program.
Classes return to Wednesday evenings in March.
There is no class during Thanksgiving week, most of the month of December, or during Passover week when it occurs between Palm Sunday and Easter.