34116 research outputs found
Sort by
Spiritual Care for Staff During Trauma and Acute Stress at Adventist Healthcare, Sydney: an Ethnographic Study
No full textProblem
Health Care is evolving from an exclusive concentration on the physical dimension of illness to a more holistic model which considers the psychosocial and the spiritual. There seems to be a growing need for the spiritual care of the staff who have experienced trauma and acute stress. Although the need for spiritual care in health care services has been largely advocated, there is arguably a lack of attention to the spiritual care needs of staff dealing with traumatic situations and acute stress. The task of this project is to develop, implement, and evaluate spiritual care intervention with staff who are experiencing trauma and acute stress. The healthcare system in Australia have struggled in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. There was an increasing number of staff and doctors experiencing trauma and acute stress during this period. The need for spiritual care support was seen to be greater than ever before in the last century. This problem identified in healthcare is within the ministry context of Adventist HealthCare staff, doctors, administration, the community. Caring for the staff in the healthcare system is a vital need of the hour, especially with the aftereffects of the COVID-19 pandemic; the timing of the study could not have been any better.
Method
The project was completed in four phases. The first phase dealt with creating the Spiritual Care Plan for staff who experienced trauma and acute stress. This involved extensive research and consultation with chaplains working in the healthcare sector and other broader sectors. The second phase was the implementation of the Spiritual Care Plan in the high-care wards of the hospital: Intensive Care, Emergency Care, Cardiac, Oncology and Palliative, and Neuroscience and Neurosurgery. The research methods chosen included focus groups, journal entries, and observations. Data collection in ethnography usually involves having the researcher participate, overtly or covertly, in the people’s daily lives for an extended period, watching what happens, listening to what is said, asking questions through informal interviews, and collecting documents and artefacts. The role and effectiveness of the chaplains in caring for the staff, programs and activities through which the chaplains provide care was a prime side of research. I believed that the issues encountered during this research were of major importance in understanding spiritual care for trauma within a healthcare system. -- The third and fourth phases of the study were the first focus group session and the second focus group session. My goal as an ethnographer created a deep and credible snapshot of the experience, culture, system, and roll-out of the spiritual care plan. Because ethnographic research is subjective, the ethnographer is always present in the research conducted and the texts created. It is customary and necessary for ethnographers to “write themselves” into the texts by providing narratives and descriptions of their own role in the project and their reactions to the culture and the systems which they observe and try to understand. Ethnography is a rhetorical act, and the ethnographer must not only collect research data, but also write about them credibly and persuasively. The methods used in the study were (1) the ethnographical subjective approach to create a deep and credible snapshot of the culture/system that was being studied; (2) participant observation as an overall approach to inquiry and data-gathering method because immersion in the setting permits the researcher to hear, see, and experience reality as the participants do; (3) in-depth interviews and questionnaires as tools used to collect data; and (4) narrative inquiry, which allowed me to explore a story as told by a participant and record that story.
Results
Detailed analysis of the focus group identified substantial benefits of the spiritual care plan: deeper intimacy among staff and doctors; a safe place to be vulnerable; the opportunity to pray without fear of being judged; deeper and stronger faith; shared wisdom; enlightened, deeper Bible knowledge; the desire to carry each other’s burdens; the desire to follow Jesus; interest in joining the discipleship movement of the Seventh day Adventist Church; becoming more joyous and happy people; selflessness and transformation of the soul; the desire to grow spiritually; learning to pray with confidence and consistency; prayer journals; the desire to be a part of a faith community; community connection; reconciliation; understanding; the search for purpose and meaning; commitment to Bible Study; a decision for baptism; physical healing; emotional healing; reduction in anxiety; personal growth; greater support and unity among staff; improved quality of life; relieved spiritual distress; inner calm and peace; a deeper sense of compassion and care for others; connection to God like never before; support and ability to overcome adversities; and healing and reconciliation from past hurts and trauma.
Conclusion
Trauma and acute stress will eventually touch every human life. Trauma comes in many forms. Trauma can affect a person emotionally, physically, socially, and spiritually. How a person copes with trauma and acute stress will determine how he or she continues to contribute to society. People who overcome adversity are resilient. They do this by coping well through each traumatic situation. The Spiritual Care Plan was designed to help people cope with trauma and acute stress. It helped them to know that they were not alone and that help was near. It helped people know that they could work with God and their fellow human beings. They could cope positively by allowing change, learning from the situation, having a sense of purpose, participating in small group prayers, and connecting with the community
Anthropotechnics of Freedom: Training in Objectivity and the Ethics of Epistemic Authenticity
No full textPrograma de Capacitacion Sobre Predicacion Expositiva Para Ancianos y Otros Lideres de las Iglesias Adventistas del Septimo Dia en el Distrito de Silver Spring, Maryland
No full textProblem
Most Adventist pulpits are served by people who are not pastors. By 2023, the Seventh-day Adventist Church had 175,144 congregations, and only 21,903 active ordained pastors. This indicates that, even if all pastors preached every week in some Adventist church, still 87.5% of Adventist pulpits around the world would be in the hands of someone who is not a pastor (Office of Archives, 2024). The author of this project serves as pastor in a three-church district, and it is simply impossible for him to preach in every one of them every weekly worship service. For that reason, at least two of the churches in that district have a church elder or someone else in their pulpit each week, and most of those people have had no formal training in preaching. A training program on expository preaching for elders and other leaders in the Silver Spring, Maryland, district has the potential of improving the quality of preaching in the three churches within that district, and the lessons learned can serve as a reference for other districts that may be experiencing similar needs.
Methodology
This project is within the framework of applied theology, and its purpose is to design, implement, and evaluate a training program on expository preaching for elders and select members of Seventh-day Adventist churches in the Silver Spring District of Maryland. In order to accomplish that purpose, the author examined issues related to the subject in the Old Testament, the New Testament, the writings of Ellen White, and contemporary literature. Finally, an analysis of the three churches within the Silver Spring District and their context provided the remainder of the framework for the implementation of a training on expository preaching in this district. Direct observation and participant surveys served as tools for evaluating the results of this project.
Results
The most significant result of this project is that it made possible the design, implementation and evaluation of a training program on expository preaching for church elders and other leaders of the three Seventh-day Adventist churches within the Silver Spring District, in Maryland. A total of eighteen people were able to complete the preaching training, which benefits the district because it now has a group of people who have received training in this area. In addition, participant surveys indicate that 94.4% of participants said they “strongly agree” that the seminar increased their understanding of preaching, and 100% indicated that they would recommend the seminar to other church elders. Other survey results also indicate that the training had a positive impact on participants.
Conclusions
The results of this project confirm the hypothesis of this research: that a training in the area of expository preaching would have positive results for both the participants and the churches they represent in the Silver Spring District, in Maryland. By extension, the results also suggest that an initiative like this one could be very helpful for other congregations experiencing similar realities