A theoretical analysis of a bible study group of elderly persons coping with change: Implications contributing to a conceptual model of pastoral care in the institutional geriatric church, 1983

The purpose of this dissertation is to construct a model of pastoral care that will inform through implications, the conceptualization of the nature, purpose, and meaning of pastoral care to geriatric persons residing in mental hospitals. The pur pose is also to show the relationship of six of the latest theo ries on aging and their use in the model to the life quality of the above mentioned geriatric persons. The study examines the usefulness of theories of aging for their relevancy in developing a model of pastoral care for the Institutional Geriatric Church, especially for those elderly persons coping with change of envi ronment and/or relocation. Pastoral care is concerned with a liberating ministry, to include the total caring resources of this community of estrangement of the geriatric person, so that he/she can experience the grace of God through the release from fear of a change of environment and an adjustment to the move. This liberating ministry further is concerned with the patients positive growth to God, acquisition and/or strengthening of a basic integrity of the life they have lived, a religious commitment to the present and the future as well as the building and maintenance of love for self, for peers, and for other members of this church. The liberating ministry, succinctly, is a recog nition and release of potential in geriatric persons in spite of their limitations. The intent is to draw from behavioral science principles and the Liberation Ministry concepts to construct the model.