Classical Pastoral Care (4 vols.)

This is a source which will fill both mind and heart and should be a ready reference… for every evangelical pastor.

Pastoral Care is that branch of Christian theology that deals with care of persons by pastors. It is pastoral because it pertains to the offices, tasks, and duties of the pastor. It is care because it has charge of, and is deliberately attentive to the spiritual growth and destiny of persons. Pastoral care is analogous to a physician's care of the body. Since that particular sphere over which one exercises care is the psyche, (soul, anima, the animating, enlivening, energizing, motivating spring of human existence without which a body is a corpse, pastoral care is also appropriately called the care of souls.

Classical pastoral care is pastoral care as understood, practiced and set forth by key writers of the Christian tradition. That is classical which is versed in the classics. Classics are the works of highest rank and quality in a field of study, whose worth has been recognized over a long period of time.

The Classical Pastoral Care series presents especially those rare texts that have a gem-like quality, that one often hopes to find easily but for which much reading is often necessary. The search has often required extensive digging in a given period or series before coming across just that text that best embodies the pastoral tradition, that brightly illuminates its subject, or profoundly grasps the point, or states it more subtly than before. This has been the joy and vexation of this editorial effort, similar to panning for gold in a deserted stream, only rarely coming across the bright nugget.

This is a source which will fill both mind and heart and should be a ready reference… for every evangelical pastor.

—Trinity Journal