This research will examine the book African American Pastoral Care by Edward P. Wimberly. The research will set forth the principal thesis of the work and then discuss how the pattern of ideas contained in the work and the means by which these ideas are conveyed can be applied to the practical experience of African American clergy with a pastoral ministry as well as to the individual minister's own spiritual growth.
The main idea of African American Pastoral Care is that the custom and practice of storytelling that has been embedded for centuries into the culture of African peoples and African Americans can profitably be adapted, and indeed for optimum results must be adapted, along with certain modern theories and practices of developmental humanistic psychology, to the purpose of counseling and guiding parishioners and others seeking spiritual and secular help as they confront life crises and transitions. Using examples from his own and others' pastoral experience as a minister, Wimberly develops the view that the use of narrative, from the perspective of the Bible, from the perspective of the minister, and from the perspective of those who are being counseled, can result in satisfactory pastoral encounters and can most fully integrate the human experience with that of what he terms God's narrative, or plan, for man. No less significant is Wimberly's view that African American narrative traditions conform with and indeed actually prefigure certain diagnostic and treatment theories and techniques of progressive psychotherapy and that African American pastoral counselors should feel confident about exploiting and applying their knowledge and direct experience of their indigenous cultural roots and socialization customs to arrive at maximal outcomes for those whom they counsel who may be facing serious problems in the context of contemporary life.
Wimberly makes his case for the uniquely beneficial qualities of applying Afric...