In this edition:

• Still Time to Register for a February Online Seminar and Earn CEUs:
  • Care at the End of Life
  • Healing Power of Stories
  • Healthy Clergy: Healing the Holy Helpers
  • Ministry with Bereaved Parents
  • The Power to Bless
  • Spirituality and Mental Illness
• Subscriber Bonuses --
  • Center for Oates Studies Video Clip with Wayne Oates
  • Care of Persons, Care of Families: Some Pastoral and
    Theological Reflections on Violence within Families

There's Still Time to Register for February Online Seminars

Seats are available for the following February online seminars and the registration deadline is next Tuesday, January 30. The following seminars are approved for continuing education with the National Board of Certified Counselors (NBCC) and for Continuing Chaplaincy Education (CCE) with the Association of Professional Chaplains (APC).

Care at the End of Life (3 weeks)
12.0 contact hours / Facilitator: Martha Rutland, D.Min.

As professional care givers we are often sought out to help patients, family members, and colleagues understand the spiritual and ethical issues associated with the end of life.  Issues addressed in this seminar include:

• Hope when there is no cure
• Personal autonomy and human dignity at the end of life
• Management of pain and suffering

This seminar features presentations by bioethicist Paul Simmons and hospice chaplain Jim England. Through interdisciplinary, reflective peer group discussion, participants in this seminar will consider spiritual and ethical dimensions of health care at the end of life in light of their own experience and context. Participants will benefit by learning from one another as well as from the presentations.

For more information about this seminar, click here

The Healing Power of Stories (6 weeks)
24.0 contact hours / Presenter: Rev. Canon Marlin Whitmer, M.Div., BCC

While this seminar was full, several spots have reopened due to registration changes. 

The Healing Power of Stories continues to be one of the Oates Institute's most popular online seminars. This six- week seminar presented by the Rev. Canon Marlin Whitmer uses the stories heard by participants as a basis for reflection on metaphors, biblical stories, and the individual participant's story.

Marlin Whitmer, retired chaplain from St. Luke's Hospital in Davenport, Iowa, began studying the use of metaphors and story listening in 1975. He has presented this seminar through the Oates Institute since 2003. In reflecting on this seminar he commented, "The seminar has provided an opportunity to share what I had learned over the years from story listening and to continue learning with others...An amazing feature I would not have known before is that you can assist in helping others with their listening skills over the internet. I have seen this from their e-mail messages and from the evaluations."

For more information about this seminar, click here

Healthy Clergy: Healing the Holy Helpers (3 weeks)
12.0 contact hours / Facilitators: Vern Farnum, Deb West, and Chris Hammon

Clergy of all denominations have experienced enormous change and in some cases, a redefinition of roles.  Some of this change has emerged naturally and parallels what is occurring within our culture, however, the demands of our culture, the acceleration of change, and a lack of support has thrown many clergy off balance.  This workshop featuring presentations by Dr. Dick Gilbert will provide peer group support while exploring a balanced ministry that focuses on the three L's: leadership, learning, and leaping.

For more information about this seminar, click here

Ministry with Bereaved Parents
12.0 contact hours / Facilitator: Sue Wintz, M.Div., BCC

"Despite the numbers of parents grieving the traumatic death of their child," writes Dr. Ron Oliver, "their grief is so misunderstood by the non-bereaved that grieving parents frequently suffer again from the 'care' of their well-intended family and friends. Caring for a bereaved parent requires a paradigm shift away from how culture defines the needs of bereaved parents and the appropriate response to those needs."

For more information about this seminar, click here

The Power To Bless
12.0 contact hours / Facilitator: Chris Hammon, D.Min.

"The blessed child is one who is affirmed and loved by those responsible for the child's care, usually the parents," writes Dr. Myron Madden in his book, The Power to Bless. "But no child seems to get enough blessing to last a lifetime. As we move through adolescence and into adulthood, we have the need for affirmation beyond the family."

Through peer dialogue reflecting on writings by Dr. Myron Madden (The Power To Bless) and three popular films, seminar participants will reflect on the meaning of blessing. We will also explore the interaction between parents and children and between individuals beyond the family in the giving and receiving of blessing.

For more information about this seminar, click here

Spirituality and Mental Illness
12.0 contact hours / Facilitator: Rose Ann Briotte, M.Div.

One in five people in the United States have or will have mental illness sometime in their life. More than five million people in the United States alone suffer from serious chronic mental illness.

Through an interdisciplinary approach integrating spirituality and mental health, this seminar will enable professional care givers from the religious, medical, therapeutic, and social work communities to better recognize and work with the diverse needs of those who suffer from mental illness and the needs of those who are close to them. Reflective dialogue will be facilitated by a mental health chaplain.

For more information about this seminar, click here