Pastoral/Parish Ministry

Change--in population, economy, and culture--is sweeping through American communities. Corner groceries are stocking new foods. New roads are being built and Main Streets abandoned. Schools have come and gone, and old friends move away as strangers arrive. But in every community, no matter how volatile, religious institutions provide for their members places of moral guidance and spiritual nurture, civic participation, and identity.

How do congregations react to significant community change? Why do some religious institutions decline in the face of racial integration while others adapt and grow? How do congregations make sense of economic distress? Do they provide havens from community upheaval or vehicles for change? Congregation and Community is the most comprehensive study to date of congregations in the face of community transformation. Nancy Ammerman and her colleagues include stories of over twenty congregations in nine communities from across the nation, communities with new immigrant populations, growing groups of gays and lesbians, rapid suburbanization, and economic dislocations.

With almost half of the nation's population attending religious services each week, it is impossible to understand change in American society without a close look at congregations. Congregation and Community will exist as a standard resource for years to come, and clergy, academics, and general readers alike will benefit from its insights.

Wellness is an important goal of counseling work, but the limits of promoting it are reached more quickly for individuals living in disadvantaged circumstances. How then can counselors be effective in a context that produces and reproduces structural inequality?

In Counseling Diversity in Context, Jason Brown addresses this question, exploring the possibilities and limitations of counseling, as well as the forces that help and hinder communities, while demonstrating the need for alternatives to mainstream psychological approaches. Divided into two parts, the book provides a structural understanding of the context in which cross-cultural counseling takes place, and a model, informed by intersectional analysis, to support counselors in playing a more activist role in helping to change that context. Brown encourages counselors to not only understand the social problems that contribute to personal challenges faced by clients but to also raise awareness and promote change.