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Pastoral care and counselling to parishioners under church discipline : with special reference to the north western diocese of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania.Kabigumila, Simeon Kajelero. January 1998 (has links)
This study focuses on the issue of Pastoral Care and Counselling to the parishioners
under Church discipline in the North Western Diocese (NWD) of the Evangelical Lutheran
Church in Tanzania (ELCT).
The dissertation is concerned with the understanding of Church discipline in the Old
Testament, New Testament, from the Early Church up to the present day. The study focuses
especially on the history and the practice of Church discipline in the North Western Diocese.
The main body of this study is in chapters four and five. Chapter four discusses the
danger and the blessings for a parishioner who is under Church discipline. Chapter five
discusses the avenues by which to care for and counsel parishioners who are under Church
discipline. It is the writer's understanding that the methodology used on how to care for and
counsel parishioners under Church discipline can be applied to all parishioners in the Diocese.
It is the emphasis of the researcher of this dissertation that there is inadequate care of
souls due to lack of training and discipline in the Church. We need discipline in order to
challenge our defense patterns of behaviour in the understanding ourselves and others and in
knowing and learning to be responsible Christian people.
The study calls the Church of the North Western Diocese to rethink the whole issue of
how to practise Church discipline in such a way that parishioners are not judged, but
comforted by caring and counselling.
It is the writer's understanding that the Church has kept discipline because it maintains
that God's grace is not cheap. Grace is not a licence to sin.
The true aim of Church discipline is to help the sinner to restore his or her relationship
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with Christ and the Church. To do this, parishioners under Church discipline are urged to
repent of their sin and live in fellowship with God. If parishioners under Church discipline
refuse to repent they have to carry the fate for their sin. There is no mercy without
repentance.
It is the writer's belief that the healthy practice of pastoral care and counselling in the
North Western Diocese will depend upon the regaining of a balance and the interaction
between healing, sustaining, guiding and reconciling models. Through this understanding,
pastoral care becomes a Christian response to humanity's need. Therefore one can conclude
that pastoral care and counselling can balance and heal the effect of Church discipline.
Although this study focuses on the North Western Diocese (NWD), the questions and
problems concerning the issue of Church discipline and the way to approach it might be
similar in many Churches in Tanzania and also in Africa.
Unless otherwise indicated, scriptural quotations are taken from the HOLY BIBLE,
NEW REVISED STANDARD VERSION (NRSV), copyright @ 1989 by the Division of
Christians Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States
of America. / Thesis (M.Th.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 1998.
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Divorce and remarriage among the Shambala Christians : the pastoral response of the church; Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania, north eastern Diocese, southern district.Shemsanga, Eberhard Ngugi. January 2004 (has links)
This dissertation critically reflects the problem of divorce and remarriage within the North Eastern diocese of the Lutheran Church in Tanzania. A problem which has become rampant in the whole church. The situation became apparent to me as I was ministering in different parishes in the area of the research for five years. Divorcees are not accorded the full membership in the church because of their divorce status.Their failed marriages and criticism from church members makes them feel out of place in their own churches. They feel desperate, tending towards a sense of personal failure. The Shambala traditional customs whereby divorcees and/or remarried people are looked upon as outcasts make things even worse. Divorcees, makomanyumba 1., have no place in the Shambala Christian community. The goal of this dissertation therefore is to address divorcees' crisis through counselling. Many of these people are members of the church. I feel the church needs to face the biggest challenge to alleviate divorcees' crisis through counselling. I believe sincere pastoral care and counselling within the Lutheran Church in Tanzania will bring about healing, support, reconciliation and restoration of the hurt and deprived people, in this sense, the divorcees. Estardt (1997) believes that pastoral support is one of the services that persons committed to the church have the right to expect. He sees pastoral counselling as a relationship in which the minister assists the client in dealing with the difficulties, frustrations and tragedies of life. It is for this sense a new model of pastoral care and counselling is suggested for whole church. The model in which pastors in parishes are not the only solitary sources of counselling. The new model suggests that both trained and untrained laity is a good source for pastoral care and counselling. If these sources are fully utilised in parishes, a minister's counselling work might well be assisted, enhanced and improved by the parishioners. Referral counselling is also suggested in the new model.1.Makomanyumba - plural, divorcees. Komanyumba- singular, a divorcee. / Thesis (M.Th.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2004
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