News & Notices

You are invited to submit items of interest to Friends in chaplaincy, counseling, and related ministries to our web editor, Holly White at hollywhite.us@gmail.com. We also have a closed "Quakers in Pastoral Care and Counseling" Facebook group that is updated regularly with interesting articles and discussion topics pertaining to Quakerism and pastoral care. We are especially happy to share news about member publications, conferences, workshops, and other educational events, as well as job openings in the fields of pastoral care and counseling.

Our Life is Love: The Quaker Spiritual Journey by Marcelle Martin

Our Life is Love describes the transformational spiritual journey of the first Quakers, who turned to the Light of Christ within and allowed it to be their guide. Many Friends today use different language, but are still called to make the same journey. In our time people seeking deeper access to the profound teachings of Christianity want more than just beliefs, they want direct experience. Focusing on ten elements of the spiritual journey, this book is a guide to a Spirit-filled life that affects this world. 

Me, Myself, & I ~ 28 Days of Creative Self-Love by Cheryl S. Bridges

#CreativeSelfLove is a multidimensional exploration of what we can do in learning to love ourselves—warts, wrinkles, and all. This book is multifaceted in that every page has pictures, artwork, and music to accompany the words, as well as creative exercises and journaling reflections to enhance your experience of each day’s topic. There are creative tools to use as you read: a YouTube playlist, an online art gallery, and tons of links to other resources. Combined, these facets take readers to a deeper place, a deeper understanding of how we can move gently and delightfully into self-love.

One of the most exciting benefits for readers is the repeated invitation to open up unconditionally to the beauty of who you really are. The book rolls out the red carpet that most of us never got to be okay with that. In this invitation, you can reconnect with your innermost aspects through exercises, music, and color. Connect and communicate with those parts of you that lay hidden. Re-enliven your imagination as the means to both connecting and communicating.

Finding God in the Verbs: Crafting a Fresh Language of Prayer by Jennie Isbell and J. Brent Bill
“Do you long for deeper communion with God? Spiritual director Jennie Isbell and Quaker minister Brent Bill know how easy it is to lapse into repetitious refrains of prayer: "Our hearts told us that we had lapsed into easy God speak. We weren't reaching deep into our spirits and drawing out living words of praise, confession, concern, intercession and longing. We were tired of speaking in clipped shorthand to God. We wanted to pray in such a way that we showed up with our whole selves." (amazon.com) If you have experienced a similar longing, come join the authors on this prayer journey into the deep waters of the Spirit. This book offers companionship and guidance as you begin to notice, consider and deepen your prayer experiences, with refreshing exercises sprinkled through every chapter to offer you a fresh language for prayer. Find God here—in the nouns and the verbs of your conversation.