Date of Award

2-2023

Document Type

Project Portfolio

Degree Name

Doctor of Ministry (DMin)

Department

Seminary

First Advisor

Jacqueline Bland, DMin

Second Advisor

Ekaterina Lomperis, PhD

Third Advisor

MaryKate Morse, PhD

Abstract

As an ordained minister within the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada (PAOC), I regularly provide spiritual care to dying persons and their families. While writing this preface, four residents in the long-term care home where I serve died. There was a ministry season when I felt unequipped to provide spiritual care to dying persons and their families. So, motivated by a gap in my pastoral training and the fear of death I witnessed in my first hospice patient - and several others since then - an opportunity to change that began to emerge. Even Jesus needed people to be with him in his most distressing of times. “And He [Jesus] took with Him Peter, James, and John, and began to be very distressed and troubled. And He said to them, “My soul is deeply grieved, to the point of death; remain here and keep watch.” And He went a little beyond them, and fell to the ground and began praying that if it were possible, the hour might pass Him by.” (Mark 14:33–35, NASB 2020) Nuala Kenny in her book Rediscovering the Art of Dying: How Jesus’ Experience and Our Stories Reveal a New Vision of Compassionate Care explores Mark 14:33-35. She writes, “while some see ‘he threw himself on the ground’ as Jesus prostrating himself in prayer, other scripture scholars understand the original words used to suggest that Jesus literally collapsed with fear and agitation. Use of the word ‘grieved’ to describe his soul suggests that he feels as if the sadness and uncertainty may overwhelm and kill him.”1 It’s worth pausing here for a minute and imagining how Jesus feels sadness. What might it feel like in his body? He feels overwhelmed by what’s coming, by what’s ahead of him. So much so that he may have collapsed in fear. Jesus, fully human and fully God, experienced the death and dying journey and struggled with it. This project is on providing spiritual care- something Jesus modelled needing and something we all need.

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