Role in Pastoral Care
The church states that "We Lutherans believe that we are called to love people as Christ loved us - and that doesn't mean only those people who are members of our church. Wherever we are able, we gladly extend our loving care to anyone who might need us, including those who are elderly, disabled or disadvantaged in any way. Increasingly we are offering a helping hand also to indigenous people, and refugees and new arrivals.
We believe the words of Jesus, who said that when we reach out in love and care to someone else, we do it for him (Matthew 25:37.)"
The LCA provides pastoral care for the following groups in particular:
- retired and elderly people
- people with disabilities
- homeless or at risk
- families and relationships
- indigenous people
- refugees and new arrivals.
The Church also runs an operation to provide food as a way of bonding communities. Indeed, it feels that this aspect of charity is one of its strengths. They state that "Hospitality involving food is something Lutherans have always been good at. It’s indigenous to who we are. Perhaps it started with the traditional German heritage many of us share – where hard manual labour fuelled large healthy appetites. Perhaps it’s the blessings we now enjoy, thanks to the many cultures that gather in our Australian and New Zealand congregations as Lutherans. Perhaps it all goes back to Martin Luther himself who regularly brought people together around food and wine for his famous ‘Table Talk’ sessions."
They also cite "the example of Jesus who enjoyed food and hospitality as a way to break down barriers and connect with those for whom society had no time."
Read more about this topic: Lutheran Church Of Australia
Famous quotes containing the words role in, role, pastoral and/or care:
“Always and everywhere children take an active role in the construction and acquisition of learning and understanding. To learn is a satisfying experience, but also, as the psychologist Nelson Goodman tells us, to understand is to experience desire, drama, and conquest.”
—Carolyn Edwards (20th century)
“If women’s role in life is limited solely to housewife/mother, it clearly ends when she can no longer bear more children and the children she has borne leave home.”
—Betty Friedan (20th century)
“Et in Arcadia ego.
[I too am in Arcadia.]”
—Anonymous, Anonymous.
Tomb inscription, appearing in classical paintings by Guercino and Poussin, among others. The words probably mean that even the most ideal earthly lives are mortal. Arcadia, a mountainous region in the central Peloponnese, Greece, was the rustic abode of Pan, depicted in literature and art as a land of innocence and ease, and was the title of Sir Philip Sidney’s pastoral romance (1590)
“I don’t mind their having a lot of money, and I don’t care how they employ it,
But I do think that they damn well ought to admit they enjoy it.”
—Ogden Nash (1902–1971)