Kenneth L. Carder

Ministry with the Forgotten

Tue, 01 Jul 2025 17:00:51 GMT

Dementia diseases represent a crisis of faith for many family members and congregations. Magnifying this crisis is the way people with dementia tend to be objectified by both medical and religious communities. They are recipients of treatment and projects for mission. Ministry is done to and for them rather than with them.

While acknowledging the devastation of dementia diseases, Ken Carder draws on his own experience as a caregiver, hospice chaplain, and pastoral practitioner to portray the gifts as well as the challenges accompanying dementia diseases. He confronts the deep personal and theological questions created by loving people with dementia diseases, demonstrating how living with dementia can be a means of growing in faith, wholeness, and ministry for the entire community of faith. He also reveals that authentic faith transcends intellectual beliefs, verbal affirmations, and prescribed practices. Carder asserts that the Judeo-Christian tradition offers a broader lens, defining personhood in relationship to God's story and humanity's participation in God's mighty acts of creation and new creation; thereby contributing to hope, community, and self-worth.

Pastors and congregations will be better equipped to minister with people affected by dementia, receiving their gifts and responding to their unique needs. They will learn how people with dementia contribute to the community and the church's life and mission, discovering practical ways those contributions can be identified, nurtured, and incorporated into the church’s life and ministry.

From the Foreword:

"Bishop Carder has written a generously wise book that is a gift to the church and a healing resource for people living with dementia and all who walk with them and alongside them. Those who are seeking a book on pastoral care and dementia will find here a wealth of theological insight, practical recommendations, and reflections that are grounded in deeply lived experience. But this is not simply a book about living with dementia or caregiving for those who live with dementia, nor simply a book about pastoral care. It is rather a testimony from the wilderness, a memoir of 'trust-end-faith.' It is a book about what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ in our modern, technological world. It is a book about what it means to be known and loved by God, full stop. It is a book about what it means for love to endure, when all else fails."
—Warren Kinghorn, MD, ThD; Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Duke University Medical Center; Esther Colliflower Associate Professor of the Practice of Pastoral and Moral Theology, Duke Divinity School, Durham, NC

Ministry with the Forgotten

Wed, 18 May 2022 20:27:26 GMT

This PDF is the Leader's Guide for Ministry with the Forgotten: Dementia Through a Spiritual Lens. This Leader's Guide provides five two-hour sessions of teaching plans to help lay servant ministers understand dementia from a spiritual standpoint and become more comfortable ministering with people affected by this condition. The advanced Lay Servant Ministries course based on the book Ministry with the Forgotten will equip lay servant ministers to lead their congregations in ministry with people with dementia and those who care for them. It will enable participants to learn about dementia, see people with dementia as disciples of Jesus, and discover how to relate to them in a helpful manner.

Living Our Beliefs

Sat, 14 May 2022 02:37:20 GMT

You can believe anything and be a Methodist, just so long as you're sincere.

Such a misperception has deep historical and cultural roots.

Explore a basic explanation of the beliefs and practices of the United Methodist Church as defined in Part II of The Book of Discipline. Uncover a deeper understanding and experience of Christian faith as you embrace the United Methodist way.

"Beliefs are to be lived; doctrine is to be practiced," writes Carder in this updated edition of his 1996 bestseller. "The authenticity of beliefs lie in their ability to shape people and communities into the image of Christ and to promote holiness and happiness. …The important test of the validity of doctrines and beliefs for United Methodists is the kind of character they produce in individuals and communities and the actions they inspire in the world."

Living Our Beliefs is essential reading for new members, confirmation classes and small group studies.

As one reviewer says, "Bishop Carder invites us to both understand and live our beliefs. With deep understanding of Wesley's teaching, he inspires us to practice what we preach. That is the United Methodist way."

The Leader's Guide for this course, Living Our United Methodist Beliefs, by George Hovaness Donigan may be purchased here.

Living Our Beliefs

Thu, 05 May 2022 20:14:00 GMT

You can believe anything and be a Methodist, just so long as you're sincere.

Such a misperception has deep historical and cultural roots.

Living Our Beliefs is essential reading for new members, confirmation classes and small group studies.

The Leader's Guide for this course, Living Our United Methodist Beliefs, by George Hovaness Donigan may be purchased here.