Caring Liturgies

<p>Caregiving practices in churches often center around listening and giving counsel making referrals and creating support groups for specific needs. In <b>Caring Liturgies</b> Susan Marie Smith proposes that Christian ritual is both a method and a means for helping people through liminal times of transition and uncertainty even vulnerability and fear. It teaches readers to recognize the ritual needs of fellow Christians and thus create post-baptismal rites of passage and healing that might strengthen and support them in the fulfillment of their ministries.</p><p>The book extends the usefulness of denominational occasional services books and other resources by suggesting ways to build a rite around a central symbolic action pointing out issues of ritual honesty and ethics and identifying skills and attributes necessary to preparing and leading a rite. Numerous narrative examples help to flesh out the principles and illustrate the key argument: that rituals are necessary means to enable human growth and maturity both through times of suffering and times of transition and that ritual-making leaders are central to the ongoing health of the church.<span style=display: none></span></p>