We recently had the wonderful opportunity to spend some time with Jeff McNair, a professor at California Baptist University. He was in Massachusetts to give a talk about integration and faith communities. (Tom Doody, a long-term Citizen Advocacy coordinator and SRV teacher, spoke at the same day long conference.) In 2008, Jeff arranged for a 4 day SRV workshop to be taught at CalBaptist. He blogs regularly at jeffmcnair.com.
I noticed that this important topic of integration and faith communities will be the subject of several presentations, including one by Tom Doody, at the upcoming Social Role Valorization conference in September 2011 in Australia.
Conversations with Jeff and thinking about the SRV conference presentations prompted me to start re-reading a book entitled A Humanizing Ministry written by D. Timothy Estes, published by Herald Press in 1984. From the author bio, I learned that Estes was a Citizen Advocacy coordinator in Georgia and attended several workshops taught by Dr. Wolfensberger. His book heavily references Wolfensberger’s writings.
Below is the chapter outline of the book:
Chapter 1. Toward a humanizing theology
Chapter 2. The character of the church
Chapter 3. The task of the church (NB: this chapter includes a lengthy section on Citizen Advocacy and Normalization)
Chapter 4. The caring community
Chapter 5. Principles for a humanizing ministry
Appendix A: Addresses for resource material
Appendix B: Humanizing ministry retreat