Finding Ourselves Lost: Ministry in the Age of Overwhelm

by Robert C. Dykstra

This book wrestles with quandaries of pastoral ministry in what psychotherapist Mary Pipher calls "the age of overwhelm." Drawing especially from the wisdom of Jesus' own teaching and healing ministries as portrayed in the Gospel of Luke, it offers an intimate narrative introduction to pastoral theology for guiding bewildering tasks of pastoral care and counseling. These essays encourage seminarians and ministers to embrace their role as agents of healing by exploring their own debilitating shame and daring to speak what in childhood could not be spoken; by revealing their discoveries to a trusted confidant so as to feel less loathsome or lonely; by attending to even minute individual differences, in self and others, that fuel social isolation; and by believing in those persons who first believed in them.

"While this age of overwhelm floods individuals with streams of anxiety that flow from every direction, in this beautiful book Robert C. Dykstra throws us a life raft by fighting zombies in our midst, giving us permission to be sexual, and liberating our imagination, showing us the way back to God as one who delights in us. We would be lost without Dykstra."
--Nathan Carlin, Associate Professor of Medical Humanities and Ethics, and Chair of the Faculty, McGovern Medical School

"In culling the wisdom of Donald Capps, Dumbledore, Mister Rogers, and others, Robert Dykstra has woven together a series of choice essays that evince the protean resources available to the pastoral theologian. Certainly, when such resources are used with care, as is the case with Finding Ourselves Lost, we discover that there is, indeed, a cloud of witnesses ready to comfort us in this age of overwhelm."
--Jay-Paul Hinds, Assistant Professor of Pastoral Care, The Divinity School, Howard University

"In an age of professionalism and specialists, the human predicament of isolation, disconnection, even that of being lost, threatens our spiritual, emotional, and physical wellbeing. These intimate and empathic reflections shared from the heart of a pastoral counselor, educator, and mentor are an affirmation that connection, honesty, and vulnerability may be the way we move from being lost to being found."
Landon Bogan, Director of Clinical Pastoral Education, Stanford Health Care, Stanford, California


"This book crystallizes Dykstra's interpretation of pastoral to the extent that ministers explore their own pain, they will be equipped to care for others and to tend their wounds. Dykstra writes with the candor of someone who has plunged into the depths of his inner world, only to discover that grace is within us but also among us. He reminds us that if we find ourselves lost, someone is likely to find us and contribute to our revivification."
Ruben Arjona, Assistant Professor of Pastoral Theology and Care, Iliff School of Theology

Robert C. Dykstra is Charlotte W. Newcombe Professor of Pastoral Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary. He is the author of Counseling Troubled Youth (1997), Discovering a Sermon (2001), and Images of Pastoral Care (2005), and he is coauthor with Allan Hugh Cole Jr. and Donald Capps of Losers, Loners, and Rebels (2007).

167 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 20, 2018

About the author

Robert C. Dykstra is the Charlotte W. Newcombe Professor of Pastoral Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary, where he earned both the M.Div. and Ph.D. degrees. A native of Minnesota, he is a lifelong member of the Presbyterian Church (USA) and an ordained Presbyterian minister. He served for a number of years as a minister, youth minister, hospital chaplain, and pastoral counselor. His academic interests include pastoral care and counseling, contemporary psychoanalytic theory and developmental psychology, pastoral preaching, and the integration of biblical and theological precepts with contemporary research in the human sciences.