Date

12-19-2024

Department

Rawlings School of Divinity

Degree

Doctor of Ministry (DMin)

Chair

Alfonse Javed

Keywords

Spiritual, chaplain, end-of-life, dying, mourning, death, and African-Americans

Disciplines

Christianity | Practical Theology

Abstract

The London Seventh-Day Adventist Church (LSDAC), Maybee, Michigan, grapples with the lack of trained leaders in EoL to provide pastoral care for dying and mourning African American parishioners. The purpose of this DMIN action research project is to educate LSDAC leaders in providing spiritual care for their congregants as lay chaplains. The city of Maybee contains 612 people, with 95 % Caucasians and 5% other racial groups. The LSDAC membership is 99% African Americans and 1% Caucasians. It has around 30 members.

The philosophical concept of this research lies in the presuppositions that African Americans prefer spiritual EoL care from their church leaders instead of palliative care providers and chaplains compared to other racial groups. Nevertheless, many church leaders are ill-prepared in EoL care. Accordingly, most African Americans receive either insufficient care during the end-of-life, receive none, reject it, or refute it due to misconception, lack of EoL education, mistrust of, and discriminatory experiences within the American Healthcare System.

The researcher has used data and statistics collected from one survey, one questionnaire, and feedback from LSDAC participants, who formed the focus group to reflect and report how teaching church leaders to provide spiritual care can prepare parishioners to face death and dying more positively and fearlessly. Ten parishioners received a pre-training survey, but eight completed it, received training, and filled out the questionnaire. This research project reveals that the researcher should consider providing EoL education to other church leaders and members to meet the multifaceted needs of dying and mourning parishioners.

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