Pastoral Interventions During the Pandemic: Pentecostal Perspectives on Christian Ministry in South Africa [Hardcover]

This book provides an interdisciplinary exploration of the challenges faced by pastoral ministry in South African Pentecostalism as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as some interventions being made to manage these challenges. Contributors present descriptive approaches to churches reactions to lockdown measures, and especially the adaptations generated within Pentecostalism in South Africa. Through a variety of approachesincluding pastoral care, virtual ecclesiology, social media, and missiologycontributors offer intervention techniques which can help readers to understand the unique role of Christian ministry during the pandemic, in South Africa and beyond.

1. Introduction: Pastoral ministry during COVID19 in South African Pentecostalism.- 2. Virtual ecclesiology in light of the challenges posed by COVID-19 in South Africa.- 3. The shutdown of Church services during COVID-19 in South Africa: a Social work perspective.- 4. Pentecostal pastoral calling and ministry in South Africa during COVID-19.- 5. Caring for grieving congregations due to the death of their pastors to COVID-19.- 6. The subtle benefit of social gathering and its prominence during hard Lockdown: a pastoral care approach.- 7. The use of social media during the spread COVID-19 in South Africa.- 8. The impact of Social media on the Black church during COVID-19.- 9. Martin Luthers hymn in the Global Pandemic of the 1520s: Pastoral ministry lessons for COVID-19.- Epilogue.

Mookgo Solomon Kgatle is Professor at the University of South Africa. He is a National Research Foundation (NRF) Y Rated researcher (2019-2024) in the area of African Pentecostalism. Additionally, he is the visiting scholar at the Centre for Pentecostal and Charismatic Studies-University of Birmingham (2020-2022) and founding President of the Southern African Society for Pentecostall“