Dementia and the Church - by Mary McDaniel Cail (Paperback)

About the Book

Churches have a vital role in helping people with dementia and their caregivers, and much to learn from them too. Cail pairs poignant stories with strategies, lesson plans, and advice for ministries that compliment community needs and church resources. Readers will find here tools for preparing their congregations to engage this important work.

Book Synopsis

Mary McDaniel Cail calls upon extensive personal and professional experience to offer insight, context, and concrete guidance for congregations and leaders seeking to better serve the growing percentage of the population experiencing life with dementia. Churches have a vital role to play, Cail explains, in alleviating the social isolation and stress of dementia, and church members have much to learn from taking part in a dementia ministry.

Cail pairs poignant stories with practical advice for developing a holistic "memory ministry." Dementia and the Church includes lesson plans, advice on programming, and a rich trove of resources in addition to pragmatic information about dementia. A gifted storyteller, Cail crafts her prose with care and intention. Readers will develop "informed compassion," learning how to accept, pray with, relieve, and comfort all who cope with these increasingly common challenges - including themselves.

Visit Cail's website, www.allweatherfriend.org for a chapter-by-chapter list of hyperlinks used in chapters with dementia education activities and many additional resources.

Review Quotes

Dementia and the Church: Memory, Care, and Inclusion is a treasure chest of insight, inspiration, and guidance for churches that seek to practice "informed compassion" for people affected by dementia. With sensitivity birthed from painful personal experience and knowledge gleaned from extensive research, Dr. Cail has provided a much-needed resource for faith communities and their leaders. --Bishop Kenneth L. Carder, Ruth W. and A. Morris Williams Professor Emeritus, Duke Divinity School, and author of Ministry with the Forgotten: Dementia through a Spiritual Lens

Having been involved with ministry to dementia patients as a deacon and chaplain for over thirty years, I am so glad to have this book available. I teach pastoral care ministers and chaplains to the sick, and I wish this book had been available when I started many years ago. Dr. Mary McDaniel Cail's book is a touching and yet very practical approach to understanding dementia and Alzheimer's disease. It provides insight for those who are involved and are ministers to these wonderful and precious people. Having had my own family members go through these times in their lives, I have learned to value those who know how to minister to people in this time of their lives. --Deacon Jack Conrad, director of spiritual care, CHRISTUS St. Vincent Regional Medical Center, Santa Fe, New Mexico

This is a deeply helpful and much-needed book, filled with powerful stories, important information, abundant resources, pastoral wisdom, and practical steps that all of us can take. It offers both an unflinchingly realistic account of what it is like to live with dementia and a hopeful way forward for pastors, individual church members, and congregations as we seek to do better at walking alongside people with dementia and those who care for them. I will be recommending it widely in my dementia ministry with churches and using it as a textbook in my seminary course on ministering to those living with dementia. --Rev. Dr. Suzanne McDonald, professor of systematic and historical theology, Western Theological Seminary

Dementia is a complicated journey. It is one that we often fear as we anticipate it and wonder who will care for us and love us as we move into it. The church is a space of love within which Christians live out the beautiful truth that nothing can separate us from the love of God. In order to make the belief believable, we need a community who can live out that love and help us to live into it as we move on in our dementia journey. In this thoughtful, moving, and deeply practical book, Mary McDaniel Cail offers us maps, ways of thinking, and practical guides for the journey that can help us as individuals and communities to enable love, lament, and joy as we walk with one another along difficult roads. This is an important book that offers new and exciting possibilities for creating communities where everyone truly belongs. --Rev. Dr. John Swinton, professor in practical theology and pastoral care, King's College, University of Aberdeen; Fellow, British Academy and Royal Society of Edinburgh; author of Dementia: Living in the Memories of God