Classic Pastoral Care provides a topical arrangement of passages from classic Christian writings offering guidance on all major topics of pastoral theology. The four-volume set features writings from more than two hundred notable Christian authors--from Abelard and Ambrose to Isaac Watts and Zwingli--arranged in thirty topical sections.

Volume one, Becoming a Minister, is concerned with the person and self-understanding of the caregiver. It discusses the call to the caring office, the way this inner sense of calling is affirmed in ordination, orders of ministry, set-apartness, and the shepherding metaphor. This is followed by discussions of authorization to servant ministry; the purpose of ministry; the relation of the general ministry of the whole church to the sacred or ordained ministry; the orders of diakonos, presbuteros, episkopos; women in ministry; and preparation for ministry through study and spiritual formation.