Frank Stalfa

Born in Jersey City, New Jersey, in 1945, Frank Stalfa began his higher education at Palm Beach Community College, Florida. Receiving an A.A. degree there in 1966, he then entered Florida Atlantic University where he earned a B.A. in English and Education. Dr. Stalfa entered the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1968. He studied there until 1970 when he transferred to Duke University Divinity School where he received his Master of Divinity degree, magna cum laude, in 1972. A 1983 Doctor of Ministry graduate of Lancaster Seminary, his dissertation was titled, “The Function and Utilization of Religious Belief in the Practice of Psychotherapy.”

Dr. Stalfa has taught as adjunct associate professor of Rehabilitation Counseling at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; and as clinical assistant professor, Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine at UNC, Chapel Hill. He is a professional member of the International Enneagram Association, a Diplomate of the American Psychotherapy Association, a National Board Certified Counselor, and a Licensed Professional Counselor in Pennsylvania.

From 1974, Dr. Stalfa was employed with the Family Counseling Center, Hillsborough, North Carolina, first as a clinical substance abuse counselor and later, in 1977, as director of the Center. In that capacity he was responsible for administration of the Center’s programs and individual, marital and family assessment and therapy, as well as supervision of the clinic staff and student interns. From 1972-1974 Dr. Stalfa was a therapist with Forsyth County Mental Health Center.

Named to the faculty of Lancaster Theological Seminary in 1988, and appointed as Dean of Students in 2006, Dr. Stalfa began his teaching duties as assistant professor of Pastoral Theology. Dr. Stalfa was ordained in September 1989 by the Eastern North Carolina Association, Southern Conference, United Church of Christ. He is a part-time staff therapist and pastoral counselor with the Samaritan Counseling Center of Lancaster County. He has a son, Nathan, and he and his wife, Susan, an ordained minister of the United Church of Christ, have a daughter, Anna. They live in Lancaster

Ministry with the Dying, Bereaved and Their Families
Ministry with Couples and Families
Ministry in Matters of Human Sexuality
Ministerial Ethics
Addiction and Codependence
The Enneagram

The Enneagram
Pastoral Care

“The Pastoral Implications of the Texts for Transfiguration Sunday and First Three Sundays in Lent”
Lectionary Homiletics 52:2 (2011): 35-65.

’Posthumous Disillusionment’ as a Type of Complicated Grief”The
Journal of Pastoral Care &  Counseling 64.2 (2010): 8.1-8.

“Protestant Clergy Marriage in the Congregational Context: A Report
from the Field” The Journal of Pastoral Care & Counseling  62.3 (2008) 249-259.

"Accusatory Suffering in the Offended Spouse"
with Catherine Hastings
The Journal of Couple and Relationship Therapy, Volume: 4 Issue: 2/3, 2005

"The Enneagram"
in The New Dictionary of Pastoral Studies
Ed: Wesley Carr (Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 2002)

“Pastoral Implications of the Advent Texts"
Lectionary Homiletics, vol. vii, No. 1, December, 1995

“Vocation as Autobiography: Family of Origin Influences on the Caregiving Role in Ministry,”
The Journal of Pastoral Care, Vol. 48, No. 4, pp. 370-380.

“The Pastoral Care of Sin: The Enneagram in Pastoral Care and Counseling,”
The Journal of Pastoral Care, Vol 48, No. 1, pp. 65-74.

“Pastoral Care with Addicted Family Systems,”
Faith and Witness: A Scholarly Journal of the Faculty, 1992, Vol. 9, No. 2, pp. 66-77. Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, Wake Forest, NC.

Minding What Matters: Moral Inquiry in Pastoral Care