maintaining pastoral excellence

maintaining pastoral excellence

Introduction

To maintain pastoral excellence in this field, the involved party needs to have a robust pastoral identity. Public ministry, leadership, and pastoral care are the primary concerns of pastoral theology. These roles are considered quite essential for the pastoral activities practice of every kind. Before starting a pastoral ministry, it is necessary to develop a pastoral relationship with the followers of the given ministry. The relationship formed is of a spiritual carer but may also incorporate friendship and the relationship between a well-wisher and a friend. Some Christian churches, the relationship built between the followers and their pastors is considered a parental relationship. In these cases, the congregation usually refers to their priest as father, and they see them as precisely that(Mucherera & Lartey, 2017). However, in our fellowship, the relationship between the pastor and congregants is that of a shepherd and his sheep that is  manifested in the scripture as the model provided for the church leaders. The primary purpose of this essay is to discuss in detail the practice of pastoral care and theology in regards to two leading theologians in this field; Carrie Doehring and David Lyall. These two individuals have very different perspectives when it comes to pastoral care. For example, according to Carrie Doehring, pastoral care should be viewed and seen in various aspects. For example, the pre-modern that apprehends God through religious practices, modern focuses of consulting rational and empirical sources, and the post-modern approach that acknowledges the contextual nature of knowledge. She tends to believe that it a religious duty to care for other people. According to her, effective pastoral care should contain both psychological and theological principles. On the other hand, Lyall suggests that there are four main components of pastoral care. The first is that Pastoral care and it can be seen from the act of helping others, second is that pastoral care is preserved for the representative of the Christian people. The third component is that pastoral care is for the troubled, and finally, these troubles are mainly in the context of ultimate meanings and concerns. He has the belief that with the help of pastoral care, we should always show our human interest with the use of activities (Lyall, 2013).

Pastoral care definition

Different people and communities have different ways of defining pastoral care. According to Lyall, pastoral care is a Christian action of assisting, guiding, healing, sustaining and reconciling those individuals who are troubled and those whose crisis occur from concerns and ultimate meanings. His definition put a lot of emphases the importance of the influence of pastoral care on the social life of people. Pastoral care is the extensive ministry of restoration and healing among the general community and followers via a given cycle. Pastoral care also involves the Christian persons’ representative using a small group’s relationships to enable growth and empowerment among the followers and their relationships. The empowerment and growth emphasis on pastoral care is essential in this definition. Most people view pastoral care as an activity by a representative of Christian persons that has the aim of getting rid of and relieving both sorrows and sin and presenting all the congregants as perfect in Christ to God. Generally, pastoral care is the services and ministry that the Christian pastor performs, which includes counseling and visitation. It is possible to put Pastoral care in the biblical context from the book of 1 Peter 5: 2. In this particular book and verse, St. Peter gave us directions to shepherd the flock of God we are responsible for and exercise oversight willingly without being pressurized and not to do it for selfish gains. The duties of a pastor are more than sermon preparation and delivery to the congregation.  It includes biblical counseling provision, visiting the sick and injured in hospitals and homes, and disciplining church members to mention a few. Pastoral care also includes praying and taking care of individuals who are experiencing a crisis in their lives.

Reflection on a life experience

When people go through a crisis in their lives, they relate well to it by sharing or talking to people about it. Pastoral care is a rediscovery in that the primary source of Christian nurture lies within the people. For a pastor to have a clear interpretation of the scripture, he has to have an interaction between the traditions, his reasoning, and his personal experience. Past personal experience is essential in shaping a person’s pastoral care practice and theology. The event in my life that has impacted my pastoral care practice and theology is an experience I faced when I was seven years old. At this tender age, my mum got a better job in Dubai. Since my dad was never a present person in my life, my mum left me with her sister. My aunt had kids my age, and they bullied me all through my stay. My cousins made me do their chores, and every time I refused, they would starve me for days. I could cry the whole night, and they often threatened me not to tell my mum or else they would kill me. I could not tell my mum because I knew it would break her heart, and it would force her to quit her job. I persevered all these, but it got worse as my cousins and aunt could beat me up and force me to sleep on the floor. One day I felt enough was enough, and I told my mum all that had been going on. To my surprise, she took the next flight to save me from these people. I was traumatized for a very long time in my life, and it took me a while to speak up for myself after the experience. Throughout this experience, the Bible and prayer are what kept me going.

Context of pastoral care

The context of every ministry has an essential role in pastoral care practice. The context is essential as it creates a localized nuance of and uses of language and reflects the society’s deepest fears and hopes. My ministry context is a church. Since I was a child, I have been a member of the Church despite my experience at my aunt’s. Before my mum left for Dubai, I was already baptized, and I was churchgoer since I was born. After my graduation, I have been serving in my local church, and I feel I connect well with the congregation. The congregation of my local Church has approximately 1400 people. For the short, while I have been here, people have different problems but the most common ones are domestic violence, drug abuse and death of loved ones and infidelity among others. In the Church, there exists, psychologists, therapists and other professionals who have been helpful in the provision of care in the local Church. Most days we are held up are busy assisting the followers to come to solutions of their problems by guiding them and by the end of it all, a good number of them fully satisfied with the care we provide. We never let any care seeker without receiving help. We are always willing to work overtime when necessary. Helping as many people as possible within a day is one way to fulfil my goals as a pastor and keeping the congregation happy.

Sources of pastoral care knowledge

Christian pastors and caregivers acquire knowledge from the Bible, their personal experiences and knowledge acquired from research and school. The Bible is the main source of theology despite the existence and availability of newer knowledge sources. The Bible speaks out the teachings of Lord, biblical prophets and the laws that Christians are expected to follow so that they can walk on the righteous path. Most leaders acquire knowledge from their continuous experiences and exposure. Most crisis and issues that individuals undergo are related and the experience achieved from years of helping care seekers. Therefore, as time goes by, it becomes easier for the representatives to understand what the seekers go through. Pastoral care incorporates more than Christian teachings and therefore the Christian persons’ representative must be well equipped with the necessary knowledge. Just like any other professional practice education, Theological is divided into various areas of study that a student can specialize in including pastoral activities, Bible, history and theology. The scripture is an essential aspect because the Christian life fully relies on it and it is useful in comforting, correcting and encouraging those who seek care. Personal and Christian experience is crucial in the establishment in the connection with the care seeker and seeing the problem from their perspective.

Objectives of pastoral care

The main aim of pastoral care is to bring the congregation to Christian maturity. Contradicting to a good number of Christian’s perception, pastoral care is more than counselling, empathising and comforting. Lyall suggests that pastoral care involves guiding and teaching people at the same time, enhancing the development of growth and development of their faith. The five main objectives of pastoral care are healing, sustaining, nurturing, reconciling and guiding. The healing function of pastoral care aims at overcoming any impairment by restoring the individual’s wholeness and also leads them to advance beyond this condition. The healing, in this case, refers to the mental, spiritual, emotional and physical well-being of an individual. Pastoral care also aims at nurturing people. Pastoral care involves guiding the care seekers in making confident and well-informed decisions between alternative courses of action. Guiding applies in cases where the choices in question affect the care seeker’s state of human wholeness in the present and future. Pastoral care aims at re-establishing broken relationships between man and God, and man and other men through reconciliation. It employs both discipline and forgiveness. Lastly, pastoral care should aim at nurturing through which pastors and other representatives enable the congregation to live up to their full capabilities throughout the journey of life despite the challenges they face daily. There is a connection between this objective and the education and counselling function of pastoral care. In the nurturing process, pastoral care helps in the achievement of the educational mission of the community.

Model of delivering care

Carrie Doehring’s model is my preferred method of care delivery. I find her model to be the most effective. It is so because it encourages and motivates pastoral caregivers to make use of three approaches knowledge; pre-modern, modern and post-modern types of knowledge. The pre-modern approach mainly has a focus on summoning God with the help of religious rituals. The modern approach, on the other hand, focuses on consulting the empirical and rational sources of knowledge. Lastly, the post-modern approach acknowledges the contextual nature of knowledge. The first step of the model is listening to the care seeker with empathy. She emphasizes that one should apply listening and communication skills so that they fully understand the care seeker (Doehring, 2015). The pastoral caregiver has to listen carefully to the care seeker employing all the communication skills so that they can fully understand the care seeker and the crisis he or she is going through. The caregiver has to show empathy and make the care seeker feel comfortable sharing. On the second step, the caregiver revisits his own story that relates to the seeker’s situation and determines if the story will help in delivering pastoral care or it will hinder the process. The story the caregiver reflects on can be from their own experience or another care seeker’s experience. The third step is the assessment of what can be offered by the caregiver to the care seeker, i.e., competencies, limitations or accountability. Next, the caregiver should assess the situation of the care as he refers to the psychological categories of either crisis or transition. In the last step, the caregiver comes up with different strategies for care based on the changes in theological norms, family, community and psychological taking place at the same time with the crisis.

Priorities of pastoral care

Pastoral care deals with a wide range of problems affecting individuals from emotional, spiritual, physical and spiritual issues. As society continues to go through changes, the priorities of pastoral care will keep changing. For example, the dynamic nature of society is bringing changes to the way people relate with each other and changes such as increased diversity, independence, secularization and weaker social attachments. There is also a lot of conflict and competition leading to women empowerment and search for equality, the sexuality is also changing and homosexuality is becoming less stigmatized. All these social changes present a challenge for pastoral care and the priorities will need to change and focus on the personal issues presented by these changes. For example, independence and gender equality have made women stronger. In the past, women stayed in abusive marriages and kept up with infidelity from spouses. Now women are more independent and a show of disrespect from their spouses gives them reasons for separation. Pastoral care priorities in the next 5 to 10 years will shift from comforting the women who are abused by their husbands to guiding and mediating between the women seeking divorce and their husbands and comforting the children caught up in the crisis. Pastoral care plays an important role in uniting and rebuilding broken relationships. Women feel empowered now more than before and this has increased the number of divorce and separation cases significantly compared to before. According to a survey, there were over 106,900 divorces in 2016 which is a 7.2 increase from 2012 (Bjomberg, 2018). Homosexuality has also become widely accepted in the society and people are speaking openly of their sexuality and because not all accept it, there is much conflict between parents and children who come clean of their homosexuality. Some parents do not easily accept these changes and although homosexuality is not accepted in Christianity, Pastoral care is committed to bringing peace among members and restoring broken relationships. In such cases, Christian persons’ representatives have a duty to reconcile everyone despite the situation. Social change has brought much conflict and therefore pastoral care needs to focus on building relationships and bringing peace among the members and rebuilt the broken relationships. In cases where the relationships are beyond repair, pastoral care can provide comfort and guidance on how to move on past the crisis.

Self-care

The duties of pastoral care including providing physical, emotional and spiritual care to the church members. For this to take place effectively, the Christian leaders have to, first of all, take care of themselves and lead by example. A representative should be in the best condition possible so that they can be in the best position to provide care to those seeking it. Personally, to ensure my best physical well-being, I ensure that I take a healthy diet. A healthy diet is one that includes a healthy portion of carb, fruits and vegetables, white meat, and I take in lots of fluids. A healthy die protects me against lifestyle diseases such as diabetes, obesity and heart disease. As a pastoral caregiver, I also must ensure my psychological well-being. According to Robertson Cooper, psychological well-being consists of self-acceptance, positive relations with the people around us, individual growth, autonomy, environmental mastery and a purpose in life (Cooper, 2012). One has to have a balance of the positives that are rewarding life events and the negatives that are the challenges. For me, my positive things in life are my fulfilling job and the meaningful relationships I established with the followers. I also feel fulfilled because as a representative in Church, I feel that my life has meaning because I have the opportunity to bring positive changes to the lives of others through pastoral care. The negatives that present a challenge to my everyday living are the cases where I cannot help care seekers and this makes me feel like I have failed them. Balancing the positives and the negatives ensure my psychological wellbeing. My spiritual well-being is also important in providing pastoral care and also for my individual mental well-being. Spiritual wellbeing contributes significantly to one’s emotional, physical and mental well-being as it gives us the opportunity to detach from difficult situations and view life with integrity and clarity. To ensure my spiritual well-being, I strengthen my relationship with God by reading the Bible and looking for deeper meanings of my life and analyze the patterns so that I can have control of my life. My spiritual-well-being helps me understand God and why things happen to us whether good or bad and this is useful in providing pastoral care.

Conclusion

Pastoral care is one of the most important tasks of the day-to-day activities of church leaders and other Christian persons’ representatives. Pastoral ministry depends on the pastoral relationships between the leaders and the followers. Pastoral care is part of the pastoral ministry. It is defined as the work of healing, consoling, guiding and sustaining troubled followers by a Christian person’s representative. Pastoral care includes visiting the sick, biblical guidance and counseling, reconciliation, disciplining the church members and comforting those going through tough times. Pastoral caregivers get pastoral care knowledge from the scripture, personal experience and the academic knowledge they have gained from school. They also carry out research on the arising issues affecting the members. The most effective method of delivering pastoral care is Carrie Doehring’s seven steps model. The model incorporates the pre-modern approach, modern and post-modern approaches in delivering care. it is based on cultural, theological and psychological studies and this makes it more efficient. The seven steps of the pastoral care model are listening to the care seeker with empathy, reflecting on one’s own story that is related to the care seekers, assessing what we can offer the care seeker, assessing the care seeker’s situation with reference to psychological categories, assessing the strength and weaknesses of the care seekers community of support, a theological reflection and the last step is developing strategies for care for the care seeker.

References

Bjornberg, U., & Kollind, A. K. (2018). Individualism and families: equality, autonomy and togetherness. Routledge.

Cooper, I. R. (2012). Leadership, psychological well‐being, and organizational outcomes. In The Oxford Handbook of Organizational Well Being.

Doehring, C. (2015) The Practice of Pastoral Care: A Post-Modern Approach (revised and expanded edition), Louisville, KY: WJKP (first published: 2006).

Graham, L. K. (1992). Care of persons, care of worlds: A psychosystems approach to pastoral care and counselling. Nashville: Abingdon Press.

Lyall, D. (2013). Pastoral care and counselling in Scotland since 1950. Theology in Scotland, 20(2), 33-43.

Mucherera, T. N., & Lartey, E. Y. (Eds.). (2017). Pastoral Care, Health, Healing, and Wholeness in African Contexts: Methodology, Context, and Issues (Vol. 1). Wipf and Stock Publishers.

Type of care: support

Listening to the care seeker

Benjamin is an elderly man in his late 70s. He is an immigrant from the Caribbean who arrived in England in the 1960s. He has been a faithful member of the Church and his main concern is that everything seems to be changing with the new leadership team introducing new modes of worship. Benjamin feels lonely as isolated as most of his friends are now dead or have moved back to the Caribbean. The reason Benjamin is seeking pastoral care is that he was recently attacked by three young men, a Caucasian, African American and Asian and stole from him after the assault. He thinks there are way too many changes taking place in the world around him as time passes by. He does not get out of his apartment anymore and is very angry and fearful. The men the police arrested based on his description are still in jail. However, Benjamin could not remember his assailants well when he went to identify them in a police parade. Benjamin now believes that God and the local Church have abandoned him.   Benjamin is looking for support at the Church and also assurance that the neighbourhood and the streets are safe for him to take a walk again just like the old times. He wishes to keep staying in England and hopes that his life will go back to the way it was before the changes that have taken place. He hopes that he will still have a say in the Church despite the changes in the leadership team because the Church is the only place where he gets his peace.

Reflection on own story

Benjamin’s story reminds me of my own experience back when I was in college taking my theological education studies. I was studying away from home and I did not know anyone apart from my classmates. Having been brought up in a big family, being alone in a new town was hard for me. I had a hard time making new friends and establishing any meaningful relationships with my classmate and so my college life was pretty isolated. Isolation is a common cause of depression, social anxiety and low self-esteem. These issues got in the way of my studies and I began failing. It took a while and intervention from the school’s psychology and a concerned lecturer to help me. I lost six months of my studies but in the end, I completed my education and moved back home to my friends and family. This story was helpful in delivering care to Benjamin because it gave me the experience of what he was going through with the isolation and the effects it would have on him.

What to offer

In Benjamin’s case, we can offer support so that he can stop feeling like he is all alone. We could advise Benjamin to join the church groups for the elderly so that he can have companionship from other people from his age group. Benjamin is always in his house and we could give him simple tasks he can perform while seated due to the acute problems with his legs. Young leadership has brought too many changes in Benjamin’s opinion and therefore involving him in simple church operations will restore his faith in the leadership of the Church and make him feel like he’s a part of the Church again.

Care seeker’s situation

Benjamin is going through a transition and the best way to help him is making the transition easier for him. He is still dealing with losing his friends, those that have died or gone back to the Caribbean. These are among the reasons Benjamin is feeling detached from other members. He cannot make new friends at this age and the isolation is taking a toll on him. At this age, the isolation exposes Benjamin to mental illnesses risks such as depression, dementia and social anxiety.

Community of support

Benjamin does not have any family or friends living in England and therefore he does not have a community of support. Benjamin feels like the community he lives in has abandoned him. His family lives in the Caribbean. Benjamin lives alone in isolation. Being an immigrant from the Caribbean, Benjamin is different from most of the people living around him especially with the dynamic nature of society. There is a significant cultural difference between him and the community surrounding him. All these conditions hinder the transition process for Benjamin.

Theological reflection

Benjamin needed to know that the Lord does not like us living in solitude. Solitude is a sign of selfishness and also hinders one’s spiritual growth. God is a God of relations which is evident in the holy trinity. We are all united by the body (Romans 12:5) and the body cannot function with other parts missing Corinthians 12:14. It is also clear that the lord does not like loneliness which is why after creating Adam and realizing that he was lonely he created him a companion and helper. God designed us to be in a community where we are surrounded by others. To help Benjamin seek God in his situation, I gave him the example of David who had been lonely and prayed to the Lord to give him a connection in Psalms 25. The lord would help Benjamin just like David to establish meaningful relations as long as he believed and also made the effort and interacted with others.

Strategies for care

Benjamin needs help interacting with other members of the Church. He needs to feel like the Church and the community has abandoned him. One way to get Benjamin to understand the changes taking place around him is to get him to interact with people in the community. Benjamin barely leaves his house and the loneliness and isolation negatively affect his emotional and mental well-being. Benjamin will be assigned a volunteer to help him out, take him out when he needs. Having someone around him will his anxiety and fear. Also, a younger volunteer will help change Benjamin’s perspective of the changes in society. Also, getting Benjamin to participate in Church activities will reduce his isolation as he will interact with other people and give him a purpose in life. It will also help to make him feel that he is not left out in the Church.