Pastoral Care 101: Vol 1
February 22, 2006
One of the surprises for me this semester has been how much I’ve enjoyed my Theory and Practice of Pastoral Care course. I love the course, the lectures, the discussions and the readings have been very interesting to me. I don’t know what that means for my future, but this is clearly an interest of mine. As I’ve been doing the reading, there are just some quotes that really stand out to me, and I thought I’d start a little "Pastoral Care 101" series of good quotes that I run across. I hope you’ll find them helpful or meaningful.
"A ministry of presence through pastoral counseling is characterized not so much by the skill, knowledge, or technique of the pastor as by the minister’s manner of being with another. It is a ministry of being, not merely of doing. I cannot heal another person; I can only create the environment and relationship where God’s healing may take place. I must let go of the incessantly busy Martha within me and let her sister Mary be hostess. My first act of engagement with another person should be one not of self-assertion, but of making a space where the other feels his or her presence is received." (Brita Gill, in Women Ministers, 91)
Posted in Ministry
Adam Walker Cleaveland: 
February 22nd, 2006 at 5:35 pm
Adam,
Awesome post and quote. Looking forward to more quotes. I love reading about pastoral care, and I loved my classes in seminary. I think pastoral care is so crucial, because it is really the intersection or praxix of what we know theologically, and how we apply that. I see too often, and in brutal ways, the mishandling of God’s word in times and places where there is a real lack of space and freedom to just be with people, to sit in their pain and suffering. One of my professors often referred to it as “spiritual malpractice.”
rhett
February 22nd, 2006 at 7:12 pm
In your summary of the course, you don’t mention any practical part of the course. Practicing the kind of things that the quote describes is critical to good pastoral care, so I hope you’re able to get some real-world experience in it. The best things I learned from my pastoral care class were not from the lectures but from the practical stuff of being with people in their times of confusion, struggle, joy, pain, and recovery. The theory described in that beautiful quote only means something when you are able to practice it.
February 22nd, 2006 at 7:49 pm
Andy, yes, you’re right. That’s the one downside to this course, compared to the Pastoral Care course at CTS: we really don’t have any “field experience.” Instead we have simulated conversations and experiences in our precepts - people will bring in a verbatim from a pastoral conversation they had with someone, and then they will role-play as if they were the person they talked to, and another student will play them.
Hardly on the same level as actually having to do 6-8 hrs of hospital visitations, etc., but it’s what we got here. I’m really looking forward to my CPE experience during the summer of ‘07, but until then - I’ll be role-playing.
February 22nd, 2006 at 8:48 pm
My brother died in a car accident a few years ago. The thing that stands out in my mind the most is not the words that were spoken to me, or the excuses made for God- it was the ‘being’ of my pastor. ‘Being’ in the sense of the quote above. It seems like this sort of thing transcends theology, into a simple notion of just giving of yourself, not necessarily of your mind or mouth.
February 22nd, 2006 at 8:50 pm
Great quote, bro.
February 23rd, 2006 at 4:37 pm
Henri Nouen touches on this in the very short but brilliant “out of solitude”… It is worth a read. I’ve always remembered that from the book. I think it is what has stayed with me. He just painted a picture of empathy and ‘being’ with a person who is in pain that has profoundly affected the way i am with people… (at least i hope that it has affected the way i am with people… )