Pastoral Care Notes

Tend My Flock: The Story of Pastoral Care

  • The chapter transitions from broad reflections on our shared human calling in Christ to a practical emphasis on the pastoral call to care.
  • It recalls God's covenant of care, highlighting the Trinity's faithful love as the foundation for Christian care within and beyond the church.
  • Pastoral care manifests in diverse ways, adapting to human struggles and joys, while pointing toward redemption in God's Kingdom.
  • Christian commitment and pastoral care should be appropriately limited and specific to time and place.
  • The chapter will explore key moments in pastoral care history with a focus on the British context.

A Kind of Loving

  • Christian love requires concrete, particular commitment rooted in living relationships, not abstract ideas.
  • Pastoral care embodies God's loving presence in ordinary life through intercession, incarnation, intention, information, and integration.
  • Prayer is central to pastoral identity, inviting others to know God's presence through care; it authenticates ministry as part of the Church's witness to God's grace.

Practice Point:

  • "You can pray with them sometimes, but pray for them always."

  • Pastoral care is distinctively incarnational, reflecting God's humility and presence in the world (Emmanuel).

  • It embraces messiness and informality, valuing low-key presence and identification with ordinary human relationships, especially in weakness and suffering (Phil. 2.1-8).

Practice Point:

  • "Pastoral effectiveness consists more in sharing lives than in solving problems."

  • Pastoral care needs intentionality, aiming to "go about doing good" (Acts 10.38) rather than being purposeless.

  • Pastoral visiting should be well-thought-out to avoid confusion, pity, or resentment, requiring a justifiable rationale.

  • Having a clear rationale differs from a controlling agenda; pastors should maintain receptivity to spiritual possibilities.

Practice Point:

  • "'Loitering with intent' need not be an offence - if the intent is to be alert to the opportune moment of bringing spiritual, practical or emotional care."

  • Effective pastoral care requires being well-informed through background study and lifelong learning.

  • Pastors should deepen their sensitivities to God's work in specific contexts without becoming arrogant experts.

  • Becoming well-informed is a humble part of discerning a specific pastoral vocation within the Body of Christ (Rom. 12.4-8).

Practice Point:

  • "The pastor who is compassionate enough to take an interest in the well-being of others will be concerned enough to take an intelligent interest in the context of their lives."

  • Pastoral ministry is integrative, keeping the whole person in view within a web of attentive relationships connected to God.

Practice Point:

  • "The integrative practices of prayer and theological reflection are the pastor's best protection against the fragmenting forces which would reduce his ministry to that of a mere religious technician."

  • Integration demands attentiveness to hidden aspects of individual need and unrecognized dimensions of community experience.

  • Pastors respect the whole person, not reducing attention to narrow 'spiritual' or 'religious' issues.

  • Pastors strive to integrate humanity within God's grace, addressing those lost or dehumanized. (Luke 15.3-7, Matt. 25.31-46, Mark 8.36)

Stories of Pastoral Care

  • Pastoral care is provisional and contextual, influenced by historical patterns.
  • The teaching and example of Jesus, the Good Shepherd (1 Peter 5.1–4), is the only constant in pastoral care history.

Koinōnia

  • Koinōnia means communion, fellowship, or community and represents participation in a common life, making pastoral care real.
  • In the early Church, koinonia united believers in Christ, connecting vertical (love for God) and horizontal (love for one another) dimensions of Christian love (1 John 1.2–4).
  • It is sacramentally enacted through communion (1 Cor. 10.16), incorporating worshippers as members of Christ's Body.
  • Koinonia points to the eschatological hope of unity in God's love (2 Peter 1.3-4).
  • Early Christians practiced mutual care, sometimes entailing a form of primitive communism (Acts 2.44-45; 4.32-37).
  • Monastic communities in the medieval period embodied koinonia, providing infrastructure for pastoral care through prayer, work, and service.
  • The Rule of Saint Benedict exemplifies koinonia principles through mutual accountability in prayer, work, and rest.
  • Koinōnia resurfaced in 20th-century ecumenical deliberations, calling Christians to prioritize building a life together where all may experience fullness.

Cura Animarum

  • Cura animarum means care and cure of souls focusing on teaching, guidance, and discipline.
  • Gregory the Great's Book of Pastoral Rule exemplifies this tradition, emphasizing discipline and personal study for pastors. Addressed topics today that would fall under discipleship or spiritual direction.
  • Gregory emphasized understanding and attending to the individual nurture and guidance of diverse Christian disciples.
  • It links pastoral care to geographically defined communities, formalized in the Western Church through parishes under a 'curate.'
  • While modern spiritual direction may differ, Gregory's approach seriously challenged sinful attitudes and addressed spiritual health conditions.

Discipline

  • Discipline, though less fashionable today, was essential in earlier pastoral care.
  • Augustine's sermon reflects the balance expected of pastors such as: Rebuke, encourage, support, teach, arouse, restrain, pacify, relieve, liberate, approve, bear with, and love.
  • The early Church established behavioral boundaries, with leaders administering discipline through penitence and reconciliation (Matt. 16.19).
  • Medieval period saw catalogs of sins and penances in Penitentials.
  • The Reformation reacted against hierarchical roles and sacramental confession but maintained moral rigor.
  • Pietism emphasized mutual discipline, notably in the Methodist class system.
  • The tradition of Christian discipline reminds us of the need for appropriate challenges within pastoral care.

Counsel

  • Spiritual counsel is an ancient ministry, not solely a modern development.
  • Gregory's Book of Pastoral Rule analyzes polarities in human experience of the time.
  • Spiritual guides should touch hearts with common doctrine but distinct exhortations, understanding different cases accordingly.
  • Puritan tradition of household religious education and Ignatian tradition of spiritual direction have been and continue to be important. Both entail seriousness of engaging with scripture and doctrine while attending to everyday relationships.
  • The modern era brought counseling influenced by psychological therapies.
  • Some pastoral theologians embrace psychological studies, correlating them with the Christian gospel.
  • Others critique psychotherapy's humanistic assumptions, individualism, and detachment from moral concerns.
  • Best practices integrate counseling skills into pastoral ministry training.

Liberation

  • Liberation theology critiques the psychological individualism of modern pastoral counseling.
  • Social-political analysis and intervention are necessary for fullness of life, surpassing individual care.
  • The rise of liberation and feminist theology brought critical issues to pastoral theology.
  • It refuses to separate public from private spheres, addressing social forces behind misery.
  • Exposing abuses covered by powerful groups in the Church is crucial.
  • It challenges power imbalances in the social construction of human difference.
  • Pastoral care must address justice, truthfulness, and radical challenges of the gospel.

Hospitality

  • Hospitality, a building block of community, was central in the early Church (Rom. 15.7).
  • Early Christians reached out to the margins, drawing in the poor and needy.
  • The monasteries practiced hospitality, with orders like the Hospitallers providing welcome, protection, and care.
  • Theological retrieval of hospitality is timely in an age of fragmentation and pluralism.
  • Christians are called to humbly receive by sharing in others' lives as guests.
  • Trinitarian theology echoes this, with mutual indwelling and openness.
  • Henri Nouwen characterizes this as a move from hostility to hospitality, creating space for others to express themselves.
  • Enacting koinōnia in openness to strangers foreshadows the messianic banquet.

The Scope of Pastoral Care

  • Pastoral care adapts to different times and places, maintaining an effective presence.
  • In the 21st century, professionalized models of 'care' and secularization affect the understanding and scope of Christian pastoral care.
  • Pastors work alongside professional carers with formalized roles.
  • Christians bring faith and worship to pastoral care.
  • Transforming love is a distinctive charism, differing from generic 'care' in schools or specialized counseling.
  • Mutual care expresses koinonia and is the foundation for all other forms of pastoral work.
  • Ministers with pastoral gifts enable the community's pastoral work.
  • Specialist ministries exist within the community.
  • Referral beyond the church may be necessary for specialist care such as institutional chaplaincies.
  • The Church can affirm and celebrate wider healing work in the world.
  • Appreciating the scope of pastoral care is essential for the humble confidence of the Christian pastor.

Keeping Watch

  • Tending Christ's flock requires vigilance and adaptability rooted in the pastor's integrity (Acts 20.28).
  • The pastor's personal and spiritual nature cannot be separated from their pastoring.
  • Relational understanding of human nature, intelligent appreciation of Church responsibilities, and a grounded approach to mission are key.
  • Self-awareness and role-awareness contribute to integrity and authority in caring for the flock.

Questions

  • What is your own understanding of pastoral care given the diversity of historic and contemporary models?
  • What do you emphasize that is important about pastoral care; and what do you think is missing from the following summaries?
    • Pastoral care consists of helping acts, done by representative Christian persons, directed towards the healing, sustaining, guiding and reconciling of troubled persons in the context of ultimate concerns.
    • To think about pastoral theology from the feminist perspective requires a fundamental reorientation of the core functions of pastoral care. In place of or in addition to the conventional modes with which pastoral care has been routinely equated - healing, sustaining, guiding and reconciling - four other pastoral practices acquire particular importance: resisting, empowering, nurturing and liberating.
    • Pastoral care is surprisingly simple. It has one fundamental aim: to help people to know love, both as something to be received and as something to give. The summary of Jesus of all the Law and the Prophets in the two great Old Testament texts on love (Lev. 19.18 and Deut. 6.5) tell us … all we need to know about the tasks of ministry.

Further Reading

  • Ballard, Paul and Stephen Pattison, 2005, The Bible in Pastoral Practice: Readings in the Place and Function of Scripture in the Church, London: Darton, Longman and Todd.
  • Beeley, Christopher A., 2012, Leading God's People: Wisdom from the Early Church for Today, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.
  • Bennett Moore, Zoe, 2002, Feminist Perspectives on Pastoral Theology, Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press.
  • Carr, Wesley, 1997, Handbook of Pastoral Studies, London: SPCK.
  • Clebsch, William A. and Charles R. Jaekle, 1975, Pastoral Care in Historical Perspective, New York: Aronson.
  • Deadman, Richard, Jeremy Fletcher, Janet Hudson and Stephen Oliver (eds), 1996, Pastoral Prayers: A Resource for Pastoral Occasions, London: Mowbray.
  • Evans, Gillian R., 2000, A History of Pastoral Care, London: Cassell.
  • Gerkin, Charles V., 1997, An Introduction to Pastoral Care, Nashville: Abingdon.
  • St Gregory the Great, 2007, The Book of Pastoral Rule, New Haven: St Vladimir's Seminary Press.
  • Hunsinger, Deborah van Deusen, 2006, Pray Without Ceasing: Revitalizing Pastoral Care, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.
  • Lyall, David, 2001, Integrity of Pastoral Care, London: SPCK.
  • McNeill, John T., 1951, A History of the Cure of Souls, New York: Harper and Row.
  • Oden, Thomas C., 1983, Pastoral Theology: Essentials of Ministry, San Francisco: Harper.