Having served on the pastoral staff (relatively briefly) of a couple of churches, ran a Christian counseling center (for much longer), and served on the faculty of multiple seminaries, I have seen the recurring struggle over what is more important, people or institutions. When counseling one or two members of a marriage--- should one focus …
Continue reading In Ministry, People are More Important than Institutions
I am teaching an online class, "Introduction to Pastoral Care and Counseling" for seminary students in Sierra Leone. The students had a great question: Why call it "Pastoral Care and Counseling"? Why not simply call it "Care and Counseling"? This is a more fleshed-out version of my response to the class. "Pastoral" comes from the …
Continue reading What Makes Pastoral Care and Counseling “Pastoral”?
<I took a break from posting to clean up my old posts. I have gone through all of my posts from the beginning in 2009 to the end of 2012. I deleted around 100, and touched up the rest.> Leviticus 19:33-34 seems to have become a popular verse recently, at least in the United States. …
Continue reading Foreign Missionary Thoughts on Leviticus 19:33-34