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 just finished a post on the opposite--- "How Might Missiology Speak to Pastoral Counseling and Chaplaincy." So now I would like to suggest the value the opposite way. One challenge the the direction of Pastoral Theology informing Missions is that in a sense it has happened before. Back in the 1960s, a form of …
Continue reading How Might Pastoral Theology Speak to Missions
Continuing from Part 1. CLICK HERE if you haven't read Part 1 yet. #3. "RTV" Counsleing often devolves into bad hermeneutics on two levels. On the first level, there is often bad hermeneutics (process of interpretation) of the Bible. For example, a common RTV passage for counseling is Philippians 4:13 “I can do all things …
Continue reading Critique on RTV (“Read This Verse”) Counseling— Part Two
I decided to move some articles from an old blog of mine on Pastoral Theology. That is why some of my posts here are more about pastoral counseling and theology rather than "classic" missions. But since I am in missions and am an administrator at a pastoral counseling center, it is not NOT missions. I …
Continue reading Can You Do Good Pastoral Counseling With Bad Pastoral Theology?
Celia and I have gone through our most recent book, Dialogue in Pastoral Counseling and Training, and made a few modest changes. Some of these were fixing small glitches. Played with the structure in spots as well. I think the book is stronger now. Yes, I know that this blog is MOSTLY about missions, and …
Continue reading Updated Book, “Dialogue in Pastoral Counseling and Training”
Here is a quote by Howard Stone from "The Word of God and Pastoral Care" Over the years, while making pastoral care visits and especially hospital visits, I have sadly encountered many people whose well-meaning friends and acquaintances have responded to their why questions with theological answers that left them terribly upset and proved actually …
Many years ago I was being stashed at Destroyer Squadron 2 (in Norfolk, Virginia) in between ship duties. During that time, I was asked to join a Damage Control Inspection on a ship I had never been on before. I was a Lieutenant Junior Grade (LTJG) at the time. Even though I was mostly along …
As I noted before, I am involved in missions in the Philippines. I teach missions, but I also am the administrator of a pastoral care and counseling center, and I am the registrar for a pastoral counseling certification organization. The goals of missions and pastoral care are often quite different so I have wrestled with …
Continue reading Resolving Pastoral Care and Missions (Continuation)