After being in pastoral ministry for nearly 16 years, I’ve never found a way to shepherd without engaging in personal conversations with sufferers and sinners who need God’s grace. Even more, I’ve never found a way to avoid being one of those troubled people. If there’s a device that can separate pastoral ministry from the inevitability of conflict, affliction, hard listening, and weighty conversation, then it remains undiscovered.
Jeremy Pierre (professor of biblical counseling at Southern Seminary in Louisville) and Deepak Reju (pastor of biblical counseling and family ministry at Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, DC) have partnered to write a primer for those who wish to move beyond lecturing or avoiding to personally ministering God’s Word. The Pastor and Counseling: The Basics of Shepherding Members in Need [audio interview] offers a clear and concrete approach to counseling informed by Scripture and introduces pastors to the labor of constructive ministry conversation.
No Counseling, No Ministry
Pierre and Reju believe genuine Christian ministry involves active counseling ministry:
Our point is simple: shepherds shepherd. Pastors are about the task of making disciples, and discipleship will often include counseling people through difficult situations. (16)
The authors move us toward a specific understanding of pastoral ministry before outlining their approach to pastoral counseling. This seems important, for many pastors neglect counseling, not because they misunderstand counseling so much as they misunderstand the essence of pastoral work.
I would represent Pierre and Reju’s logic this way: if the ministry of the gospel is a Spirit-enabled ministry of God’s Word, and the ministry of God’s Word requires personal interaction and dialogue with suffering people, then the ministry of the gospel and the ministry of counseling are woven together. While a pastor ought not bear the whole load of counseling in a church, Pierre and Reju cannot envision a way for church leaders to fulfill their calling as shepherds without ongoing personal interaction with sheep, especially sheep who are in trouble.
The Pastor and Counseling: The Basics of Shepherding Members in Need
Jeremy Pierre and Deepak Reju
The Pastor and Counseling: The Basics of Shepherding Members in Need
Jeremy Pierre and Deepak Reju
We don’t grow in Christ silently, after all. We profess, sing, cry out, confess, and converse. And we don’t grow in Christ alone. This means pastors cannot help their members walk with Christ without hearing them cry out, without listening to their troubles, without leading them through Scripture in conversation.
As pastors, we need not be alone in this work. Many men and women in the body of Christ should be equipped in the personal ministry of the Word; every one of us, after all, will need help sooner or later. Hiding behind a pulpit or long list of professional referral sources cannot keep reality at bay. People will call on their pastors in the times of trouble. They will and they should. I think we all believe this. The big question, then, is what will we do in those moments? How will we help?
Pierre and Reju tackle questions like these.
Counseling Done Well
A simple presentation of biblical counseling methods form the heart of The Pastor and Counseling. People seek help from their pastors for different reasons, under different pressures, and with different goals. So Pierre and Reju give tips for initial meetings, for asking questions, and for guiding ministry objectives and expectations.
Though never stated outright, I think Pierre and Reju try to help pastors lay aside the fear of counseling. Listening compassionately to personal troubles, wisely discerning heart desires, and speaking truth in love are not easy tasks for anyone, but these sanctified abilities can be learned and practiced.
Though conversations can always turn down a dozen possible paths without a moment’s notice, this doesn’t mean a pastor has to feel lost or overwhelmed. Pierre and Reju offer a number of concrete, simple strategies for receiving and guiding counseling conversations. They give anchor points and mile markers, but leave us to fill in the gaps with the tender tones, emotional subtleties, life experiences, and firsthand dealings with the Savior.
I suppose one could misconstrue the simplicity of their thinking and clarity of their writing to mean that biblical counseling is quickly and easily learned. But Pierre and Reju don’t claim to offer comprehensive training in the personal ministry of God’s Word; instead, they propose simple structures for counseling—“redemptive remedies” (77)—while leaving room for the complexities. This yields a marvelous skeleton, along with a few major organs and blood vessels, but leaves plenty of room for individuals pastors to add their own muscles, glands, and tissue from God’s Word.
Counseling Requires Community
The final two chapters aim to keep pastors from two potential counseling ditches: (1) counseling ministry without the church, and (2) counseling ministry without the help of sensible resources from the surrounding community. Pastors are encouraged to pray for “a culture of discipleship” (103) in their churches and to labor for an atmosphere of compassionate care, wise conversation, and Christ-centered counsel.
Pierre and Reju also commend the discerning use of professional and medical resources when the situation calls for it. Pastors and elders shouldn’t remove themselves from the conversation, but at the same time they shouldn’t shoulder the load alone. Members can be equipped to minister to one another, and members of the community can be engaged to serve in specific, helpful ways.
Invitation to Reclaim Terrain
The Pastor and Counseling invites and challenges pastors to reclaim their special responsibility of shepherding God’s people through the personal ministry of God’s Word. Pierre and Reju won’t let us fly over the messy trenches of human life as if we don’t belong in them. People, at some point, share unique burdens and seek help tailored to the details of their lives. They become worried, angry, and full of despair. They need the Word preached. They need the Word embodied. And they need the Word ministered—personally—to their lives (Col. 1:28–29; 3:16; 1 Thess. 4:18; 5:14).
Pastoral ministry cannot survive, let alone thrive, without situational wisdom, responsive prayerfulness, and the manifold witness of Scripture delicately applied to the wrinkles of human life. Thankfully, the Spirit is faithul to bring to mind what we need in particular moments with particular persons carrying particular burdens. But every pastor needs a starting point, and Pierre and Reju have supplied an excellent place to begin.