LESSON 3A– COUNSELING IN THE CONTEXT OF THE CHURCH

Dr. Danny B. Medina

Congregations and Counseling

How does counseling apply in the church?

What is a church?

Church is not buildings nor denominations nor places where people gather. It is different-sized communities of

people, at different places in their spiritual journeys, joining with others to worship, to learn, to grow, to serve, to give. Church communities are ideally caring groups of

developing people who sometimes come together for crucially important corporate worship but who also seek

to live every day in ways that show their dedication to Christ and their love for others. No church is perfect, and

no one has fully reached the ideals, but nevertheless, church communities are safe environments where people can struggle, grow, care, share, and learn how to be like

Jesus

Key Passages

1. Romans 12

2. 1 Corinthians 12

3. Ephesians 4

Care and Counseling

Whose responsibility is it?

Pastoral CareIt refers to the church’s overall

ministries of healing, sustaining, guiding, and reconciling people to God and to one another. This includes preaching and teaching, shepherding people, nurturing, caring in times of need,

sometimes disciplining and administering the ordinances.

Pastoral Counseling

This is a more specialized part of pastoral care that involves helping individuals, families, or groups as they cope with the pressures and crises of life.

Pastoral Counseling

The ultimate goal is to help counselees experience healing, learn coping and relational skills, and grow both personally and spiritually.

Pastoral Counseling

The Bible teaches that all believers are to bear the burdens of one anotherand that all believers are

priests.

Pastoral Psychotherapy

It is a long-term, in-depth helping process that attempts to bring fundamental changes in the counselee’s personality, spiritual values, and ways of

thinking.

Christian Counseling and Spiritual Direction

What is the difference?

Spiritual DirectionIt is help given by one Christian to

another, which enables the recipient to:1. More effectively pay attention to God’s

personal communication.2. Respond to this God who communicates

personally.3. Grow in intimacy with this God.4. Live out the consequences of this

relationship.

The Difference:

Unlike counseling, spiritual direction:1. Does not focus on problem-solving

or advice-giving.2. Involves at least two people

praying and meeting together to cultivate greater supernatural awareness and deeper relationships with God.

Counseling and the Emergent Church

Changes in the current church and counseling.

Changes in churches today:1. Traditional churches tend to

worship using older hymns, have strong pastoral leaders, emphasize preaching and rational thinking, often have rules to guide behavior, and utilize traditional counseling approaches.

Changes in churches today:

2. Pragmatic, “seeker-sensitive” churches have innovative worship, try to meet needs, emphasize reaching out, often have CEO-type leaders and high-quality, technologically sophisticated programs.

Changes in churches today:

3. Emergent churches tend to have younger congregations that are sensitive to postmodernism, value relationships, and prefer worship that involves all members of the congregation and uses art, stories, and the different senses. These church members prefer more informal counseling and coaching to traditional therapy and counseling approaches.

The Church as a Caring Community

The reason the church is on the earth.

Opportunity of the churches today:

1. The church has the greatest potential for being a caring and healing community.

Opportunity of the churches today:

2. The church has divine mandate to care and to heal.

Does Psychology Help?

We need a careful intergradation of the insights of psychology and

Biblical truth so that we can understand and help people who

come to us for counseling.

Does Psychology Help?

All counselors have failures, sometimes because of the

counselor’s inability, misperceptions, or error, but also because the counselee cannot or

will not change.

Church-Psychology Collaboration

1. Trust and respect each other as equals.2. View each other as professionals.3. Value the expertise that the other brings.4. Share similar values and, in ideal situations, have similar

faith commitments.5. Have similar goals for their clients.6. Are creative enough to think of ways in which psychology

and theology can be applied within each other’s setting.7. • Are willing to find innovative ways for working together

beyond the pastor referring parishioners for treatment.