session 2: pastoral care in practice - other...

Pastoral Training Course Level 1Session 2: Pastoral Care in Practice - Other Considerations

SESSION 2B: OTHER CONSIDERATIONS INTRODUCTION : IS SELF-CARE BIBLICAL?

Many of us don’t take self-care very seriously. Some people actually believe that self-care has no place in the Christian life. Self-care, in their view, is simply “selfish.”

The Bible shows us, however, that God takes our self-care very seriously indeed. For example, God cared for Elijah when he was physically exhausted by encouraging him to eat and rest.

1 Kings 19:3-9 – “When Elijah saw how things were, he ran for dear life to Beersheba, far in the south of Judah. He left his young servant there and then went on into the desert another day’s journey. He came to a lone broom bush and collapsed in its shade, wanting in the worst way to be done with it all—to just die: “Enough of this, GOD! Take my life—I’m ready to join my ancestors in the grave!” Exhausted, he fell asleep under the lone broom bush. Suddenly an angel shook him awake and said, “Get up and eat!” He looked around and, to his surprise, right by his head were a loaf of bread baked on some coals and a jug of water. He ate the meal and went back to sleep. The angel of GOD came back, shook him awake again, and said, “Get up and eat some more—you’ve got a long journey ahead of you.” He got up, ate and drank his fill, and set out. Nourished by that meal, he walked forty days and nights, all the way to the mountain of God, to Horeb. When he got there, he crawled into a cave and went to sleep.” (The Message)

Jesus also knew and understood that self-care is an issue of the greatest importance for everyone.

Luke 5:16 – “As often as possible Jesus withdrew to out-of-the-way places for prayer.”. (The Message)

Edited (original author E J Neve) 28 August 2019 page 1 of


Jesus regularly withdrew from the world to enable Himself to rest and recover His physical, spiritual and emotional health. He encourages us to do the same.

Jesus also said:

Matthew 11:26-30 – “Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” (The Message)

We know from original translations that Jesus actually shouted this out – literally the word used here describes a scream or a cry. Jesus saw the people around Him desperate for relief from pain, yearning for something more in their lives. So, He calls out to them, and to us, “come to me!” He longs to bring us relief from our pain – spiritual, physical and emotional. By walking with Him we can learn how to work and how to rest, how to recover our lives when we are overwhelmed by all we carry.

Indeed, throughout the Bible, it is assumed that we love and care for ourselves.

Ephesians 5:29 – “after all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as christ does the church.”

James 2:8 – “You must love and help your neighbours just as much as you love and take care of yourself.” (The Living Bible)

Jesus also summed up the law in the words. “You shall love your neighbour as yourself” in Matthew 22:39 – so self-love is assumed in Jesus’ words. It is part of our human nature to love ourselves, even sadly when that self-love is expressed in harmful ways like escapism and addiction.

However, you may ask: “Doesn’t the bible warn us against self-love?”

2 Timothy 3:1-2 – “but mark this: there will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy …”



However, self-love is not the same as “love of self”, which is a self-centred preoccupation. When Paul wrote these words, he was writing about selfish, self-centred love—a type of love that is very different from the self-giving love God wants us to have.

Many of us at times struggle to understand and embrace the deep love God has for us. We keep forgetting how loved we are, so we go searching for love in all the wrong places. And because we often fail to grasp the depth and breadth of God’s love for us, we can also struggle to love ourselves. And when we struggle to love ourselves, we fail to care for ourselves.

We may be able to love our neighbours and forgive all their sins, yet not feel able to apply the same mercy and grace to ourselves. We all need to accept ourselves—our personalities and imperfections—knowing that, although we are not where we need to be, we are making progress. God wants us to love ourselves and our identity in Him!

Self-care or self-compassion, rightly understood, is not an inflated sense of self-importance, or selfishness that keeps us from serving others. Instead, self-care is a realistic view of how to take care of the only bodies we have in this life; bodies which house our minds and our souls.

Neither burnout out nor inactivity is of God. But, avoiding one in fear of the other is itself unwise. We should practice self-care not for fear of extremes, but because it reveals this truth: we belong to God, in body, mind and in spirit. We can love God and others better with every part of ourselves if we are taking care of ourselves as we should. Self-care is most definitely biblical!

Question:

Which do you fear, burnout or inactivity?

SAFE AND SUSTAINABLE CARE

What needs to be in place to make sure pastoral care is safe and sustainable for all involved?



SELF-CARE

So, as we have seen self-care is not only biblical but essential in order to sustain the health of our bodies, minds and souls.

So how do we go about tackling this challenge? Good self-care strategies can be grouped under three major headings: the spiritual, emotional, and physical.

PHYSICAL SELF-CARE

When you think about self-care, it’s physical care that probably comes immediately to mind. We all know that we need to eat well, exercise, and get enough sleep. But we need to choose to make this a priority and give ourselves the time needed to invest in our physical health so we respect the physical body God has given us.

SPIRITUAL SELF-CARE

Spiritual self-care is a never-ending process that involves building a relationship with God that’s always growing and deepening. Just like any other relationship, our relationship with God needs to be intentional. Spiritual self-care involves taking time daily to deepen our own relationships with God. Bible study, scriptural meditation and quiet times, prayer, silence, and worship all belong in this category. Connecting with fellow Christians and being part of the Body of Christ is also an essential part of our self-care as disciples of Jesus.

Question:

How is your relationship with God? Is it growing and deepening?

EMOTIONAL SELF-CARE

In the last session, we looked at the importance of “listening to ourselves”, and how this develops improved self-awareness. Being self-aware is an important component of emotional self-care, as we seek to understand ourselves and how we ensure the emotional well-being both of ourselves and those we care for. It helps us work toward positively changing the things we can hold against ourselves such as guilt, anger, avoiding decisions and not asking for help.

By staying in touch with how we are doing by identifying our emotions and listening to our feelings, we are better able to process them. This emotional processing is incredibly important, and is something many people just don’t do in the busyness of



rushing from one task to another. Writing down our feelings or having someone to talk to about how we are feeling is a good way to start this process.

Building solid and supportive friendships can improve our emotional wellbeing and dramatically reduce the risk of stress and burnout. Indeed, paying attention to all our key relationships is a vital part of self-care. This means investing time in our spouses or partners, our children, our close friends and key co-workers.

Unless we are careful there is always the danger that these important people will only get the leftovers of our time and attention. Relationships don’t “just happen” – they flourish with intentionality – and when they function well, they are one of the most important components of good self-care.

Our minds, just as much as our bodies, benefit from time to relax away from the demands of busy chaotic lives. Giving ourselves permission to spend time doing things we enjoy is vital. Take time to identify the activities that you enjoy and be

intentional about making time for them.

When we take care of our well-being, we become more resilient and better able to cope with the struggles and difficulties of life. We are also able to care for others better.

Some ways to practise self-care:

1. Take time to yourself, away from others.2. Get a full night’s sleep (regularly!).3. Visit your favourite place.4. Write down a list of things you are thankful for.5. Spend time outside appreciating God’s creation.6. Ask for help if you need it.7. Write down what you are thinking and feeling.8. Listen to your favourite music9. Turn off your phone for a day (yes really, a whole day)10. Do something that inspires and motivates you.11. Make future plans for a trip or event you are excited about.12. Spend time with those you love.



Activity:

To discuss in pairs:o How good or bad is your self-care? o Is there one area that you need to improve?o What can you put in place to improve your own self-care?

BOUNDARIES

Boundaries are another important part of our self-care as they protect the inner core of our identity and our right to make choices. However, in order to set appropriate boundaries, we need an understanding of what is our responsibility and what isn’t, something that is often more difficult to determine in the somewhat informal and friendly environment of a church family.

However, setting appropriate boundaries in pastoral care is important, as we must balance the care we give to others with the care that we ourselves need, as well as with the needs of our own families.

Brene Brown writes:

“Daring to set boundaries is about having the courage to love ourselves, even when we risk disappointing others.”

The main importance of boundaries in pastoral situations is that they set up and manage the expectations that both parties have of the relationship. They ensure that an individual isn’t expecting something that we may be unable to give – that they do not, for example, think that they can contact us any time of any day and we will always be able to talk to them or get back to them straight away.

In addition, we are encouraging people to be vulnerable with us, and clear boundaries make the relationship a safe and predictable place where they can do this. Good boundaries protect people (who may be very vulnerable at the time) from what they may perceive to be rejection, by making clear what our limits are.

Boundaries make sure we are able to keep on caring and offering the best kind of support. They help us keep balance, making sure we recharge our batteries and avoid the all-too-present risk of burnout and compassion fatigue.



Boundaries that you may need to put in place in a pastoral relationship include:

When and how someone can contact you. What to do in a crisis. What you (and the church) can and, importantly, can’t offer them. When and where they will see you.

Question:

How easy do you find it to put boundaries in place within a pastoral relationship?

What are the challenges?

There are, however, times when boundaries are crossed. When this happens, the cost may not be immediately recognized, but over time there may be a significant impact on our wellbeing and that of those close to us.

Sometimes people we are supporting will push the boundaries. When that happens in an acute situation all we can do is manage the situation. But it is really important we follow up and gently but firmly reinforce the boundaries and why they are important. Ultimately if someone continues to break them, we may be unable to help them.

Boundaries can also be broken by those of us seeking to provide care. One major cause of boundaries being broken by carers is when co-dependency occurs or when the carer is emotionally triggered by a pastoral situation. When this happens, it is important to review the situation by taking time to examine our motivation and also our own emotional well-being.

It is important to recognise that at different times in our lives our boundaries may need to be in different places. There are times when we may need to re-establish our boundaries in line with our own emotional capacity, and the issues that we are carrying for others at that time.

It is also important to note at this point that we are not called to care for everybody, but we may be called to care for someone. For some of us that is an important boundary in itself to recognise. There are also times when we are unable to care for others and we need to receive care instead.



Question:

How would you recognise that a boundary had been broken?

One of the difficulties with church pastoral care is the fact the church is both a place of support, acceptance and nurture and also an organisation that wants to keep looking forward in its mission and reaching out to the community. Here the boundaries of what support a church can offer become very important.

It can therefore be is a useful exercise for church leaders to discern the level of care that is appropriate given their resources and the level of pastoral training within the team.

Question:

What do you think are the limits of any pastoral care your church should provide?

MOTIVATION

An important matter to be considered when we are involved in providing pastoral care is the issue of our motivation for pastoral work. We need to be honest and ask ourselves whether the pastoral care we provide to others is about us or about them.

Problems can occur, not because of what we do but why we do it. Put bluntly the issue is, are we caring to serve some need in ourselves? If our own identity is not founded in our relationship with God, then we can fall into the trap of thinking our value is dependent on what others think of us. We may then desire proof that we are worth something by having other people tell us how wonderful or helpful we are.

This issue of co-dependency, as well as causing us problems, can also affect our judgement when helping others, as our goals become about helping our value issues and not about helping them with their problems.

It’s not that serving others shouldn’t feel good. Afterall, it’s what we were made to do. And, like Eric Liddle in the film “Chariots of Fire”, when we do what God made us to do, “we feel His pleasure”. But doing it just to elicit praise from others so we can feel valuable cannot be our primary motivation. If it is then it’s really about us and not about them.



Jesus dedicated his entire life to pleasing God, and He said:

John 5:30 – “I seek not to please myself but him who sent me”.

Jesus gave out to others from the overflow of the significance and security he found in the father. His relationship with the Father gave him his intrinsic worth and value, and all that he did flowed naturally from that.

When our significance and security and self-worth come from God, then our love and care for others has its source in God, and not in our damaged and damaging selves. This is yet another reason why pastoral carers must be connecting regularly with God and the Holy Spirit.

Questions:

Do you regularly compare yourself to, or copy others? Are you seeking to please God or other people? How important is it to you that you are thought of well by others?

CONFIDENTIALITY

The issue of confidentiality is an important consideration in good pastoral care so that we maintain respect for those being cared for, as well as the integrity of the pastoral carer and of our churches.

It is all too easy for information gained in pastoral encounters to become food for gossip, or to be used inappropriately – especially if co-dependency is an issue.

The effects of inappropriately sharing confidential information can be far-reaching and includes breakdown in relationships, anger and feelings of vulnerability. We always need to be vigilant when sharing information about other people in order to treat them and the information they give us with the utmost care.

However, it is helpful to distinguish between confidentiality, secrecy and collusion. Confidentiality protects the rightful privacy of the person; secrecy is concealing information which could result in harm to others; collusion involves cooperating with behaviour that is intended to deceive and could be fraudulent or illegal.



Within our group of Salt & Light churches we aim to practice a “culture of honour”. This practice seeks to honour both the individual and information they reveal without promising to complete confidentiality.

This culture of honour acknowledges that, in order to care for people effectively, some information may at times need to be shared with a pastoral team, with church leadership, or with the person caring for the carer.

Wherever possible, church leaders and others engaged in pastoral conversations should explain the limits of confidentiality to those receiving pastoral care. This should ideally occur at the beginning of a pastoral relationship or meeting.

There are also occasions when we may have a duty of care to the individual if we believe they are a danger to themselves or others. Issues of safeguarding will also need to be dealt with appropriately and referred on to the appropriate individual –this is covered in a later section.

Questions:

What is your understanding of confidentiality within a “culture of honour”? Have you experienced having your confidence broken? If so, what did it feel

like?

SAFEGUARDING

We all have a duty to value every single person, because they bear the image of God. This means that we all have a responsibility to protect them from harm. However, church pastoral workers play a particularly significant role in the safeguarding of children and vulnerable adults because of the nature of their pastoral conversations.

Therefore:

Pastoral workers must know who their Local Safeguarding Leader is, as they are responsible for the implementation of and adherence to safeguarding policies and procedures.

Every pastoral worker must familiarise themselves with their own church’s safeguarding code of practice, so that if they have any safeguarding concerns,



they are fully aware of all the relevant guidelines and the subsequent steps required to ensure any concerns are dealt with effectively.

In most cases, your church’s safeguarding code of practice will specify which positions of pastoral responsibility require an enhanced DBS certificate.

Each church’s safeguarding policy has been formulated to help workers to respond appropriately when abuse is alleged, disclosed, discovered or suspected. Following the safeguarding guidelines will not only protect vulnerable people but also help to ensure that pastoral carers are not wrongly accused of abuse or misconduct.

Lastly, please remember that in addition to what your church safeguarding policy says, you have certain legal obligations with regard to safeguarding and reporting of certain conversations to the relevant authorities. In most cases your church policy will cover this all in detail, however if you are in any doubt, you should speak to your safeguarding lead.

SUSTAINABILITY

Sustainability can often get overlooked when discussing pastoral care. However, many of those we seek to love and care for are dealing with long term difficulties and not one-off situations needing one-time support. In these long-term situations, it is vital that the care the church gives is sustainable and unwavering.

Many long-term difficulties are extremely challenging to the individuals involved and they are often in need of a great deal of pastoral support from the church. However, these situations can be the most difficult for churches to manage. We must aim to avoid causing pain and distress to those in need by not giving up on them when things get tough, or by starting to care for them but then avoiding them when it becomes too much or too hard.

The needs of people in these situations can easily overwhelm a single individual and it is vital that the load is spread across a number of pastoral carers. Good team working in pastoral care is essential for the wellbeing of those giving and those receiving care, but no more so in long-term challenging situations. It may be that some pastoral carers may be skilled in one area or another, so play to your strengths and work as a team.



The following questions can be useful in guiding how to take long term pastoral care forward so that we don’t become overwhelmed with needs or trapped by unrealistic expectations.

Who is the key pastoral worker? Are they involved directly or supporting someone else to provide the care? Are extra people needed to spread the load or bring different skills? Do those involved need support themselves to keep providing this support? Are we making sure the person is moving forwards? Are we managing people’s expectations?

When caring for people in long-term situations, it may be helpful to ask the church’s leadership team seek God for a breakthrough in circumstances through prayer and fasting. Of course, in some cases part of the support we give is encouraging and showing people how to develop resources of their own – for instance, learning to choose to push into God themselves, so that they are not so reliant on our care.

For many of those in long-term distressing or challenging situations, a sense of isolation and loneliness is often their most painful emotion. Even if we involve others or refer people on to other sources of support, walking with them over time and sharing their journey of revelation and restoration is one of the greatest gifts we can offer them. However, when you journey with someone for a long time try to remember the following things:

Their journey is theirs. Be aware of the dangers of transference of emotions. Retain your boundaries and keep the setting defined and safe for you both. Keep accountable and avoid co-dependence.

Question:

What do would you regard as the most difficult long-term situation to support? Why is this situation so challenging?

ACCOUNTABILITY

When we care on behalf of the church, we need to be accountable to that church (as well as to God!) for the care we provide. Accountability promotes good practice and also enables those we care for to feel that the care they are receiving is appropriate. It sharpens our decision-making and opens us up to wise Godly counsel.



Accountability also benefits those who provide care by helping them to stay connected to others in the church, and to the church’s work and mission.

Pastoral workers must be aware of the dangers of dependency in pastoral relationships: being accountable to another church member goes a long way to recognising and addressing this issue should it arise.

When we are involved in caring for others in traumatic and distressing situations, we should always seek support from someone who can help us process the effects of this on our own spiritual, physical and emotional wellbeing. With all pastoral care there is the potential for carers to be left with the pain and the weight of other people’s soul-searching. It is important that pastoral teams are looked after and have environments where they can both share their experiences and learn together. The process of sharing their concerns and difficulties in a safe place and supportive environment can make their task more bearable and can also help them gain insights in their care for others.

When those offering pastoral care have an appropriate outlet to share difficult experiences or questions, the risk of breaking confidentiality also decreases.

Questions:

Who are you accountable to? Does this accountability involve discussion of any pastoral care you offer?

REFERRALS AND RESOURCES

When providing pastoral care for others, we need to recognise our limits and not undertake any ministry that is beyond our competence or role (e.g. counselling, deliverance ministry, giving legal or medical advice etc). In such instances the person should be referred to another person or agency with the appropriate expertise.

We need to be aware of what resources we do have personally, and also what resources are available for us to refer to either within the church family or our community.

Activity:

Discuss in pairs:



What resources (personal, family, church or community) do you currently use when you are struggling with:-

(a) Emotional difficulties(b) Spiritual issues(c) Practical problems

Personal resources an individual might bring to the area of pastoral care might include spiritual gifts, strengths and abilities, life experiences, training, availability, interests and skills.

We all also have a range of spiritual resources available to us in the form of the Holy Spirit, the Bible and our church groups. But each church community will also have unique resources brought by their own members that they would be wise to explore. Taking some time to gather information on available resources for pastoral care and support within your own particular church and community is essential for effective and efficient support, particularly during a time of crisis.

It is also imperative that each local church has a good understanding of the resources available in their community from other voluntary organisations, as well as the services of the NHS and Social Services.

It is clearly not the role of a pastoral carer to diagnose a physical or mental illness, even if they happen to be qualified in this area. It is important however, that if there are signs that the person is suffering from a physical or mental illness that they are encouraged to see their GP as soon as possible.

Question:

How much do you know about what resources are available within your church and community? How would you go about finding out about this more?


session 2: pastoral care in practice - other...

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