Calling All “Congregational Care” Providers
Words matter! I was trained through a couple classes in seminary to provide “Pastoral Care.” I grew up and have served in churches where it has been understood that part of the “job” of a pastor is to provide care for the congregation members. Even the title “pastor,” a word that means “shepherd,” implies that the job should include seeing to the needs of the flock.
There are some problems with this metaphor:
- Pastors and/or pastors’ families burn out trying to care for more people than they have capacity for.
- Neglected individuals in the congregation are not receiving the care they need.
- Congregations are limited in their ability to reach new people by the capacity of their pastor.
- Gifted people in the congregation are denied the opportunity to do meaningful caring ministry.
Scripture has some warnings for shepherds who don’t care for their flocks, but it also has some clear indications that people in a congregation will help care for each other and one of the key roles of the pastor and the congregation is to work together to provide sustainable and effective care for one another so that the world will see the love of Jesus.
As our church has grown over the years, we have tried some different ideas for caring for the congregation with varying degrees of success. Deacons have been assigned names to call. Small groups have been one of our most effective ways of caring for one another. We made a significant investment in time, money, and energy in training some wonderful Stephen Ministers. These Stephen Ministers did some great work caring for individuals by listening compassionately. However, at the end of their first two-year commitment, most of them felt the required time for supervision and recurring training was too much, so we left that model. We tried care ministers for a while, with less overhead and supervision, but there was not enough organization to lead to actual assignments and communication about progress.
For the four Sundays of April and the first Sunday in May, I will be leading a Pathway Class in the Youth Loft at 10 AM to help “Reactivate Care Team volunteers to better care for those connected to our congregation who are grieving, shut-in, in crisis or experiencing special needs.” The goal is to engage all of our congregational care providers – deacons, small group leaders, former Stephen Ministers, Care Ministers, volunteers to visit shut-ins, meal coordinators, grief mailing volunteers, and anyone else who helps or has cared, is caring, or desires to care for people in our congregation to gain a common understanding of biblical principles of care and a hybrid system of care to meet those biblical guidelines sustainably and effectively.
If you have a role in or a heart for congregational care, come participate starting April 7 at 10 AM in the Youth Loft. Don’t worry if you cannot make one of the weeks, come to all the weeks you can. I care about the people in our congregation, but the words, “Pastoral Care” will never fulfill Jesus’ command for us to “love one another.” “Congregational Care” are the words that meet the mark.
