Other elements that prevent discussion with a Minister

In the first place however genuine his “unshockability” may be, clients may not feel free to discuss some elements of their difficulties as well with him as with a “secular” counselor. Even if they do manage to talk out many deeper feelings they may then come to feel some difficulty and possible embarrassment when they have to face him later in the pastoral relationship. The secular counselor is free from this difficulty in that his clients do not have to face him again unless by their own desire. However much the minister accepts what he is told in non-judgmental fashion, people will still cast him all too often into the role of judge, and that may hinder his approach to the deeper elements of the counseling.

Apart from the role into which other people may cast the minister he has a few conflicting roles of his own to sort out. One of these conflicts is between the essential moralism of his preaching and his personal example and convictions, and on the tfter hand the necessary permissiveness of counseling relationships. A possible clue to the way through such a conflict is in the example of Jesus, who represented and proclaimed the “straight and narrow way” but at the same time could be permissive enough to invite Himself to dine with Zaccheus, to eat with “publicans and sinners,” and to refrain from condemnation of a woman “in adultery.” Permissiveness has to be seen as distinct from condoning, and it has been found quite possible to reconcile this apparent inconsistency by very many ministers in their pastoral care of their people and any who may seek their help.

Another of these conflicts is between the minister’s training and his popularly accepted role as someone who talks on all kinds of subjects and on all kinds of occasions on the one hand, and his counseling role as listener on the other. It is difficult for many ministers, and indeed for many other professional people, to switch from talking to listening, but it has to be done if the counseling is to succeed.

Perhaps the most difficult of all problems for the minister, reverting to the question of time and energy, is that the more successful he is in any counseling work the more demands will be made on his time and energy and the more trouble he will have in allotting it. It is generally harder for the minister to- decline an invitation or application for help from someone in deep distress than it is for members of most other professions, but if the minister is to keep his spiritual vitality and his efficiency as well as to do justice to his domestic responsibilities, he has to learn to delegate what can be delegated to other people, and to allot his time and energy wisely with the courage of his own convictions. In some cases he may need counseling himself in order to come adequately to grips with this problem through the disentangling of his own inner feelings and conflicts.

It is becoming more widely realized that the minister’s training should include some adequate opportunities for submission of himself for counseling as well as the practical and the theological elements which are now generally accepted as essential. When this is done there will be a great enrichment of the whole personal influence of ministers in any community, and particularly in the fields of marriage counseling and general pastoral counseling.

Tags: Counseling