Page 5548 – Christianity Today (2024)

In this issue, we’re publishing many articles on techniques and church strategy in counseling. But what of the counselor personally? What are the particular problems he or she faces?

Anxiety is one, and Ben Patterson explores in a personal way three sources of anxiety for those involved in pastoral care.

Last April 5, a Saturday, I got into my car and left home at six in the morning. I was scheduled to be the speaker at a Holy Week breakfast some eighty miles away in La Jolla, California, at the church where I had formerly been an assistant pastor. The breakfast was to begin at eight o’clock, and I wanted to give myself plenty of time to get there.

I thought the drive might take longer than usual because I expected I’d have to get out of my car periodically and stand up to relieve the pain in my leg. Lately I had developed a dull ache in my right leg whenever I sat for extended periods of time.

But this morning the ache lost its dullness. I had driven my car no more than ten minutes before I could no longer bear the pain. I pulled off the highway, nauseous and perspiring, got out of my car, stood up and leaned forward against the door, and tried to clear my mind for a decision.

I had to get to La Jolla, I reasoned. That was nonnegotiable. But I couldn’t stand the pain. That too was non-negotiable. So I struck a compromise: I would drive ten miles, allow myself a stop to get out of the car, let the pain subside, summon my courage, get back in, and drive another ten miles.

Three days later a doctor diagnosed my condition as a ruptured disc and prescribed total bedrest for three weeks. The only time I was to get up was to go to the bathroom. As things turned out, my bed was too soft, and total bedrest turned out to be total “floor rest.” Six weeks passed before I went back to work.

Thus began the most painful and confusing experience of my relatively sheltered life. Everything seemed to hurt, especially my pride. I am an athlete. I take good care of myself. Yet, I have a degenerative condition in my back. Degenerative. An ominous word: it sounds a little like depressive, which was, and at times still is, my state.

I write this rather lengthy introduction because this experience brought into sharp focus for me the problem of pastoral counseling and pastoral care. For I found myself in a unique position. I was pastor to the majority of people who came to pastor me. On the one hand, I desperately needed their help. On the other hand, they asked me to interpret the meaning of my calamity. I was counselor and counselee; and out of that little dialectic, I came to understand why pastoral counseling and care has been such a burden and drain on me. I began to realize that it has grown out of three anxieties.

The first anxiety is over my role as a pastoral counselor. Just what am I supposed to do or say?

As a seminarian, I was walking the floors of Los Angeles County General Hospital on the first day of a ten-unit class called Clinical Pastoral Education. Two women, who perceived me to be the chaplain, virtually pounced on me and dragged me into a room where their non-Christian brother lay dying of kidney disease. On the way they told me they wanted me to lead him to Christ before he died. They stood on one side of the bed, I stood on the other, and he lay in between-pale, in pain, and fighting his last battle against these two evangelical ayatollahs. The only thing we four had in common was that none of us knew what to say and were terribly anxious about it all.

A lot of water has run under the bridge since then, and I’ve gained experience as a counselor and pastor. But that same anxious feeling has come back over and over again, although usually in response to different questions: ‘Why me? ‘Why this cancer?” ‘Why this divorced?”

During my sickness the question most often posed was, “Have you been asking God ‘Why me?’ ” That set me thinking. No, I wasn’t asking that question because I have always been more predisposed to ask “Why not me?” I’ve never been like a Job who vigorously protests his innocence and the raw deal he’s getting. Not that I’m humble; it’s just that I have enough vague, free-floating guilt and anxiety in me that I tend to get nervous when things are going well. I think the rug is going to be pulled out from under me any minute.

That, of course, is bad theology. But even good theology can say, “Why not me?” To truly trust your life to God means to live in a kind of joyful agnosticism, not doubting that God is in loving oversight of your life, but radically doubting your ability to grasp how he is.

This has great significance for the pastor. We do not have to be answermen, for ourselves or for others. And we should not. We should avoid the quick fix of an easy answer, and instead, stand beside people as they face the silence of God in their lives. When Bob Lemon was manager of the New York Yankees, he was asked for advice by the new Chicago White Sox manager, Don Kessinger. His answer was, “I’d like to help you, but you don’t drink.” That is the seductive attraction of giving answers where there are none. It takes us off the hook, and puts them on theological booze.

Furthermore, the need to have or give an answer betrays a basic insecurity and mistrust of God. It demands that we be able to see God’s managerial hand. It’s the nervous kibitzing of a backseat driver. Better to painfully grope behind the silence of God and learn to trust him when there is no apparent reason, than to put your trust in easy answers. Our faith is not in his reasons, but in him and his promises.

The practical result? It takes the pressure off. The pastor can be there with the sufferer as parakletos, one who stands alongside-just as the Holy Spirit does. Then, as Henri Nouwen puts it, he becomes a living reminder of Christ’s presence, not the proprietor of a spiritual dispensary

The second anxiety is over time. It is embarrassing to admit this, but I find that some of my greatest struggles with pastoral care and counseling grow out of the fact that I almost always feel interrupted when someone needs help. I almost always feel interrupted when I need help. Perhaps this is just a problem of those who have the kind of personality and temperament that has every minute of every day planned. Never a day goes by that I don’t know exactly what I want to do at every point of the day. I’m not compulsive, just very purposeful.

But human needs can’t be scheduled. I’ve fantasized how nice it would be if I could sit down with God at the beginning of each year, receive from him my year’s quota of deaths, divorces, breakdowns, cancer, and my personal vicissitudes, spread them out evenly over the next twelve months, and then plan everything else I want to do around them. My first thought after the doctor diagnosed my back ailment and prescribed bed-rest was how it interfered with my plans.

Grave theological error lurks behind these ruminations. For one thing, whose time is it anyway? God’s or mine? It’s God’s, of course, and I receive time as a gift to be used in his honor. No one can take my time because I have none. Six weeks on the floor impressed that truth upon me.

Besides that, what is time? Our conception of time has been so conditioned by the wristwatch, that we tend to see it as a quantity to be managed, used, and controlled; it’s a fixed capital we have in our account to invest and spend very carefully. The Bible doesn’t indicate time as an abstract quantity; but rather times, seasons, and concrete circ*mstances sent our way by God. They are not to be managed, but understood; not used, but responded to. For this reason human need is never an interruption, but a summons to understand and act.

Again, like anxiety over my role, anxiety over time creates tension and pressure. The practical upshot of a proper view of time is to let me as pastor relax, and be my fallible and human self with my schedule. I can receive people and problems as from God’s hand, and trust his sovereign grace to enhance my bedside manner and order my priority list.

There’s a marvelous story in the Gospels about a Syro-Phoenician woman who comes to Jesus and begs him to heal her daughter. Actually, she pushes her way into his presence. Jesus meets her need with warmth and humor and sends her home satisfied. What makes the story so apropos to the subject of pastoral care is that it was Jesus’ day off, she was not a church member, and she had to batter her way through a protective secretary (Mark 7:24-30; Matthew 15:29-31). Jesus knew what time it was and whose time it was. God’s time was his time.

At bottom, anxiety over role and time come from the worst anxiety of all: anxiety over our relationship to God. Who’s in charge, really? Answermen and calendar people suffer from real confusion here. Can God be trusted? Can we stop trying to run the universe long enough to find time for others? Can we let God do the healing of persons through us?

The quality of our prayer life is a barometer of how we answer these questions. During my six weeks on the floor, all I could do was pray for my church. I was so concerned that things would fall apart without me that I prayed two and three hours daily. This is not a boast, because most of my praying was motivated by anxiety, not trust. But pray I did, every day over every person in my congregation. With each passing day the times got sweeter, until one day I found myself saying to God, “You know, I wish I had time to do all this intercessory prayer when I’m well!” His answer was quick and blunt. “You have the same twenty-four hours when you’re well as when you’re sick. The only difference is when you’re well you think you are in control.”

Helmut Thielicke puts his finger on our problem when he observes that Jesus moved out of his homeland of prayer with his father toward human need; we move the other direction. The world is our home, and when human needs weigh us down to the point of collapse, then, maybe, we make a foray toward the alien world of prayer. But, says Thielicke, “What he (Jesus) said to men he had first talked over with the Father.” Would that it were so with us! Then the sheep we shepherd would truly be cared for by the Great and Good Shepherd. Then the unsolvable riddles of human misery would be occasions for fellowship with Christ, not drains on our energy and just one more thing to do this week. Then we would know with Mary, who sat at Jesus’ feet, “only one thing is necessary”-that we listen and be receptive to God, and then to the person waiting in the room outside our offices.

Copyright © 1980 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

Everyone wants to know how “successful” churches do it. What makes a church alive with the Spirit?

Size doesn’t matter. The world’s full of huge churches that are spiritually dead. Location doesn’t matter. Many churches thrive in spite of geographical handicaps. Money doesn’t matter. Misused wealth has been the ruin of many congregations while spiritual prosperity has been achieved on shoestring budgets.

To glean a few insights about a cross-section of congregations, we went to veteran church observer Russ Hitt, former editor of Eternity, and author of a recent series of articles in that publication on churches in various sections of the country. We asked him to select four churches in his own turf of Philadelphia, describe them, and make observations about what makes them work.

Four churches in Philadelphia. Each with a membership of about 300. Each nurturing and instructing believers. Each developing its vision of mission and outreach. Each serving its community.

But they are so different from one another! They differ in polity, in the communities they serve, and in the means the pastors use to lead their flocks.

Two of the churches are congregational in polity and two are Presbyterian; but is it possible that varying polity and convictions on ecclesiology are some how not too important? Several elements transcend those concerns. A caring mood, a Spirit-led harmony of purpose, a spontaneous outreach to the needy world-these elements make these churches work.

Calvary Fellowship Church

This church is located near Lionville, Pennsylvania, not far from Exton Mall, one of the newest and largest shopping centers in the western suburbs of Philadelphia, in a rapidly expanding suburban/ exurban community made up of middle class, middle executive, and professional people.

Rick Rodriguez pastors Calvary. Rick came from a non-religious home in the Tampa, Florida area, but the grace of God took over when he attended a meeting of Youth Ranch at a St. Petersburg church. Rick was converted, left his studies at the University of South Florida, and enrolled at Florida Bible College. He has since completed a master’s degree in biblical studies at Dallas Theological Seminary and is now taking courses in Greek at Biblical Seminary in Hatboro, Pennsylvania.

Rick learned pastoral leadership while he was an assistant to Dr. George Linhart at Grace Chapel, one of Philadelphia’s strongest independent churches. In his seven years at Grace, Rick had scintillating success with a Youth Ranch modeled after the Florida prototype that led to his conversion.

Two small independent congregations, one which had met in the local firehouse and the other in the township building, merged to form Calvary. Professional people, business people, and a wide cross-section of suburban families make up the congregation. Rodriguez, friendly and peopleoriented, develops spiritual maturity in his people by spending time with them in social situations, especially in the homes where small groups meet for Bible study and prayer fellowship. He also goes hunting ant fishing with his men.

Rick keys his approach around four principles:

1. Teach and preach the Word of God.

2. Disciple elders to care for the flock. He eschews authoritarian leadership.

3. Emphasize the grace of God as the active agent leading to conversion and growth.

4. Encourage the people to do the work of the church.

Rodriguez tries to remove himself as much as possible from the financial affairs of the church. He makes no pleas for offerings; collection plates are seldom passed. Yet the congregation has purchased eleven acres for $50,000, and conducts church services in a new building which cost $200,000. All of the building planning and some of the actual construction work was done by members of the church. Even though the little congregation has its own building obligations, eleven percent of the church budget goes to home and foreign missions.

Calvary Fellowship Church is associated with the Independent Fundamental Churches of America and therefore not aligned with the mainline denominations, but it would be a mistake to brand this church as unfriendly to those “outside.” Although the teaching of the Word of God is central, the truth is not presented in either a doctrinaire or legalistic fashion. The pastor cares about people, and he trains them to help run the church. He recognizes the importance of discipling his elders, who pass on their training to the believers under their care. Rick has discovered that koinonia flourishes around the Word of God, not apart from it.

The church has the advantage of being located in a growing community with many younger families. Also, it is essentially a middle-class to upper middle-class, hom*ogenous, white neighborhood, a factor often conducive to church growth.

Holy Trinity-Bethlehem United Presbyterian

Church

This church, related to a major denomination and located in the inner city, contrasts in many ways with Calvary Fellowship. It has a wide diversity of nationalities-all in the same pot that was supposed to melt together in line with wistful dreams of earlier social engineers.

Years ago, twelve Protestant congregations and one Roman Catholic church served the one square mile of the Logan section of Philadelphia. Now one Catholic parish and one other Protestant church have survived in the area besides Holy Trinity-Bethlehem, itself a merger of two congregations. The Depression and changing demographic patterns doomed all the other churches.

The Logan area is not pretty; it bears all the marks of urban decay, and the omnipresent graffiti proclaim the disorder. Oddly enough, no graffiti mar the stone walls of Holy Trinity-Bethlehem, and therein lies a clue to its continued viability.

Dr. Edward B. Jones, the minister, has convinced the neighborhood that this church serves the needs of the community. The church maintains this status even more effectively than the neighboring Roman Catholic church. Holy Trinity-Bethlehem is the community church.

Known to his intimates as Casey, Jones is a balding, fifty-year-old bachelor with a Ph.D. in church history from St. Andrews University in Scotland. He has a great talent for unobtrusive leadership. Brought up in the small town of Parkesburg in eastern Pennsylvania, by the time he had reached the sixth grade he had his first inklings that God would call him into the ministry. But his immediate goal was preparation for teaching, so he enrolled in Millersville State University. After studying there two years, his pastor convinced him he should complete his undergraduate work at Bob Jones University. Today, his clerical garb notwithstanding, he declares he learned things at BJU that have been invaluable to his later ministry.

‘When this neighborhood began to change,” says Jones, “the elders of the then WASPish session decided that the Lord had placed the church here and, under God, it would continue to serve the community regardless of the changing racial mix.” Thus the church began its commitment to serve the adjacent community, and that explains in part why the people in the neighborhood feel it is their church.

In line with this policy, Jones implemented a community-oriented program. Today one-third of the congregation is black, and the integrated church functions smoothly and with a deep sense of Christian mission. Activities abound for all who pour into the church. Senior citizens enjoy their Towanda Club. Neighborhood youths play on at least six basketball teams and in the recreational program jointly sponsored by the city’s Police Athletic League. There is a day nursery for mothers who contribute a day a week to its maintenance.

Three other congregations use the facilities of the huge church: Zion Episcopal Church, which recently sold its own property; the Maranatha Assembly of God, which serves a Portuguesespeaking congregation; and a Korean Presbyterian church.

Calvary Fellowship and Holy Trinity-Bethlehem are worlds apart, yet each is effective; the methodology of Holy Trinity-Bethlehem has a unique impact in the difficult context of the inner city. Blacks who come to play basketball sense they are loved, and a low-key gospel approach gradually wins their hearts. This integrated church works because of a pervading atmosphere of Christian love. Under Casey Jones’ quiet direction, this church is a lighthouse in a stormy sea.

Parker Ford Baptist Church

Affiliated with American Baptist churches, the congregation has had its ups and downs since it was founded in 1859 in a rural community. Now the beautiful, hilly Chester County community is being swallowed up by Philadelphia suburbia’s sprawl.

The pastor is William K. Waterston, a sophisticated communications expert who served the ABC bureaucracy at Valley Forge before digging into the challenges of a local pastorate. A graduate of Bates College and Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary, he first worked for radio station WMTW in Lewiston, Maine, while still an undergraduate. Waterston spent twelve years in denominational work, first in the magazine field and then in radio and television. He still participates in ecumenical Christian broadcasting under the auspices of the Delaware Valley Media Ministry, sometimes as host of a TV dialogue show.

Work in the little church at Parker Ford May not be as glamorous as television, but Waterston finds pastoral work challenging. The Parker Ford church includes a wide demographic spread: professionals, educators, retired farmers, factory workers. Tensions remain between older members and newcomers, but good relationships are developing.

Waterston tries to develop his Parker Ford flock spiritually by including a strong sense of stewardship and mission. Like other pastors in this survey, Waterston knows he cannot attain his goals without training his twelve deacons; most of them were new to the work of spiritual oversight. He also uses:

1. Preaching. His sermons are biblically based, and he uses colorful, relevant illustrations. He provides complete outlines in advance of his Sunday evening Bible studies. This invites greater participation by the people.

2. Small groups. The going has been slow, but three groups now meet for Bible study.

3. Counseling. Bill spends an unusual amount of time in person-to-person counseling.

4. Developing a sense of mission. Historically, the congregation has not possessed a great concern for outreach; but there are some very encouraging signs. One of the young deacons and his bride recently offered themselves for a short-term, ABC missionary project in Cordova, Alaska. This couple’s infectious enthusiasm has affected the entire church.

There has also been a compassionate response by the congregation to the needs of the Cambodian refugees.

Waterston came to Parker Ford in 1975. One of his first statements in the church bulletin illustrated his vision for the church. ‘We must build bridges, not walls; the community will respond to us only if we take a genuine interest in individuals and their specific needs.”

New Life Presbyterian Church

This Orthodox Presbyterian church is committed to Reformed theology and faithfulness to the Westminster Confession. Despite this theological commitment, New Life Church bears little resemblance to worship habits and lifestyles of sister Presbyterian churches.

New Life Presbyterian Church meets in the Y.M.C.A. of Abington, an upper middle-class Philadelphia suburb; it was started through the evangelistic activities of Dr. John (Jack) Miller, a member of the faculty of Westminster Theological Seminary located in a nearby suburb. Miller had been working with counter-culture young people in the 60s. The New Life church, organized as a congregation in 1974, grew out of this earlier work. Young adults with a proliferating number of children make up the bulk of the congregation.

Lively songs punctuated with up-raised arms or rhythmic hand-clapping animate the Sunday worship service. The hearty singing is supplemented by testimonies and sharing. Miller stresses the need for involvement in the worship service, seeing this not as just a warm-up, but as a meaningful exercise in itself. Miller, fifty years old, has a strong affinity for young people, and this is reflected in the make-up of the congregation. He is a spontaneous, creative leader who avoids structure, though he is quite willing for others to employ it in the rapidly-growing church. He lists four steps in the church’s vision:

1. Principle (philosophy of ministry). Emphasis centers on the growth of individual Christians. Twenty discipleship groups meet weekly in members’ homes. More than 200 are active in these groups.

2. Personnel. Pastoral efforts center on working with fellow elders, who lead discipleship groups which often have as many as twenty members, somewhat larger than the numbers found in other “small” groups. Yet the stress is always on spiritual growth in every individual within a loving, supportive community.

Some of the members of New Life Church earlier had serious emotional difficulties, dope addiction, or other problems that required hours and hours of counseling. But today, many of these liberated individuals have become stalwarts in the church.

3. Program. Although the emphasis in the church is on discipleship, this is not an end in itself. Nearly everyone at New Life is engaged in outreach through a staggering list of activities which include children’s work, nursing home and prison visitation, meetings in the Norristown State (psychiatric) Hospital and the Eagleville Drug and Alcohol Rehabilitation Hospital, neighborhood evangelism, high school and college witnessing, meals for the sick, and a tape ministry. The church takes its witnessing seriously.

4. Plant. Already the facilities of the Abington Y.M.C.A. are taxed by this burgeoning church. They conduct three worship services on Sunday-two in the morning and one in the afternoon. About 75 percent of the members and their families attend Sunday school, and this demands more classrooms than are presently available. The need for an adequate house of worship has evolved from the church’s growth, and the matter is being carefully studied.

Some reflections

1. Habitat of Pulsing Life

The four churches of this study differ in ecclesiology, theology, and polity; but all possess the dynamic life that comes from meeting in the name of Jesus Christ.

Conclusions? Pastors and those charged with feeding and discipling church members need to develop talent-scout sensibilities. When encouraged, the gifts of the individual members can contribute vibrantly to the whole. The Spirit of God provides Christians with unique supernatural capacities which too often lie idle.

Many Christian leaders in our country, overawed by the contaminating influence of this “present evil world,” lose heart or cop out. Not so in these four churches. The Lord has ordained that the church of Jesus Christ operate in the world. The models of this study demonstrate that effective churches can prosper in exurbia, in suburbia, or in a deprived urban setting. The congregation of believers, as well as individual Christians, contains within itself the very life of God -which provides the power to overcome obstacles.

2. Beliefs and Believers

Historically, biblical churches have emphasized the propositional character of the Christian faith. Hence the stress on confessionalism and the creedal basis of the common life in Christ. None of the churches in this study has soft-pedaled this aspect, reinforcing a number of recent studies which have indicated that churches which affirm an orthodox faith are flourishing.

But this is only a part of the picture. Christianity is based in relationship; first to Christ and then to other believers. All of the churches of this study stress both the biblical content of faith as well as the importance of living out the eternal truths. Various methods develop individual believers. Small groups which study the Word of God, share their insights and burdens, and pray together in an informal atmosphere have had strong impact on the growth of these four congregations. There is also a place for formal preaching. The Word has transcultural power if it is expounded in terms people can understand in their own situation. “Contextualization” is an abstract word, but all it means is preaching eternal truth in comprehensible terms.

3. Breaking Out of the Cocoon

Except to a few biologists, the larval stage of growth is not very intriguing. But when the butterfly emerges, it flies forth to radiate its beauty and gladden the hearts of us all. The local church that merely lives in its own circ*mscribed world, concentrating on its own inner life and worship, never fulfills God’s greater purpose. It seems to live on its own juices. The churches in this study have discovered the importance of outreach. Indeed, there is a direct ratio between growth of churches and their vision of mission to the world.

These four churches have not been daunted by the sinful culture that surrounds them. They have not hesitated to avoid the contamination of leprous flesh. Rather, they have stretched out hands of healing, and witnessed God’s provision of wholeness.

Copyright © 1980 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

“Where does the fire go? Again and again, ministers burn out. They lose their enthusiasm and excitement; they become bored and pedantic; and they decide to leave the ministry and enter other occupations.

Burn out is a hazard common to the service professions. Social workers, teachers, nurses, psychiatrists, and counselors all are in danger of suffering from a malady that makes once-coveted jobs seem like thankless chores. But ministers are especially hard hit because there is a stigma attached to leaving the ministry. It’s seen as a spiritual failure, and those who leave often suffer a special kind of guilt about failing to fulfill their call.

Fortunately, burn out is not inevitable. It’s often tied to misconceptions about the nature of Christian ministry, reluctance to change traditional pastoral roles, and unrealistic idealism about a minister’s humanity. Burn out doesn’t have to happen. If forewarned of the dangers, ministers might better anticipate, plan for, and work through this threat.

Four Cases of Burn Out

William Setoni is a small businessman who formerly was an Evangelical-Covenant minister for twenty-two years. Although no longer a full-time clergyman, he still enjoys substitute preaching, and remembers with nostalgia his years as a pastor. About ten years ago he decided to become the director of training in a company owned by one of his members. He had become discouraged with church work, even though he was good at his job and was well liked by his congregation. Since leaving the ministry he has been quite successful, and today owns a thriving vending company.

Consider the case of Peter McWilliams. Peter served

Presbyterian churches in New York, Ohio, and Kansas prior to becoming pastor of a small church in Tyler, Texas. Less than a year later, he made arrangements with a career development center for a “mid-career evaluation,” stating that he was very frustrated with the ministry after fifteen years of service.

His record showed he had been effective, his churches had grown, and he had been elected to denominational committees. His move to the small Tyler church was an attempt to simplify his life, and to resolve some of the frustrations experienced as a problem solver, counselor, and administrator in his ministerial role. Yet he found the issues were the same. He decided he would be happier with an eight-to-five job which would give him time to be with his wife and to go camping. He was just tired of doing what ministers do.

Harold Sorensen, a Lutheran minister, considered leaving the ministry after an intimidating congregational conflict. He watched a difference of opinion over a missions program erupt into a divisive conflict in spite of his peacemaking efforts. Things went from bad to worse, and finally both sides felt Harold was against them. The idea of leaving the ministry had never entered his thought before, but he began to think about becoming a full-time counselor. A sense of panic and failure overwhelmed him, for he had wanted to be a pastor since high school days. Deciding that changing his occupation would be the only way to survive, he made some contacts and began to plan for a new way of life.

Finally, consider the case of Randolf Balleau, a former Young Life staff member who had been an Assemblies of God minister in Winnfield, Louisiana, for six years. He had cultivated his speaking talent during his work with adolescents in Young Life. He was a popular speaker and received many invitations to address banquets and rallies. However, he felt the people at his church did not appreciate him, and that they resisted his leadership. When the congregation voted down a building project he supported, Randall reconsidered his long-standing interest in acting and entertaining. He thought seriously about going to California and attempting to establish himself in an acting career where he would be able to use his talents more effectively.

These four scenarios illustrate experiences which provide a basis for discussing the common issues involved in most ministerial burn outs.

Burn Out: Causes and Cures

First, a distinction should be made between a career and a job. Careers are focused over a lifetime; jobs are the particular positions one has at different times and places. Being a pastor of a church is a job. Being in ministry is a career. This is clear when a minister goes to another church, but is less apparent when the minister becomes a counselor or teacher. People may ask, “Why did you leave the ministry?” But you see yourself as still in ministry. The switch of roles from pastor to businessman may be more difficult to explain, but the dynamic remains the same.

In many cases, ministers need to feel less guilty about their desires to fulfill their ministries in settings other than a local pastorate. Vocational theorists acknowledge that persons become bored with their jobs over time, and that seven years is about the maximum length of time one can tolerate doing the same thing without some change in the role. Ministers are no exception to this rule.

Ministers should place their careers in developmental perspective. Careers involve many assignments or jobs. The average person works at ten jobs over a lifetime. Jobs can change while careers remain stable. Of course ministry is “public” in a way in which most jobs are not. It may always be necessary for ministers to state their intentions and perceptions. In many cases they can do so in a manner that allays their guilt and assuages the concerns of others.

One pastor, for example, sensed his congregation’s concern over his “leaving the ministry” to enter hospital chaplaincy. He reminded his people that for hundreds of years the most visible expression of “ministry” was pastoral ministry conducted in a particular local parish setting. He said, “It has been only in comparatively recent times that the church has moved out of the parish setting and into other settings where people live, move, have their beings, and need tender loving care when they are sick. Hence, hospital ministries have sprung up throughout the land, and who is better prepared to serve those ministries than men and women who have ministered to the sick in their local parishes?” In this way, a pastor who was moving into another ministry environment was able to help his parishioners see that through his service in a hospital, they were actually extending their ministry!

Second, there is a saying that “unless forestalled over time, all relationships deteriorate into arrangements.” Persons lose the enthusiasm and excitement they once had about a job, but persevere in a convenient, routine way. We should be more concerned with this type of ministerial burn out than with the kind where pastors leave their churches. As one minister said, “It has become drudgery. The people are nice, but I’m just filling a position. On the other hand, I wouldn’t know where to go.” In these situations, both the pastor and the people suffer.

Relationships don’t have to deteriorate into arrangements. Although much that the minister does is traditional and prescribed, he does have enough freedom of movement to prevent becoming custom-bound in his tasks. However, since the weighty influence of the congregation is half the picture, ministers cannot change their roles if their parishioners refuse to let them.

But congregations also get bored and lose enthusiasm when they allow the relationship with the pastor to become an arrangement. If a pastor wishes to change roles he must realize that although congregations have a penchant for custom, they also have an inner desire to remain enthused and excited.

Over a period of time an individual can change rank, such as moving up to conference leader; change position, either by changing churches or the focus of ministry within a church; or change influence, possibly by serving on a denominational committee. If ministers sense a burn out coming on, they would do well to consider these possibilities and determine which way they would like to move in order to renew their commitment. They should take an index of their capabilities and their changing interests, and then take responsibility for seeking the position that will best combine those interests and skills.

John Ridenour had devoted the “seven best years of my life” to a small Methodist congregation in rural Ohio. His work, however, had not gone unnoticed by his denominational board in Nashville. Throughout those seven years he had continually upgraded himself: a seminar in organizational development, two weeks in summer school, and so forth. It seemed as though John couldn’t get enough of this new world of organizational effectiveness. When his Methodist brethren said they wanted his expertise in Nashville, his parishioners were understandably upset. But what they didn’t know, for John had shielded it from them, was that John had sensed two years before that he was growing weary of some of his pastoral responsibilities. He had become interested in helping the larger church become more organizationally effective. He applied for and was given a job with the Board of Evangelism as the editor of a devotional magazine. Thus John renegotiated his “contract” with the church-at-large and took a new lease on life.

Third, burn out often follows vocational ineffectiveness. Four dimensions necessary to job success have been identified through vocational studies:

¥ Interest in the work

¥ Demands of the job

¥ Skills required

¥ Fulfillment provided

It is rare to find a situation where all four dimensions are of equal strength, where one enjoys and does well what the job requires, and where the job satisfies long-range goals. Conversely, burn out can occur when only one of these dimensions is weak or missing.

Although ministers should work toward maximizing the four dimensions of vocational effectiveness, they also should give themselves permission to be less than perfect in any of the areas. All careers are idealistic, but all jobs are realistic. No one is ever fully happy, successful, skilled, or satisfied. The call to ministry is a call to work in the world, and perhaps ministers would do well to remember the admonition of Paul in Philippians 4:11; ” . . . for I have learned to be content whatever the circ*mstances.” Paul doesn’t mean one should cease efforts to maximize interests, skills, demands, and destiny. He does mean one should cease thinking the inevitable solution is to change jobs. Effort must be put into job enrichment, retraining, renegotiation, and, above all, in prayer that asks God to help one find one’s calling.

This is precisely what Peter McWilliams did. He was the minister who grew “tired of doing what ministers do.” A ministerial friend recalled Peter’s earlier experience with the career development center and was wise enough to ask him, ‘What did you learn about yourself there?” It set Peter to thinking. He was inspired to reach into the back of a file drawer and extract the results of the tests he had taken at the center. Somehow, in his present frustrations, he had forgotten all the “plus” features about himself: his wide-ranging skills, his ability to empathize, and his way of helping people in very practical ways. He had also forgotten his promise to reduce his workload to forty-five hours a week so he and his wife could go camping in the mountains. This unhurried review of “counting his blessings” gave him a new perspective on things. No longer was he tired of “doing what ministers do.” He began to rejoice in what ministers are free to do, a freedom enjoyed by very few.

Finally, burn out is occasionally kindled by a crisis of faith, and causes the individual to truly “leave the ministry.” This situation is created by a loss of confidence and trust in what was believed, and in the church’s purpose. In the business world it is similar to a salesman who no longer believes in his product, or an executive who ceases to trust the policies of his company. Of course, basic values such as religious faith are nearer to the nexus of identity in ministry than products and policies are in business. Thus, as one might expect, admission that this is the issue is rare. Leaving the ministry is most often rationalized from other perspectives.

What about burn out provoked by a crisis of faith? Religious professionals should consider the possibility that doubt is a mark of healthy faith, not its nemesis. Pastors who over-emphasize their obligation to be models miss the chance for identification with their parishioners, all of whom have periods of doubt. The best pastors give themselves permission to doubt.

This is what happened to Ron Harris, pastor of First Church. Ron was anxious about his doubts concerning some of the basic tenets of the faith. He worried even more about what some of his parishioners would think if they knew he doubted. One day while in prayer, he recalled some words chiseled in stone across the doorway of his alma mater: “Cherish the Doubt; Low Minds Exist Without.” He remembered how once those words made extremely good sense to his scientifically-inclined mind. If they made good sense then, why not now? And why not invite a few of his trusted parishioners to “cherish the doubt,” if indeed, the expression of doubt might lead to questioning, and questioning might lead to an even deeper faith?

Hurting people are helped most by those who know they don’t have all the answers, but who do have a willingness to love and guide those who are lost. Thus they become “wounded healers,” as Henri Nouwen terms them, and thereby increase their effectiveness with their people, not impede it. The crisis of faith then becomes a channel for grace rather than an occasion for guilt.

Ministerial burn out is here to stay, but with better understanding, it might be forestalled. Renewal comes with a base of sound principles and sacred trust. Only then can those who are tempted to leave the ministry-in fact or fantasy-find courage to persist. –

Copyright © 1980 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

Whether you’re a pastor or a friend, helping those who grieve requires special wisdom.

We want to provide some help in these pages. Instead of textbook advice, we have decided to follow a pastor and his wife through a devastating tragedy that happened to one of the families in their church. Included in this article are the private thoughts of the grieving widow, which eloquently describe her traumatic experience, and the long, slow, prayerful path back to faith.

On Sunday, March 18, 1979, Mrs. Stephanie Ambrose May lost

* her husband, John Edward May, 51, chief executive officer and chairman of the board of May Petroleum; a business and civic leader in Dallas, he received a doctorate from Southern Methodist University, and had completed Harvard’s advanced management program.

* their son, Davin Edward May, 22, a senior at the University of Texas majoring in petroleum engineering.

* their daughter, Karla Emily May, 18, a senior at Highland Park High School.

* their son-in-law, Richard Owen Snyder, 27, a landman for the R. L. Burns Corporation, and a graduate of Hampden-Sydney College, who was reared in Richmond, Virginia.

Dr. B. Clayton Bell is the pastor of the Highland Park Presbyterian Church, Dallas, Texas. He and his wife, Peggy, alternate in relating the events that intertwined their lives with the life of Stephanie Ambrose May.

CLAYTON: It was 6:20 on a Sunday evening-March 18, 1979.

I’ll never forget it.

The first segment of Sixty Minutes had just ended and the commercial was on. It had been a busy day, starting early for me as all Sundays do. It had been a good day.

Then the phone rang. “Clayton, this is Marilyn Culwell. Cully just got a call from Aspen. John May’s plane crashed after taking off and he’s been killed.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Just last Saturday evening we had opened our World Outreach Week with a dinner party in the Mays’ home. In a large church like Highland Park, my wife and I had come to know many people superficially; but the Mays had endeared themselves to us shortly after we arrived. Less than two years before, I had performed the wedding ceremony for their daughter Valerie to Rick Snyder.

“Marilyn, are you sure it was John?” I asked, groping for hope.

“Yes, a friend in the tower called to tell us. Cully is calling the sheriff’s department in Aspen to confirm it.”

“Has anyone told Stephanie?”

‘No.”

“As soon as Cully gets confirmation, call me. I’ll go to Stephanie.”

My mind was racing. Anticipating Cully’s call, I hastily put on a clean shirt, tie, and a suit coat. When the phone rang ten minutes later, Cully confirmed what Marilyn had told me. He added that several persons had been on the plane and that there were no survivors.

Hurriedly I telephoned a family I knew to be close to the Mays. I broke the news to them and asked that they give me ten minutes lead time and then come on over.

As I drove the few blocks to the Mays’ home, I prayed for special grace each second. The door was answered by a young lady staying with the Mays during her senior year in high school while her parents were going through a divorce. In a few moments, Stephanie came down the steps in her robe. She had been dressing for a dinner party she and John had planned to attend upon his return. With as steady a voice as possible, and with tears coming to my eyes, I broke the news to her. We didn’t have details and didn’t know who else was on the plane.

But Stephanie knew. “It was my whole family,” she said.

We sat on the steps and cried together. I had no words. I felt the terrible frustration of wanting to help, but I could only sit by and wait for God, through the gracious work of the Holy Spirit, to do his work of comforting Stephanie in her grief. Sitting on the steps with her, I knew that words were not only inadequate, but inappropriate.

PEGGY: As Clayton left for the May home he asked me to come quickly, but first to call Herb and Nancy, close friends of the Mays. I trembled when I found the line busy; I asked the operator to break in and then I broke the news to Nancy. I called two other couples and asked them to meet us at the Mays’.

CLAYTON: For an eternity that lasted ten minutes, Stephanie and I sat on the steps. Shock and disbelief registered on her face. Tears rolled down her cheeks. She asked questions I couldn’t answer. Theological explanations had to wait for a time when the mind-not emotion-was in control.

Stephanie’s husband John, her only son Davin, her high-school daughter Karla, and her son-inlaw Rick had all been killed. Only Valerie was still alive, for she had taken an earlier commercial flight.

The doorbell rang. The house quickly filled with stunned friends who, with warm embraces, said what words could not say, and with busy hands began to do what grief demands.

PEGGY: I went to the home feeling like an intruder. My heart felt heavier than the massive doors of the house. I wondered if I could open my mouth-and if I could, what I would say. Already a few familiar cars hugged the curb (oh, how I wanted to be a car!). The people I had called had dropped everything and come.

Inside, my eyes quickly searched for Clayton’s; he was with Stephanie. The news had been given as gently as possible, but it was horrible, hurting, destroying news. “Oh, God,” I prayed, “give Clayton the ability to minister. Help him, Lord, to be your man.”

Valerie was at her home in Richardson a few miles away. Quickly we decided to bring the only remaining child to her mother. This girl had lost a husband, a sister, a father, and a brother. Again I prayed, “Oh, God, Valerie needs you.”

Then it was, “Someone answer the phone . . . attend to the door . . . find Kleenex . . . turn on the lamps . . . make coffee . . . find paper for notes . . . make calls . . .

telephone relatives. Who? Find out.”

More close friends came. With breaking hearts they quietly assumed the responsibilities at hand.

CLAYTON: The next few days were a blur. Peggy and I spent hours with Stephanie, who often retreated to the quiet sanctuary of her bedroom. There she relived the past, pulling out the memories of twenty-five years of marriage and mothering. We were amazed at her ability to express herself so we could share in what she was feeling.

PEGGY: Phones rang constantly, flowers came, food was brought in, people came in and out, and telegrams arrived from all over the country and abroad.

CLAYTON: How grateful I am for a wife who is sensitive to others’ hurts. Peggy’s creative common sense and practical piety enabled her to do what was needed at the moment. Her gift had never been more apparent to me than in our joint ministry to Stephanie.

PEGGY: My eyes searched Stephanie’s and I saw her tears, my ears heard her sobs, my senses felt her broken heart, and my body trembled with the vibrations of her grief. “Oh, God, help!” was the only prayer I could utter.

Everything looked bleak. In a moment, life for Stephanie had become dark, lonely, and ever so painful. God seemed to have forgotten her. His eyes didn’t seem to be on her. His ears seemed to be deaf. His healing hand didn’t begin to touch any of the pain. Yet I had to believe he was in control.

Stephanie, wrapped in a robe, lay in her darkened room with her face buried in a pillow wet with tears. I sat on the edge of her bed and gently rubbed her shoulders or wiped her face with a cool damp cloth. She had asked not to be left alone; it was so important to be near and to hear anything she might want to say.

There was no way I could enter completely into her sorrow; and yet, I wanted so much to feel her pain in my heart if in any way that might help. I had given birth to children who loved me as hers loved her. As she remembered her children having favorite clothes, favorite memories, favorite records, favorite places to go, I could identify with them.

But my experiences were in the present tense; hers were in the past. Her family had suddenly ended. It could have been my husband and my children. I knew that I’d want someone to care-to feel their importance and their loss, to vicariously live with me through my beautiful memories. Listening, though painful, gave some joy, for I was allowed to sense the joys she had once experienced. From the beginning I knew Stephanie would not be helped by my talking. I couldn’t give advice, for I had none. But by my presence, I wanted her to know I cared and God cared.

CLAYTON: We could not have the funeral until the bodies were released, and the coroner was having a difficult time making positive identification. By Tuesday we knew the bodies would be ready the next day, and the funeral service could be scheduled. Stephanie wanted a funeral service rather than a memorial service. I dreaded the emotion four caskets at the front of the church would create for family and friends, not to mention myself. But Stephanie was definite, and there was no wisdom in trying to dissuade her.

Each member of the family had made a commitment to Christ; so in spite of the pain and grief, I could firmly proclaim to all that “to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.” The full choir ministered superbly through music. The Word of God was reassuring, and the few words I spoke were intended to undergird sagging spirits and questioning faith that God, in spite of evidence to the contrary, is a loving Father who is sovereign over the circ*mstances of life.

PEGGY: In the days that followed, Clayton and I maintained close contact with Stephanie. One morning at six o’clock I pulled on my warm-up suit and drove to her home. We had agreed that an early morning walk in the park might be helpful. When I arrived, I found her hunched down on her doorstep waiting; she had been there for hours. In silence we walked around the park, down one street and across another -on and on-resting in a little gazebo surrounded by spring’s colorful azaleas and pure-white dogwoods. There we sat with tears streaming down our faces, realizing memories are only memories, and that she would never touch or commune with her loved ones again in this life. She cried, “Why? Oh, why?” and I could only say, “I don’t know.” She wondered why she couldn’t go to heaven right then.

There were quiet times together when she didn’t want to move from her bedroom, and she would sit sipping a favorite tea John had brought her a few weeks before his death. Other times she had great drive and energy; certain things had to be done.

In the evenings Clayton and I frequently drove over to check on her. She talked, many times with tear-stained face yet with great control, about her courtship, her wedding, vacation trips, problems, dreams, and plans. She talked about her children, the happy times and the sad times; she talked about their schooling, their training, their commitment to the Lord Jesus.

Never once were we bored; instead, we were always blessed to have a glimpse into the life of a couple who had given twenty-five years of faithfulness to each other and who had raised three children.

Again and again we were impressed with her graphic language, her ability to communicate her deepest emotions. Clayton realized she might have the ability to put them down on paper, so he asked her to keep a diary for herself and for others who grieve.

In God’s Hands

Editor’s note: The following is Stephanie’s diary. * We reproduce it in full, not only because it is powerfully expressed, but because ministering to those who grieve is not a task of a few days. If we are to truly minister, we must sense the depth of that valley, for grief devastates day after day after day. …

We believe it would be a helpful experience to read the entire diary, lengthy though it is-for we can have many answers to share, but if we do not know at least a little of what such grief is like, we may lack the insights and empathy so greatly needed.

March 18

Late afternoon-doorbell-Clayton and the awesome news of tragedy- (death, plus death, plus death, plus death=death). They rose-I fell! Cut loose to float in a timeless, unconscious yet conscious space beyond, but painfully here. I do remember, but I don’t-faces and blanks-things and unthings-a merry-go-round of a horrid sort. God, please take care of Valerie- I can’t.

March 19

I rose to the surface on occasion and was emphatic about what I somehow knew must be! There must not be a memorial service. I want the bodies in the Highland Park Presbyterian Church. That is what John would want, as his Christian life was spent there, our children were baptized there, and Richard and Valerie were married there. It is a beautiful church with beautiful memories. I must choose the caskets, and I know they must be covered in roses. I love them so- if each petal could only talk- blankets of love for those I was never to see or touch. If only I could! It’s strange-I could go directly-as if to pre-chosen clothing-I knew it all to be exactly as it should be for my precious loved ones. I did write them a letter. I don’t know why or exactly what I said, but I loved them so. It was important that they each have a cross and a silver heart from my necklace. My love goes with you- why can’t I? Help, help, I can’t stand alone. Where is God?

March 20

A vision, my family of four, on a horizon in God’s glorious light! Now released to Thy Heavenly care. Dear Lord of amazing grace and unchanging love, You are all powerful, and all knowing, here and beyond. Merciful Father, help me bear and comprehend the enormity of my loss. Scooters, skates, tricycles and bicycles, all lost in a myriad of my love. God of the heavens, God of the earth, I am leaning so hard-please don’t let me fall! Hear my prayer, hear my plea, send arms of comfort to Valerie and me.

March 21

Cesspool, whirlpool, black river, cold space, alone, people, questions, rivers of life, and memories, but mostly fear-and of what? I don’t know! I don’t know where I am-I don’t know what I say-twisting pain and grotesque flashes of what I knew to be truth. Oh God, oh God, where are You? I am hanging-somewhere, by something, for what? Suicide- suicide. The logs and branches of my memory have broken the dam of all my being, and I am pouring out everywhere- yet nowhere! I remain!

March 22

The service came; the service went. My eyes only reviewed the caskets frantically! Empty-empty time-as if it should not and could not be. The very strings of my heart and every inch of my anatomy was ripped and torn as each casket rolled past me, embarking on the final drive to a resting place. No roses-no people -no caskets-no more-just gone! We drove, we followed, we walked, we sat-a mumble of words and a sea of faces. Now a dreadful time to turn their remains over to a sealed vault. I must have a rose from each-I reached-oh, how I reached beyond the roses-one last time I reached toward my loves. Tears-home- people-tears- tears. Oh God, oh God, where are You? My Christian faith told me they had risen and were at peace, but the parting with their bodies was devastating-excruciating -tormenting, and most of me died today!

March 23

Down, down into the depths of depths in hollow, dark desolation. Days, nights, times, dates, people, sounds, smells and deeds all lost in a vacuum of my mind. I heard the echo of my own voice-but what did I say? I scream in my empty space- my loves, my loves of life, you were my all-the sum total of me!

March 24

My mind has been flooded night and day with whole and partial thoughts. Good, bad, soft, kind, unkind, where, what, how-are they all about me? Who is my sorrow for? Why can the tears not stop? Why is the pain so deep and unrelenting? Open heart surgery, hysterectomy and childbirth without anesthetic cannot compare with the death-the tearing away- the deep loss of all I have lived for and loved-my family, oh God, why my family?

March 25 A sermon-When Too Desperate to Pray-should be-when too desperate to see, hear, feel or touch before prayer can begin!

I loved them each and every one to the fullest of my capacity, and they in turn loved me. I did the best I knew how, but certainly could have done better. If I had it to do over, I wouldn’t change a thing-for I am me! It is precious Valerie’s birthday, how sad, but I must make it happy.

March 26

Valerie is my arm to reality. My only love left. I need her desperately, but must not overcrowd. Much to be done-I am the center core of devastation that touches many. I must handle it right, but how? Where do I begin? Again, I know it is with Valerie. Organize, dismantle-move Karla out-move Valerie in! Through pain and tears, I do work. I must touch each item-I must make each decision-I must, I must. Upstairs, downstairs, boxes, stacks, piles, all is packed. It is as though an eraser wiped the slate clean-Karla was, but is no more. I have surely come to that dried up stream!

They came to take Karla’s car, and that was the tearing out of my heart. No more!! I will give, but they must not take. My beautiful happy baby is now gone-only a small box of trinkets and pictures to remind me of 18 years of joy. My life so touched by her sparkling ray of sunshine that glittered always, her deep laughter echoes in my head. Surely the pain can get no worse. I love you, Karla, I love you, Baby! For what time do we have anything? The pores of my body are like headlights searching the dark for my throbbing loss. Suicide- prayer-tears-no sleep.

March 27

Pain, suffering, trial, testing, cruel world, and kind world. People come, people go. Some touched, some scarred, but I must remain to endure my tragic loss. As quickly as a rainbow can appear, my family disappeared. I took for granted my beautiful home, a happy life, the sharing of love, affection and loyalty, my devoted husband, and precious children. God, forgive me for my sins. Set my values straight that I might grow in human compassion, love, and service. Show me the reality of eternity and the courage to accept Your authority. God, be with me.

March 28

I must move forward, as things need to be done. I can surely be more abstract in dealing with Valerie’s house. I have found a wonderful place for Richard’s clothes. Valerie agrees, and we feel good about how they will be used. Peggy is with me, and I will do all I can. I seem to have moments of real sanity, then the waves of tears take over, leaving me dissolved in a pool of selfpity or despair or just missing my loved ones beyond all reasoning. Little was done, and to go back (which I must) will be even more difficult. To close a home -how sad-warm lights go out- who will move in? While Valerie is faced with a new and different life, I must close the book on the first chapter of what I thought was going to be a beautiful life for Valerie and Richard. A fine and handsome young man, his smile radiated a very special love and warmth. My love is with you always, Richard.

March 29

Wondering, wandering, fear, fright, alone, not alone, reaching but into empty space, terror, hell on earth, why not beauty? No smell, agony, hurt, pain. I have died a thousand times for each of them-how much more can I do? Such pain, ripping, stabbing, tearing-I float. Then it starts again. Oh God, please be with me-are You there? Only I’m too blind to see . . .

March 30

As a pebble rings water-as a bell tolls all, my disaster has propelled me into a widening circle that touched so many lives and caused an unbelievable outpouring of love and compassion.

April 1

I gird, I guard, I brace for the important things I must endure. Holding back tears seems an insurmountable task, and just when I think I have gained control-dear God, You show

me the unexpected and bring me to my knees. I beg, I plead, I pray- show me the way.

April 2

I am crushed, broken, and stripped naked. I am trapped in a prison of my own vision. For a plane in the sky is my family, the earth is the crash site, all teenagers are my beautiful Karla, all young men are my precious Davin, all young married men are wonderful Richard, and all husbands are my beloved John. Oh God, You have left me no place to rest my eyes. I am engulfed in tragedy and wrapped in a blanket of pain.

April 3

Please God, dear God, hear me, for I am Your child, and I am in such pain. My loss is Your loss, my pain is Your pain, and the answers I seek are all within Your kingdom. The whirlwinds of life have tossed me severely; my tranquil sea of life, love, and home has vanished. I am over whelmed by grief, bewildered by tasks, confused by words, angered by some, and loved by many. l have health, wealth, and one child, but only You can touch my heart, ease my pain, and give purpose to my life.

April 4

Again I pray, again I cry, for from the bare, darkest corridors of my mind and body, I tear at the darkness and grasp for Your light. Release me from the erupting volcanic bowels of this earth’s hell. Leave me not on the barren, cold, craggy, mountainous peaks. As a widow, brokenhearted, empty-handed, and in disbelief, I stand before four gray, cold, marble, Christian tombs. Oh, God, help me.

April 5

I cry, I kneel, I bow. I am weary, and I have aged from the agony of death. My life would be empty and without hope, except for Your promise of love and everlasting life.

April 6

Tomorrows keep coming, and I know I must walk a long and lonely road. God support me so I can walk. God listen when I pray, and God love me so I can survive. God lead me this and every day.

April 7

A miracle, a creation, a birth, a babe in arms, my son, my only son, Davin-to raise, to love, to touch, to hug. A Christian in spirit and action, a man to respect and admire. His good life will leave a lasting impression on all who knew him. His heart belongs to Debbie. Sweet Debbie, may God bless you, guide you, and keep you safe always. The light of my life burns elsewhere now-until we meet again-I love you, Davin!

April 8

Almighty, everlasting, and eternal God, You have taken that which was Yours to give and take. Though prostrate and in shock, I do not hate You God, and I am not mad. For from my bed where I lie, Heaven must be a long, long way. I am so cold and numb, as my body warmth has left me to search for my loves. Grant me peace, double my strength, hold my hand, and light my way. For now, alone I must face the adventures of an unknown world, lost emotions, eternal longings, difficult decisions, immense problems, and special days filled with the pain of beautiful memories.

April 9

Only You, God, know how much I love my family! I yearn for a clasping hand, a wink, a smile, a cry, a “Hi, Mom” and “I love you, Honey”! Tears of anguish, tears of pain, tears of sorrow, tears today, and tears tomorrow. God, be with me.

April 10

I drove, I walked, I sat, I appeared and cried a sea of tears at a round table with four men. Decisions, discussion, conversation were on the surface-I was below, in pain, some how protected, but still not connected to anything. If true, how will I survive-maybe suicide or just turn aside. Help-prayers-help! I sink and there is no bottom!

April 11

I know today is Wednesday, and I know what I’m saying-as if the light has dawned. I will be brave and go on-but where. Which way do you turn to take the first step? Three quarters of me has been ripped away. My balance is off-I don’t think straight-I don’t feel and I know my mind goes up and down like a roller coaster-and more off track than on. Chaos-confusion! Valerie needs me! Clare was here today to listen and give Christian support. It lifts my spirits that he cares enough to come.

April 12

I talk, but it isn’t me talking-only words-my thoughts are elsewhere drowning in confusion-arms reach for me, but I don’t feel. Comfort has abandoned me. I ache, I hurt, I plead for my family. Oh God, don’t leave me, or maybe I have left You!

April 13

Went to church-shouldn’t have gone -drowned in tears-no thoughts- empty space-void-cold-parted- away-alone-empty nights that last forever. I cry all day, I cry all night, no angels surround my head.

April 14

Fly away to a ranch-tears-must be alone-walked and walked. A rock called-I sat, and what seemed to be grotesque trees turned to a work of art as I stared. Thousands of rocks looked like skulls, and I could see them forever-all peaceful. Not a bug or animal to frighten me. It was the first moment of peace I had known since tragedy, atrocity, accident, loss. Most of me is missing.

April 15

I feel a delicate touch of soft healing from the woods. No more voices from downstairs. That’s good.

April 16

I can live with grief and die, or I can get over grief and live.

April 17

Feeling I really must go to the crash site, I was anxious. All was set up for Wednesday, April 18. I was content. At 5 o’clock things changed. I’m much too weak for change and disappointment. The plane might go to New Orleans. I will know at 8 o’clock tomorrow morning.

April 18

Yes, the plane must go. Weather is slightly bad. I must stay home one more day. I really feel driven to go and see where I lost so much. I cannot wonder as I fly over every mountain. I will fly always as I have no fear of death.

April 19

Up half the night-dressed for the first of many long and lonely trips. My pilots were ready, and I didn’t want a word spoken. At the end of 3 hours, we were 15 minutes away. I peered from the window, almost terrified I would spot the crash site. The deputy met me, and we drove away. Left turn out of the airport, left turn on the road to Snowmass (where we spent a fabulous Christmas with my children and mother)-then right on Cedar Brush Creek Road, up, up and around. We stopped, “just over that hill are the grim remains.” My knees did shake, but I kicked off my shoes, jerked on my boots, took a deep breath and assumed I would either throw up, faint, or experience the usual buckets of uncontrollable tears. My heart was in my throat, as I took the last step over the ridge. I actually turned to “stone”-no emotion-no tears-I asked to be alone. I kicked through the wreckage: I picked up John’s glasses, half of Richard’s glasses, Karla’s clothes were burned, and I put Davin’s black loafers together. I took goggles and underwear out of a tree, then I sat in the ashes, among the seat belts that burned from their bodies. And without a tear-I thought Oh God, Oh God, how could it be! This is a beautiful hill-a beautiful day-such a small space. Crisp cool air-fluffy clouds, and not a tear. Two deputies came for me, and not a tear. We drove to town, and I suddenly knew I didn’t want to talk with the coroner, and that was the right decision. Back to the airport without a tear, and I flew away, leaving behind something I had to see and touch. Three hours to Dallas, and I was truly frozen physically, but not mentally. Not a tear!

April 20

Consolation in knowing where-terror in not knowing why-still frozen, maybe forever. How awful that I might live 30 years. Alone, isolated! What will tomorrows be like? Such a beautiful place for a home-not death and disaster. Today the bodies cannot be identified. I have come apart in a million pieces. How will I ever put the pieces together again-must I? Can I? Do I choose to?

April 21

Such weight-a very heavy day. The tears are non-stop-I walked the block and could have floated on my tears. The doors to all homes were closed tight. In and out, up and down- where do I go? What do I do? Like warming over death-the mail came and must be opened and filed. From a simple envelope, there appeared a beautiful picture (too painful to describe). Once again my insides crumbled, and I slipped rapidly down a greased slide to that dark, cold, and very empty space. The tears would not cease, and I shook from head to toe. Peggy and Clayton came with words I don’t remember. It wasn’t until they each held my hand that I began to regain control-then the words could pour in, and the Psalms were healing.

April 22

My trip to Jacksonville, Florida was exhausting beyond belief-maybe from holding back the tears. I cannot think. I don’t want to think. Such confusion and such pain as the days go by. If it were only a dream . . .

April 23

From time to time, things become very clear to me. I know what helps. The idle chatter of well meaning people is very painful clatter to my ears. An hour of Christian conversation a day is not enough. I am worse off than a quadruple amputee-I need new arms and legs-they must not be wooden, they must be Christian arms and legs, or I will never be able to give or receive anything. Intense prayer, intense help, intense grief, intense feelings of being somewhere, anywhere would help. It is a circle with no corners of rest. I reach up and out, but my loves are beyond, and I remain.

April 24

I can feed only on the words and prayers of a Christian. The Psalms Clayton gave me help, but mostly prayer helps. I am so lost! I cannot and will not see anyone. How can 17 When I can’t respond in a civilized manner to well meaning, but trite conversation.

April 25

Reverend Gladstone Rodgers has been here every day since the 23rd! He married John and me, and I had to let him know it had been a good and beautiful marriage. Not without arguments and growing experiences! John was faithful and triumphant in so many aspects of his life. We had spent years of dedicated service and work with our children. John never ever lost faith, and I did so often. At difficult times when John was through talking with the children, he would then turn and assure me. I realize I have lost most of me! “Father Glad” brings peace and quiet blessings that I need. In Christian love, he is very special!

April 26

Reasonably rational until I looked at pictures of my family. Again the tears came and most of the day was lost. I don’t want to see or talk to anyone- later I will, but not now. I don’t know what will help, but I am desperately searching for something solid so I can stand again. Only John can be identified. Again every imaginable pain, agony and terror rips my body and soul. I am bleeding. Why can’t I die? Valerie does need me. I must help. She is the only fourth of me left!

April 27

I will never be me again! I have lived my life through and for John and my children. When threefourths of you is gone, you must grow again, but you will never be as you were before.

April 28

I must not look-how can you live and not look? No, you must look and see the good and beautiful. My life is half full, not three-quarters empty. Today, I choked on people and strangled on food, but I took the first step, and again the terrible pain and agony of loss swept over me-a luncheon passed!

April 29

A dark and heavy parallel line of ice, steel, smoke, particles, debris, glass, are boiling and swirling over my head. Can I? Do I dare? Must I7 Will I7 Oh Dear God, please be with me- I must- penetrate my vacuum-I must delight in breath-be grateful for a step-reach for a hand-learn to smile-give what’s left of me, and love the Lord.

April 30

I tread the brink of life on a thread of faith. A thread, a string, a cord, a rope. I will grow, but I need special hands and prayers to make me whole and worth Your service, Lord.

May 1

Transitory-purgatory-inventory-what’s the difference-they all change as I change. I must change, as it is so painful here. Maybe new things will change my view of life! A kaleidoscope is always interesting and different-do I have that ability? Oh God, oh God, hold me near, as I am so far, yet so near to reason, sanity and suicide.

May 2

My space is so still, silent, eerie. My footprint washes away-my hair blows away-I remain with out stretched arms as a bridge to memory that I can never touch. I love each and every one with all my heart. May I always embrace and hold dear their warm glow of life, love and faith.

May 3

I am wounded in life and missing in the trenches of my mind. Bombs bursting with memories-bullets of laughter-cannons of fun and rockets of our love, forever and ever. Death has done us apart, and memory can not keep us together. For without your touch, I will surely die, even though I remain! My heart bleeds, my body aches. My tears carry me through beautiful years of sharing each other totally, completely and absolutely. The loss of intimacy is my burden of our precious love. John Ed ward May, my darling, my love for you is incalculable and eternal.

May 4

I awoke in darkness, but I have broken the surface. God loves me- He comforts me-He is near-His everlasting peace abides within me. There is a softness about me, and I suddenly know there is light in the midst of my darkness. His hands lifted me from black emptiness, and His arms hold me. I now realize God’s love and strength in me is greater than my loss. My prayers have been answered-My God is here!

May 5

Though the wind blows, the rain comes and the lightning strikes, I will stand fast. Praise God, for without His love, I have no life.

My steps are small but sure, my head is high but weak, my eyes are wet and red, but God is with me. I am comforted and protected. I can receive the love of friends; I can extend comfort to those who suffer for me. Glory be to God! I can see the light, smell beauty, feel warmth, live with hope and smile again. I am surrounded with teeming life: my beautiful, vivacious Valerie, my strong and loving mother, and my dear and concerned brothers, John’s devoted brother, wife, and mother.

May 6

Yes, I live! For now, my vision surpasses the plane in the sky, my hearing repels the thundering explosion, my knowledge of the grim devastation (though never to be erased) seems unimportant. For beyond my tragedy, I have been blessed, immeasurably enriched, graciously endowed and genuinely loved by John Edward, Davin, Karla and Richard. It is my loss and my treasure to live with and love and to remember always.

May 7

My burden is heavy, but I don’t walk alone. My pain is unrelenting, but I thank God for every moment that He blessed me with. I pray that my life will be used to His glory, that I might carry my burden with Christian dignity, and that out of my devastation, may His kingdom become apparent to someone lost and in pain.

May 8

I close this diary, and with it goes all my known ability and capacity for love. I must climb to a different plane and search for a different life. I cannot replace or compare my loss. It is my loss. I am not strong, I am not brave. I am a Christian with a burden to carry and a message to share. I have been severely tested, but my faith has survived, and I have been strengthened in my love and devotion to the Lord. Oh, God, my life is Yours-comfort me in Your arms and direct me in my life. I have walked in hell, but now I walk with God in peace. John Edward, Davin, Karla and Richard are in God’s hands, Valerie and I are in God’s arms, and His love surrounds us.

This rose will bloom again.

Editor’s Note: We asked Dr. Bell to reflect on some of the dynamics that were present in ministering to Stephanie. He has prepared ten principles that he found himself employing which may be helpful to others who must minister in the shock of tragedy and the burden of grief.

It’s impossible to describe the emptiness I felt when the phone call came. I didn’t want to hear the news, and I didn’t want to have to break the news to Stephanie. But some things cannot be shunted off or delayed; and at such a time it’s terribly important to realize that, although I may be inadequate, God is fully adequate.

Principle One

Although God’s love and comfort come through people, comfort is still God’s work.

Although there is “one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus,” we ministers are called to “fill in what is lacking in Christ’s suffering for his body, that is, the church” (Colossians 1:24, Williams). God alone is the God of all comfort, He is the source; we are the channels.

A number of years ago, a young woman who was not one of our church members called me for an appointment. Her husband had been recently killed. Their minister, approximately her age, was married and the father of several children. In the process of attempting to provide her with comfort, he became so emotionally involved that he over-stepped the bounds of ministerial propriety. He called on her too often (without his wife along) and attempted to give her support he had no right to offer. She had the good sense to know that something was wrong with the situation. Unfortunately, he had not dealt with the question, ‘When does a person’s comfort stop in order to let God’s comfort take over?”

A competent physician knows how to clean a wound, apply antiseptic, suture where necessary, bandage, and then wait for the natural healing process. A doctor is not a healer. He aids the healing process that God controls and has built into the forces of nature. A good doctor knows his limitations and has the patience to wait for “nature” to heal.

The same is true with the wounds of grief. God is the healer and fellow Christians (whether pastors or laypersons) can mediate his comfort. Yet they also must know how to keep their hands off to allow God to do his own healing.

Principle Two

In ministering to grieving people, be convinced of the hope that is ours in Jesus Christ.

Did Jesus Christ rise from the dead? Was he telling the truth when he said, “I go to prepare a place for you”? Does his resurrection really give us the assurance of eternal life-as when he said to Mary and Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life. He that believeth in me though he were dead, yet shall he live; and he that liveth and believeth in me shall never die”? Is there a real existence beyond this life known as “heaven”? Does God really forgive sins and accept sinners? Do we have a hope in Christ beyond this life?

The unequivocal answer of the New Testament to all of these questions is a resounding “yes.” The minister can convey this hope on firm ground. The gospel of Jesus Christ is the bandage that binds up the wounds of grief, and the presence of the Holy Spirit is the balm that soothes and comforts raw nerves.

Principle Three

Accept the validity of the grief process.

Is it wrong for a Christian to grieve? Are tears a contradiction of faith? Or is faith supposed to eradicate tears?

The psalmists often wept during sorrow. In the New Testament, after Stephen had been stoned, we’re told “devout men carried Stephen to his burial and made great lamentations over him.” Even living that close to Christ’s resurrection, the early Christians deeply mourned Stephen’s loss. In I Thessalonians 4:13-18, we have the balanced teaching of the early church, that we “grieve, but not as others who have no hope.”

Whether grief comes from death, desertion, alienation of affection, or divorce, tears are natural. Tragically, some devoted Christians believe that grief is in appropriate for one who believes in the resurrection. The attempt to deny the reality of grief through the bravado of faith is terribly destructive. Anyone wishing to minister to those in sorrow must follow the biblical injunction to “weep with those who weep” (Romans 12:15), and to endure patiently the tears of those who must face massive new vacancies in their lives.

Principle Four

Make sure someone is there when needed. The question asked by people who must call on a person during bereavement is “What shall I say?” But words are not nearly as important as being there. A simple embrace and the words “I’m sorry,” or “I love you,” may be all you have to say. It’s important for the bereaved to feel that they’re surrounded by people who care deeply and who are available.

Principle Five

Give the bereaved opportunities to talk about their lost loved ones. Kaleidoscopes of memories and emotions flash across the screens of their minds, and it’s very important to the grieving process for them to articulate these memories. The sympathetic ear is often the best tool in grief therapy.

Principle Six

Touch is important as a means of communication. Stephanie remarked to me some months after the tragedy that she didn’t hear much that I said, but when Peggy and I sat on her bed and held her hands and prayed, she received strength. During those early days when Stephanie would lie crying on her bed, Peggy would sit beside her and rub her shoulders and back, not only to relieve physical tension, but to communicate caring and emotional support.

Principle Seven

Remember special times in the bereaved’s life. During the months after the death of her family, each birthday, holiday, and anniversary became special times of crises in Stephanie’s life. A phone call, a card, or some other response from friends letting her know she was thought of and supported on those days was comforting. Each event was a poignant reminder of her loss and would reopen the wounds. It’s especially important that the bereaved be supported when such events reawaken grief.

Principle Eight

Be ready to give to those who sorrow a hand-written list of Psalms and other Scripture for daily reading and meditation. The Bible is a big book, and to find appropriate passages for comfort is difficult for some people. I say hand-written for the same reason doctors hand write prescriptions. When a person is really sick you don’t give a patent medicine/ but rather a personalized prescription for healing. Some people need the language of the psalmist to ventilate their own feelings in prayer. Others need the theology of the resurrection to undergird their hopes. Carefully evaluate how these can be blended together.

Principle Nine

A bereaved person is vulnerable; be discreet and accepting. In the agony of sorrow, things may be said, feelings vented, or secrets divulged which the one ministering must absorb and turn over to the Lord. In grief, as in any other matter of pastoral concern, a cloak of confidentiality must be thrown around the relationship.

Principle Ten

Be part of d ministering team. In my case, I’m extremely grateful to the Lord for a wife who shares my ministry with me. Peggy’s perceptions and sensitivity have been great assets in ministering. She is able to do for widows what would be inappropriate for me to do. Because the Lord has equipped her with gifts complementary to mine, I rejoice that we can share much of the ministry to bereaved people.

Others who are not able to share with their spouses this way will want to draw on wise and compassionate men and women of the church to complement what one person can do.

John tells us that in heaven “God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.” Until God does that, it’s our privilege to be channels of comfort and hope for those who grieve. It’s not easy. But it is God’s work. He gives us the magnificent opportunity to lift our eyes and the eyes of others to that one who is life, and who promises reunion and the fullest measure of joy.

Copyright © 1980 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

How can the counseling demands of the 1980s be met by the local church? Five leaders share their observations.

Fifty years ago people didn’t usually seek a pastor for counsel until a personal crisis had reached an intolerable level: bereavement, divorce, run-away child, or bankruptcy. Everyday personal or family problems, vocational questions, anxieties, and the like were usually considered outside the pastor’s sphere. Today, it seems nothing is outside that sphere. Emotional problems once suffered in private are now laid at the church’s doorstep with a request for understanding and healing.

In many ways, this increased breadth of the pastoral care task can be traced to a revitalized understanding of the church fellowship. A New Testament church of today deals not just with spiritual questions, but with whole persons, and so the church is overwhelmed with its own success.

Knowing that the increased workload is rooted in positive growth doesn’t make it any less a workload or trauma for harried church leaders. They still need to find ways to cope.

To find some of those ways, LEADERSHIP went to Dallas, Texas, to talk with Gene Getz, pastor of Fellowship Bible Church in Dallas; Richard Hunt, marriage and family enrichment consultant for the Methodist Church, Dallas; Frank Minirth, chief of psychiatry at Richardson Medical Center; David Seamands, pastor of Wilmore United Methodist Church, Wilmore, Kentucky; and James Smith, director of family life development at Highland Park Presbyterian Church, Dallas. Editor Paul Robbins and executive editor Terry Muck led the discussion.

Paul Robbins: We can hardly talk to Christian leaders about the task of daily ministry without finding that they are being overwhelmed in record numbers by people seeking counseling help. Would you concur that this is generally true, and if so, why has personal counseling become such a dominant part of pastoral care?

Jim Smith: For years we played the game, “If you are spiritual you don’t have problems.” That myth has been demolished. Now it’s far more acceptable for people to surface their problems and seek help.

Gene Getz: In a positive way, we have been victimized by our success. For example, as our church has tried to develop more of a sharing, caring ministry, our people have developed a new sense of security and openness about themselves. As one member said, “When others care, you can afford to be more vulnerable.”

But this has complicated the counseling problem, for as people have been helped, they’ve spread the good news and attracted many more people who are also looking for help.

Frank Minirth: When I first thought about going into psychiatry, there was a very skeptical attitude among many church members toward it. Likewise, many psychiatrists and psychologists were very skeptical about the church.

Since then I have seen an almost complete change of attitude. The church is more open to the integration of psychiatry and theology, and psychiatrists and psychologists are more open to exploring the spiritual dimensions of life.

But far more than a change of attitudes is involved in the tremendous demand for personal counseling. I think we have a lot more problems today than we did thirty or forty years ago. For example, in 1950 we had an estimated three million alcoholics. Today we have an estimated ten million. The explosion of knowledge is unbelievable; computers can hardly keep up with it. If you put an increase of problems together with an open spirit in the church, you’re bound to have a huge demand for personal counseling.

Richard Hunt: There’s another aspect of this demand that separates our generation from previous ones. The media has raised the expectations of what people want out of life in the way of marriage, career, personal fulfillment, and so forth. There is a general assumption that life should be better today than it was thirty years ago.

Coupled with this assumption is a very real frustration that many things about life don’t produce like they are supposed to. Thus more and more people are saying, ‘We’ve tried this and we’ve tried that, and nothing seems to work. Does the church have anything to say about this?” All of a sudden they discover New Testament teachings like Romans 12, where it talks about living one’s faith in very practical ways such as getting along with one’s spouse.

David Seamands: During my lifetime there has been a tragic breakdown of personal morality. There are no moral fences; everything is amoral. When you put that problem alongside the breakdown of the family, you have a sick society which is producing emo

tional cripples like Detroit mass-produces automobiles. Many of our church people are included in this group.

Richard: I think another factor is the concept of adult development which has caught on in the past ten years. We’ve moved from the idea that once a person becomes an adult he stays that way the rest of his life. Now we’ve more or less accepted the premise of adult passages-life changes every decade. Even within the church there’s a new consciousness that people need one kind of help at twenty-five, another kind at forty, and very special help at retirement.

Jim: I want to pick up on Frank’s train of thought. It would appear we all agree that people are coming to church for counseling help in much larger numbers. Those same people could be flooding the secular psychologists. But something else is happening. Could it be that people have run the gamut of a lot of non-wholistic approaches to human problems and have found they don’t work? It seems to me that a wholistic approach to people’s problems began when the professionals in the fields of psychiatry and psychology began to critically evaluate their own techniques.

Remember the time when those of us in the church were the bad guys because we were the producers of guilt? And the way they treated guilt was to rename it, re-identify it, and release people from it. But that technique didn’t work. In its place has come a much more significant dialogue among the secular professionals about wholistic approaches to people.

David: What Jim is saying is absolutely correct. Within the last ten days I have been visited by a woman who came into my office with the standard physician’s prescription form. In his own handwriting, one of our local doctors said, “I’ve examined Mrs. X thoroughly and have given her such and such tests. I’ve done all I can do for her. I think she needs religion. Therefore I’m referring her to you.”

Just yesterday I received a letter from an optometrist thanking me for seeing a young lady he had referred to me some time ago. Initially her problem seemed to be lack of peripheral vision, even though there was no physical reason for her malady. In his letter he said, “I have just re-examined her and she has 20-20 vision. Thank you very much. In the future I will be referring others to you.” The referral system is beginning to become a two-way street.

Paul: It sounds as if we mutually agree that the Christian leader, especially the pastor, has good reason to feel overwhelmed by counseling demands. But in my conversations with pastors about overload, I hear undertones about feeling untrained for this tidal wave of need. Have local church leaders, both clergy and laity, succumbed to the prevailing trends toward specialization, and thus approach many counseling situations with exaggerated feelings of inadequacy?

Richard: I think Christian leaders are better prepared than they think, but not as well prepared as they should be. They are better prepared in the sense that they have a good grasp of basic scriptural principles, and Scripture speaks to all areas of life. They are not as well prepared in the sense that so much of seminary training is cognitive. It is a rare seminary that combines booklearning with equal amounts of hands-on, practical experience. There is no way to learn how to deal with the spectrum of human emotions from a book.

But even experience doesn’t remove some feelings of inadequacy. The best-trained and most experienced Christian professionals I know often feel inadequate to deal with the complicated problems that entangle people’s lives.

Jim: Amen. I give more than fifty percent of my time here at Highland Park to personal counseling. Even though I’ve been at this task for a number of years, it’s not uncommon for me to be listening to an unbelievable tale of woe with both ears, while my mind races in all directions searching for some kind of solution, and my heart prays “Lord, I’m not even close to an answer on this one. Please help me help this person.”

Frank: Two or three thoughts come to my mind about what a Christian leader, especially a pastor, can do. First, he knows the Word of God and has the opportunity to model it through his life and the relationships he has with his spouse and children. Living the Word of God is much more basic to helping people than psychology will ever be. Second, if the Scriptures are working in his life, he probably can help ninety-five percent of the people who come to him. Maybe many pastors don’t feel sufficient for the task, but they need to know that their “success rate” may be proportionately higher than other professionals. Being able to help ninety-five percent of the people in some way should inspire some confidence.

Third, a pastor must know when he is in over his head and to whom he can refer difficult cases. Psychotic problems, chemical problems, acute fear/anxiety problems, and societal problems probably require referral. But for the average pastor to think that he is grossly inadequate to help meet the counseling needs of people probably means he is inaccurately assessing the situation. I think he can help.

Richard: You know Jesus also felt overwhelmed. When that happened, he’d say to his disciples, “Come away for awhile and rest.” Feeling overwhelmed may be the first sign that the Christian leader should take a break, rest for a while, refresh, and regroup.

Gene: I would suspect that if the pastor continuously suffers from a sense of overload, whether it’s a counseling overload or any other kind of overload, he may have lost the vision of how God intends for the body of Christ to function.

I love this definition: “The church ought to be a reparenting community where people with problems, struggles, and stresses can come for healing through the love and acceptance of that community.”

When the body of Christ functions as it should, a lot of problems will be resolved at a “grass roots” level, the first level where counseling ought to take place.

Frank: I work in a psychiatric hospital where people with the most complicated problems are constantly coming and going. As my colleagues and I have compared notes, we have decided that a large part of any help we can give an individual consists of the support system in the hospital itself. Most of our patients interact in a very close network of about twelve people with whom they share their lives and their problems, and from whom they receive honest feedback and other kinds of support. Chemical therapies and other kinds of therapies may help, but “people support” makes the significant difference.

Terry Muck: So far we’ve said, “Hey, Pastor, even though you may feel overwhelmed and inadequate, be encouraged. Some problems are over your head, for there are a lot of real sick people out there; but you can effectively address a high percentage of the problems that come your way.”

Richard: I like your term “address the problem” rather than “solve all problems.” The most effective support system in the world is the local congregation, and they generally look to the pastor to call the cues. He has access to so much technical help from people who would love to help others solve specific problems, whether they be spiritual, physical, or something as common as family finances.

Jim: The Christian leader is also the most logical liaison between the lay person and the professional community. Every pastor needs to know on a first-name basis the psychiatrists and psychologists in the community. He or she needs to establish trust relationships in order to effectively refer people who seek him out for help.

Paul: Assuming that the need for personal counseling will continue to build momentum, what are the implications for the church as it looks toward the future?

David: In our church we are viewing the future of counseling through a series of concentric circles. The outside circle we call preventive measures. This includes such things as Engaged Discovery Seminars for young couples who are about to enter marital relationships; Marriage Enrichment Weekends for those already married, whether it be two years or twenty years; and small groups who share with one another and care for one another.

Inside this larger ring is a smaller ring that deals with slightly more complex problems, the more garden-variety counseling problems. We feel our future hope lies in training lay persons to handle these problems. Then there is the tightly-drawn inner circle where a pastor, staff professional, or other competent person deals with the more complicated problems. Right at the heart of this inner circle, we draw lines out to the various community agencies, lines of referral that take us to competent, trusted professionals.

I’m trying to cut down on my personal counseling load by concentrating on the development of preventive measures that I described in the outer circle. I’m particularly intrigued by the potential of small groups.

Terry: Would you explain what you think that potential is?

David: Well, being a good Wesleyan, I have always been intrigued by the spiritual awakening that took place in Great Britain. Much more was involved than the great sermons John Wesley preached or the hymns Charles Wesley wrote.

John Wesley was way ahead of his time. He established what he called the class meetings, groups of ten to twelve people who met every week. Being methodical-that’s where we get our name Methodist-John Wesley prepared a series of questions these people were to ask one another. The first question was “What sins have you committed this week that need to be confessed to the group?” Wesley always had a way of getting right to the point. But the fact remains that the health, healing, and wholeness of these class meetings were the foundation for the moving of God upon the entire country.

Paul: It sounds like a seventeenth century application of the Scripture (James 5:16), “Confess your faults to one another that ye might be healed.”

Richard: And if Wesley were to address a small group in our time, in addition to asking about sins and faults he would probably inquire about our fears, worries, anxieties, and those things which produce stress in our lives.

Paul: I hear what you gentlemen are saying, but I’m having a hard time integrating all of this input into the realities of everyday life at the local church.

Let me sketch a brief scenario for you. Think of yourself as the pastor of a small church where all help is volunteer. You are suffering from feelings of overload and inadequacy, but you don’t have much of an opportunity to think through your feelings because the phone keeps ringing off the wall, and at the other end of the line is a person who needs help right now. This spectrum of help ranges from the most petty things to major crises of all kinds.

Now you are reading this forum, and five experts tell you that you should “Deal with your feelings of being overwhelmed by getting away for awhile.” But you can’t get away. Somebody has to preach Sunday, and immediately after the sermon three or four people will want to see you with some brand-new, unexpected problem.

Or these experts tell you that “The best way to deal with problems is to find preventive measures.” But how can you get away, preach on Sunday, put out fires, plug up holes, and prevent problems all at once?

Richard: I would hope that if I were the pastor I would start with myself. Every day I would want to remind myself that there is more work to do than I can possibly get done, even if I work forty-eight hours a day. Jesus didn’t reach everybody, nor can I.

By starting with myself, I hope I would realize how finite I really am, and that God doesn’t expect me to do everything. Only someone who is infinite can do everything. God understands and loves me, even though I am finite.

Gene: Richard, there are several important principles involved in what you are saying. The one that leaps out at me is that when Jesus came to launch the church, he began with twelve disciples so that the church could become a multi-faceted body and accomplish things beyond what one individual could do. He put self-imposed limitations upon his own relationships so that the church could become what it’s supposed to be.

Paul: May I pick up on that? What I’m about to say is probably over-stated, but so many of the books that come across my desk written for pastors and other Christian leaders seem to say, “All of our problems would be solved if the church would become what it’s supposed to be.” I’m not necessarily arguing with the premise, but I keep wondering why in a period of two thousand years the church hasn’t become “what it’s supposed to be.”

Richard: I would turn your question around and say that part of the reason we have all these problems is that we are functioning properly. As fast as Jesus healed one person, he was deluged by a crowd of people. Let me repeat something that was said earlier: “Christian leader, be encouraged. You are doing a good job, and the better you do your job, the more problems you’re going to attract. But you’re still finite. Only God is infinite.”

Terry: I’d like to pursue David’s illustration of facing into local church counseling problems through the three concentric circles We’ve touched engagement seminars, enrichment weekends, and other preventive measures that might be a bit ambitious for many smaller churches. How can ministry structures common to most churches be adapted to help meet counseling needs?

David: Last fall I preached a series of twelve sermons called “The Healing of Human Hurts.” In fact, we structured the life of the church around that theme for three months.

Jim: What were some of the sermon topics?

David: One was based on a biblical study of infirmities. The main point was that as the Holy Spirit works in people’s lives, there are times when he needs a temporary assistant. That is the theological basis for counseling.

Four of the messages revolved around the healing of low self-esteem. The first of the four was entitled “Satan’s Greatest Psychological Weapon.” Others dealt with perfectionism and depression. Both of these emotional disorders are often related to a misunderstanding of grace. In our church, a theology of works produces as many emotional problems as any other factor.

The last sermon was entitled “Healed Helpers,” and the premise was that as God heals us, our hang-ups are to be recycled into wholeness so we can help others.

Jim: How would you evaluate the response?

David: It was one of the most exciting three months our church has ever experienced. Every service was packed out; the demand for cassettes was phenomenal.

I did something I’ve never before done in my preaching ministry. After securing permission, I used an illustration of someone in my congregation.

Betty sat near the end of the third row throughout the service. At the close of my sermon I gave a call for an altar service. As the woman next to her began to weep, she put her arm around her and asked if she could walk to the front of the church with her. The other woman said, “No, my problems are too great. My story is like Betty’s.” Well, Betty sat there for a long time debating whether or not she should reveal her identity. Finally she leaned over and whispered into the woman’s ear, “I’m Betty.” It was beautiful to see them walk up the aisle and begin a healing process and deep friendship that lasts to this day. This experience reaffirmed in my mind how a sermon can enable another person to minister. It’s almost a kind of mass counseling.

Gene: A series of sermons that I have used is built upon the “one-another” injunctions found in the New Testament. Seven of them can be found in Romans, the twelfth through sixteenth chapters, and another five are located in the Epistles. We are to be members of one another, to be devoted to one another, to accept one another, to admonish one another, to serve one another, to carry one another’s burdens, to forgive and tolerate one another, and so on. Just encouraging our people to practice these basic injunctions will help develop a healing community.

Jim: Paul, I keep feeling we haven’t quite spoken to the scenario you sketched a few moments ago. Let me summarize as a means of trying to round out our response.

We’ve said that the counselor must get in touch with himself, his own emotions, possible feelings of inadequacies, and above all, his finiteness.

Then he should take a hard look at his schedule and determine how many hours can be set aside for personal counseling. Before the fact, a counselor needs to feel good about the time that’s going to be set aside each week for crisis intervention. If he doesn’t, he’ll be torn apart both internally and externally by the demands of people. The counselor needs to create screening devices to short-circuit possible overload; a secretary or another middle person can be trained in the fine art of being both protective and gracious; an answering service is a very effective screen and is much better than no screen at all.

The counselor should be aware of community services to which he can send referrals. In many cities there is a hot line. In fact, more and more large churches provide a hot line service and constantly publish those numbers in both the church newspaper and the community newspapers. Other resources include psychiatrists, psychologists, and groups like Alcoholics Anonymous, Weight Watchers, Over-eaters Anonymous.

David: Let me pick up on your train of thought. Once the counselor has drawn a circle around himself, and has determined what outside resources he wants to use, he or she can then begin to look for ways and means of creating preventive programs. We’ve already mentioned sermon series, weekend retreats, and Bible study groups, especially sharing and caring varieties.

Another area the Christian leader might tap into is the Christian education program. Almost all churches, regardless of their size, have some kind of C.E. structure.

Someone once said, “The Sunday school hour is the most wasted hour of the week.” I don’t particularly agree with that statement, but it’s rather alarming to see how many churches continue week after week with an ineffective “traditional” Sunday school structure.

Jim: You’re absolutely right. You have just pointed up the trap of program-centered ministry as opposed to need-centered ministry. All programs, if you trace them back far enough, were probably created to meet a need. But when the need was met, or changed in nature, the original program carried on. I’m not saying Sunday school doesn’t meet a need; but every church should devise a way to continuously reassess and evaluate the needs of the congregation, and should be prepared to put sacred cows to death without creating havoc.

One of the most fruitful things any leader can do is to take some time to sit with the “grass roots” persons and ask them to articulate their needs and the needs of the church as they perceive them. When I first came to Highland Park to direct the Christian education program, I devised a set of questions that would help me ascertain the needs of our people. For the next six months I scheduled lunch with a different person every day, and asked him or her questions like “What do you perceive to be your personal needs, the needs of your family, and the needs of this church?” All I did for six months was listen. Out of that data I synthesized specific conclusions which I took to various Christian education committees. I’d say to them, “This is what I am hearing. Do you agree, and what do you think we can do about it?” They were the ones who had the ownership of the development of new ways to meet these specific needs.

Any Christian leader can do a similar thing. The bond this creates between the speaker and the listener has positive side benefits all its own. When a grass roots person realizes that a committee has been influenced by his heartfelt need, you can count on his total support and participation in the solution.

Richard: This same thing can be done by a concerned Sunday school teacher. Every class can be asked to list the four or five needs it has, or perceives. Class sessions can then be designed to meet those needs.

Gene: I like what you’re saying about need-centered programs, as long as those programs correlate very closely with Scripture. This applies not only to preventive fellowships and supportive fellowships, but also to counseling relationships. There is a trend today to get people together and just share feelings. We can listen to one another and pray for one another, but that soon runs very thin if the group dynamics are not based on Scripture. Some of the most effective fellowships I know are ones that begin with the Scriptures, and then open themselves to everyday application.

Frank: I don’t think this is a big problem for pastors, but it can be a problem with other Christian counselors. There is a real danger of not integrating Scripture into counseling. Obviously we must be very sensitive about how we integrate Scripture, but there is the potential danger for Christian counselors to move away from Scripture to just another secular model.

Jim: And that danger is particularly acute if you’re trying to counsel someone who pathologically uses the Scriptures, who quotes verses as a defense mechanism or bangs his or her spouse over the head with Bible passages; it’s a deep psychological problem in religious clothes. This kind of problem is one of the toughest ones I face in my own counseling ministry.

Richard: One of the most tragic experiences I’ve ever had was to sit in the congregation and listen to hostile preaching that projected personal problems from the pulpit wrapped in biblical phrases. As I looked around the sanctuary, I saw a neurotic congregation.

David: Your statement only underlines what I was saying earlier about the power of the pulpit in mass counseling. Just as an insecure, anxiety-ridden, hostile preacher can use the Word of God to project neurosis, he can also use the Word of God to promote mental and emotional health, as well as spiritual health.

I have one more thought about how to integrate preventive, as well as supportive, counseling into Christian education programs.

The success our church has enjoyed with the Marriage Enrichment weekends has pointed out to me the untapped and unharnessed power of an individual couple growing in the Lord, growing with one another, and modeling the Scriptures in their lives. I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised since that’s how God intended things to be in the first place; but with so many families breaking up all around us, individual couples who model Christianity through their marriages seem to stand out.

We have begun a program whereby we encourage this kind of married couples to consider reparenting young people who have never experienced healthy parental relationships. I’m particularly concerned about teen-aged girls. So many of them are emotionally fatherless, and they’re destined to become horrible wives. They are empty souls who quickly reach out for the first pair of empty arms. We can help by providing substitute families, healthy couples who will befriend these needy young people. The same thing is true for teen-aged boys who never really had a mother, but my experience shows that the problem is more serious with fatherless daughters.

Frank: You’re speaking to a very important issue. It’s been estimated that twenty-five to fifty percent of all marriages will end in divorce. It’s also estimated that one in every six children will be raised by a single parent. Unless the church prepares to meet this need, we’re going to miss a tremendous opportunity.

Richard: Couples make excellent teachers-team teachers-in all areas of the church. We did a survey in our church and asked people why they taught or went to an adult church-school class. We were surprised at the answer. The most obvious reason was that their spouse wanted them to teach or attend. If a couple does team-teaching you automatically have spouse support, and you’re providing a healthy model of male/female ministry.

David: For the first time, I have two helpers for personal counseling needs. In fact, one of my assistants will soon go to a seminar in New Orleans designed to train lay people in counseling technique. Hopefully, when he comes. back, he’ll be able to help us begin a formal lay-centered training program.

Already I can tell we’ll have to be very careful and sensitive about how we select people for lay training. I don’t think we could dare make a public announcement, or we would have droves of people come.

Richard: One impediment to the concept of lay training programs is that leaders tend to equate successful programs with numbers. Pastors of smaller churches don’t need to think in terms of ten trainees in order to launch a training program. They can begin with one person. Why not start with one and bring him along as an apprentice? In fact, the smaller the class, the more effective and delightful the experience can be.

Paul: Again, in the spirit of integration, shouldn’t the pastor keep his eyes open for teachers, small-group leaders, and other individuals with spiritual maturity and natural leadership ability so that he can ever so gently lead them into ministry involvement, including personal counseling, without signing them all up for an eighteen-month course?

Gene: In our church we try to structure training into two parts. The first part of that structure is scriptural teaching with an emphasis on application and life response. After a coffee break and social time, we come back to share and to minister to one another. The atmosphere is always informal, comfortable, and conducive to personal communication. We’ve tried very hard to break away from the traditional stereotype of one-way communication: “I am the pastor, and I am up here teaching, and you must listen to me.”

Terry: I think that brings us back to where we started. Let’s wrap up by talking about the third concentric circle, the Christian leader, and the types of problems that tend to come to his or her attention, along with the dangers those problems present to his own person.

Jim: From my perspective as a church staff member, I would say that almost all counseling problems fall into four categories. First, there are the problems that deal with a person’s relationship to himself: self-image, depression, deep-seated matters of an internal nature.

The second category involves one’s relationship to God. The root of many of these problems relates to a person’s concept of God.

The third category is one’s relationships with significant others: family members, friends, colleagues, other believers within the body of Christ. It’s interesting that when Jesus gave the two great commandments he covered these first three categories of relationships.

The fourth category is one’s relationship to things: material possessions, stewardship, ecology. Often the most significant question asked in this category is “Do I possess things, or do they possess me?” Obviously there’s a sizeable spectrum of intensity, or lack of intensity, in all of these problem areas.

David: Let me add one more thought. While these four categories cover most of the bases, I think that pastors should emotionally and spiritually prepare themselves for every kind of question. I am amazed, for example, at the number of men who come to me and ask, “Is it all right for me to have a vasectomy?” Five years ago that hardly ever happened. Our culture has surfaced a multitude of issues-medical ethics, abortion, euthanasia, aging-that crop up in any counseling session with regularity.

Frank: I cannot address this question from a pastor’s standpoint, but it would seem to me that there’s more overlap than ever before between the counseling problems the pastor would face and the ones that a psychiatrist would face. There would be a lot of overlap in the area of personality disorders, childhood disorders, and personality traits. These are maladapted behavior patterns that get people into trouble. But as I talk to my pastor friends, I discover that many people come to them for substance-use disorders such as amphetamine abuse.

Terry: What are the dangers the Christian leader faces in counseling, and how can he or she be protected from these dangers?

Jim: One of the great dangers I face is the problem of caring and being compassionate without creating dependency. That’s not nearly as easy as I first thought it should be. For the pastor/ counselor it’s especially tricky, for he is viewed as a representative of God as well as a counselor/ friend.

All counselors struggle with the problems created by intimacy. In the man/woman relationship, God designed us so that sexual tension would increase with intimacy. A lot of Christian leaders are not cautious enough in this area. We probably all know someone who has suffered devastating heartbreak and had to leave the ministry because of entering into a counseling situation without proper safeguards.

On the other hand, certain forms of intimacy can promote accelerated healing. For example, to touch others, or even hug them, may provide them with an affirmation and acceptance that words can never express. Obviously, touch is extremely dangerous in a man/woman relationship, for probably neither one knows what level of intimacy will trigger a very intimate response from the other person.

Paul: I need help with this one. It seems to me that physical contact of any kind in a counseling session could lead to disaster. What are you saying?

Frank: The issue of dependency and the issue of touch must be dealt with individually. We need to be very careful not to make wide-sweeping generalizations that apply to all people. With people who have a bent toward dependency, the counselor must carefully examine the situation and plot a strategy that will promote their growth. Rather than encourage them to come once a week for help, it might be better to schedule them every three months. Even if they preferred more frequent sessions, it would be very unhealthy to encourage them to come more often and thus keep them from growing.

The same thing is true of touch. You have to look at each situation individually and plot a strategy. If you’re counseling a 60- or 70-year-old lady who has been rejected and suffered a lot of personal losses, putting your arm around her and physically demonstrating that you care might be of tremendous help to her. And she would probably interpret it as caring. But with someone else, say a 20-year-old paranoid, you just might scare that person to death.

Richard: And if that paranoid is a woman who has suffered from an inadequate father, she may interpret your gesture as a sexual advance.

Jim: I’ve struggled a lot with this subject. If you want an interesting Bible study, carefully review the touching ministry of Jesus. My early conclusions are that there are as many nonsexual as sexual ways to touch a person. I’ve been thinking about a couple of schizophrenics with whom I have been dealing, where the issue of touch is a very difficult thing to resolve.

Gene: Jim, would you ever reach out and touch a woman in a counseling situation? For example, would you take her hands in yours and pray with her, or put your arm around her?

Jim: I tend not to put my arm around a woman, but often I will take her hand. However, let me quickly explain that my office door has an obvious glass window, and my secretary sits right outside the door. In my counseling sessions there is never a total “behind the closed door.”

Paul: But aren’t you taking a chance? Isn’t it presumptuous to assume that you have correctly read the person and how he or she might respond?

Richard: I think of two correctives: One, we must be very careful about touch, but all counseling requires the taking of some risk; so I guess I’m not afraid of risk if the counselor is wise enough to build safeguards into the counseling techniques. Second, whenever the counselor faces doubt about the counseling technique, he should quickly check with another competent person, and get a second, third, and fourth opinion.

Terry: I’ve been thinking about the recent seminary graduate who might be reading this forum. From your combined experience, what would you say to this young pastor as he or she approaches that first counseling encounter?

Gene: Any young pastor is going to face the fact of credibility because of his age and experience. It’s helpful to realize right up front that there are older, wiser people in the church who can help him with his credibility problem. He shouldn’t be threatened to admit that there are certain things he can’t handle, and to be prepared to refer the counselee to more capable people in the church, or to someone competent on the outside. It doesn’t help an individual to dispense a lot of theoretical information. I have met young pastors who quickly dispense ideas relative to marriage, childrearing, and adolescent resolution of problems that are simply inappropriate. He usually aggravates the problem, which further undermines his credibility.

Richard: I think it’s important for a young pastor to have immediate access to another pastor or experienced professional. I would also urge him or her to immediately tap into community resources. When the pastor first comes to town, he should take the time to meet physicians, lawyers, psychologists, and other professionals, and get to know them on a first-name basis.

Frank: Watch for the dangers of losing objectivity. A young pastor runs the danger of being very eager to please, and of trying to get to know many people very well. Both of these tendencies run counter to objectivity. Beware also of dependency.

David: Dependency is one of the big problems. I would suggest that a young pastor set a specific number of sessions and give the counselee an idea of the number. That emphasizes the temporary aspect of the counseling situation. It might also be helpful to let the person know that for the total healing of their situation they might need to get into a group of some kind. This paves the way for cutting off potential dependence when you feel that counseling has become a part of the disease and not a part of the cure. However, as one begins to counsel, remain flexible on both schedule and amount of time.

Richard: Young people coming out of seminary have probably been surrounded by some pretty intensive support systems. They may not even realize to what degree other students, faculty members, and a number of other friendships have carried them from one week to the next.

As they move into a parish they may quickly develop acute feelings of loneliness. The support system is gone, and not enough time has passed to create a new one. It becomes very important that young pastors find peers as quickly as possible. Colleagues who are facing the same kinds of problems will provide friendship and support, and can be a sounding board for problems the young pastor faces.

Frank: Pastors need to be very careful about their own relationship to their spouses. Obviously a spouse is central to any kind of social support system. A strong spouse relationship will help the pastor avoid relationship entanglements with patients. In fact, the more a spouse can become an integral part of counseling therapy, the stronger that counseling will be.

Jim: That’s true. And if a spouse is never involved, counseling can become a tremendous threat to the spouse. When a wife knows her husband/pastor is talking with other women about very intimate things, it may threaten her in ways that could be very detrimental to their own marriage relationship.

Frank: Pastors should know that there are some very sick people with intense problems, and they need to keep one eye on their own mental health. Watch for suicide and other physical problems. If there’s any question about suicide or physical abuse, get immediate consultation.

Gene: Stay close to the Lord. After all, he is the great physician. We are to cast all our care upon him, knowing that he cares for us.

David: The pastor’s own devotional life should probably have been the first item on our list of cautions. There is no substitute for a strong devotional life when it comes to facing the problems of the world. You must have the power of the Holy Spirit with you as you go into the counseling room.

To this day, I always try to pray before a person comes to see me, and after he has left. In spite of years of experience and my constant pursuit for more training, there is no substitute for the radar of the Holy Spirit. I am wonderfully and happily surprised at God’s guidance. I don’t know why I should be, for the radar of the Holy Spirit is on target. It’s very important that I be sensitive to the counselee, but it’s more important that I be sensitive to the Holy Spirit.

Copyright © 1980 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

Nancy Smith faced problems deeper than most. This is the account of how she tried to unlock doors leading to health.

As you read, observe the professional skill of the counselor. At the conclusion of the excerpt, we have provided an evaluation of the counseling sessions to help you apply numerous principles in your own ministry.

Winter Past (now reissued as All I Need Is Love) is published by InterVarsity Press.

“May I help you?” The receptionist’s voice sounded medical and routine, giving the impression that calling a psychiatrist’s office was a perfectly normal occurrence. As my index finger curled around the receiver of my wall phone, I quickly replayed my options. I could hang up. With a twitch of my finger I could cut her off. The small piece of paper containing the clinical address, phone number, and the names of the psychiatrist and her two associates could be discarded and forgotten in the trash.

Again the receptionist offered the invitation, “May I help you?”

I saw my index finger relax its grip on the receiver, and I heard myself say, “Yes.” With that “Yes” I unknowingly accepted the opportunity God had planned and placed in my life. I viewed the victory as the ultimate defeat, surrender to the dark enemy within me, depression.

In her same mechanical voice the receptionist said that Dr. Michaels could see me. At the time I knew nothing of Dr. Emily Michaels, but God knew both of us, and the receptionist was his link.

On August 18, 1972 my little yellow Volkswagen (nicknamed “The Yellow Lemon”) tooled along the interstate to the clinic. Once there, I found a tastefully appointed room done in pale greens.

I have this habit of holding little conversations with myself when the going gets rough. “I can’t believe this. Here I am holding U.S. News and World Report as though I’m going to catch up on the balance of trade payments while I wait for the doctor.” I could run.

“Nancy?”

Medical science would never confirm it, but when Dr. Michaels called my name, my heart felt like it was beating from a location somewhere within my stomach.

“I’m Dr. Michaels.”

I stood up and instantly forgot the balance of trade problem, the run in my nylons, and the reason I was in the office,

“How was your trip?”

“Fine,” I lied.

“Would you like to follow me to my office?”

I noted that she did not wait for a reply so I followed. She did not compare with the subconscious archetypal figure of the psychologist I had envisioned. She looked too much like a person and not enough like a psychologist.

“Have a seat.”

There were two chairs. “She’ll probably watch which one I choose.” As she adjusted the drapes in the office I sat in the chair nearest the door.

“Can you tell me a little about why you came?”

“Well, ah, I’ve been a little bit down.” I smiled.

“Down?”

“Depressed.” Silence. “A friend suggested that maybe a psychiatrist might be able to help me.”

“Let me clear something up. Dr. Walker is a psychiatrist. She has a medical degree and she’s able to prescribe drugs in addition to practicing psychotherapy. I’m a licensed psychologist. I’m trained to practice psychotherapy, but I can’t prescribe drugs.”

I nodded. As I took a deep breath I figured I might as well get down to brass tacks. “Last month I went on a summer missionary visit to Jamaica and I got sick. The doctor here said I had . . . well, they called it conversion hysteria.”

She nodded. Thank God, she’d heard of it before.

“It, ah, was my legs.” Suddenly I wanted to stop this story. I folded my hands.

“Do you mind if I get a little information?” She took out a steno pad from her desk. “How old are you?”

“Twenty-five.”

“Are you married or . . . “

“Single.”

“Do you work?”

“Yes. I’m a teacher. I teach English.”

“Oh, I know how that is. I used to teach.” She smiled slightly.

“Do you live with your family.”

‘Well, it’s pretty confusing.” I always prefaced the story about my family with that remark. Her questions seemed very unpsychological and routine, so I prepared to give her my routine comments about my family. “My parents died some time ago. After my father died, my mother remarried. Then she died when I was nine.” I fingered my car keys. “I have a half brother, Jimmy.” I paused to let it sink in before I added the more complicated elements of the plot. I could see Dr. Michaels was following nicely so far. “After my mother died my stepfather remarried. A woman named Joann. She had a child by a previous marriage, Johnny.” By this time I was fumbling with my keys and smiling quite a lot. “Joann and my stepfather, they, ah, got a divorce.” Dr. Michaels was taking this like it was all quite normal, so I added the final touch. “My stepfather remarried again, to a lady named Rita.”

Dr. Michaels just sat back in her chair and stared at me for a second. Finally she spoke. “You mentioned you were depressed. What’s that like?”

I was amazed at-how I was at a loss to describe a feeling that had been with me for so long. “It’s, well . . . it’s really bad.” Suddenly a vivid image appeared. It was a student’s composition I had wounded with red ink. Such comments as, “Be specific. Use lively adjectives.” Here I am babbling, “I feel really bad.” Such style.

“When was the last time you felt this way?”

“I have a lot of times when it really gets me down. Last spring it was so bad my pastor suggested I go in the hospital.”

‘What happened?”

“The doctor gave me some medicine. But it keeps coming back.” I was now staring very intensely at the carpet. “I get lonely. It’s just empty. I don’t know what to do with myself.”

“Nancy, do you ever think of suicide?” She stabbed close to home with those words, but I was relieved that she asked the question.

“Yes.” I looked at my hands. “I’ve thought about it. But I’d never do anything.”

She nodded her head as though she understood the intensity of my struggle. I wanted her to know everything now. I wanted this stranger to stop the hurt. I wanted her to reach down and pull the ache out. But how could I let her know? I could never make anyone know or understand. The past had erupted, the present was drowning me, and the future . . . the future. It was lurking with waves of emptiness, empty days, empty nights, empty apartment, empty soul. What was there to lose in telling this stranger about what happened with my stepfather? I knew it would happen. She’d give me the solution to the problem and everything would be fine. At least that’s what was supposed to happen. Only things would never be fine. I’d played the game too many times and I was tired of it.

How many well-meaning people had rushed to identify my problem and to hastily apply their solution? “Nancy, you need to have devotions every day.” Nancy would rush to her Bible and pray and stumble even more. “Nancy, there’s unconfessed sin in your life. Get right.” Nancy would confess sins of omission and commission only to feel further away from God. “Nancy, you need to forgive others.” Nancy would forgive and yet grow more bitter. ‘Nancy, your Body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. Take care of it.” Nancy would go to the doctor and come away with fistfuls of pills, but no improvement. “Nancy, the joy of the Lord is your strength if you’d only praise him more.” Nancy praised God and slipped still further. Yes, I knew how the game worked, but I was tired of losing.

I expected Dr. Michaels to offer a quick solution, after which I would take her solution and fail again. That was the way the game worked. I neither liked nor disliked Dr. Michaels. She was the doctor and I was the sick. The conversion hysteria proved that. While staring at the molding around her desk, I decided to play the game once again. I would tell her about my stepfather. “Something happened in the hospital that, ah . . . brought back . . . I thought about something I hadn’t thought about in a long time.”

‘What was that?”?

My mind was now pressed tightly against the brick wall of indecision. Do I want her to know? What words do I use to tell this stranger about the ugly, repulsive, private thoughts going through the canyons of my mind?

She interrupted my silence. ‘What happened?”

Within ten minutes Dr. Michaels learned of the rape. She pressed for details, agonizing details my mind had blotted out for too many years. On this day the slime of repressed memories finally began to trickle out. In the swelling silence of the office I had no concept of the vast amount of poison that was in my mind, nor of the enormous effort that would be required to remove the venom. The silence was now insufferably thick. It bloated my thoughts so I couldn’t talk. It caked itself to the walls, to the corners of the room.

Finally I lifted my eyes to Dr. Michaels. It was such an unfamiliar face. I could not allow myself to study it. But it was this unfamiliar face that now knew about Nancy Smith. She looked too much like a person.

What seemed like eons later, I was able to break the silence. “Do you think you can help me?”

‘Yes, I think I can help you, Nancy.”

Her arrogance overwhelmed me.

She continued. “Nancy, I’m sorry I pressured you, but this had to come out. You were exploding with it. I’m pleased you told me.”

I too was pleased it was out. But now I was waiting for her pat answers, the solution: prayer, God, the Bible, etc., etc., etc., etc., etc. But instead . . .

“Well, do you want to give this a try?” Pause. “It won’t be easy. Therapy is work-real work-for you and for me.”

All that I could think was, “The cat is out of the bag. See where it runs.”

“Can you come back Monday?”

“Okay.” I had a lot to think about. A lot.

You never throw away what is stored in attics. Never. Attics, with an aura of desolation, mustiness, and hues of anemic browns, seek to delude onlookers with a melancholy song of abandonment. A broken vase, a packet of letters from another time, a faded army uniform, or perhaps the once cherished and much cuddled doll . . . now in a catatonic trance. Unused? Perhaps. But abandoned? Never. The enigmatic truth is that attic things achieve a kind of everlasting life. Sooner or later we all make pilgrimages back to the attics of our lives. With hushed reverence on solitary afternoons, the uncanny fingering of relics begins. We allow ourselves to bathe in memory and make associations. Dreams, desires, joys, and sometimes aches. In the attic we are alone with our thoughts.

Sunday morning, early. I lingered in the attic of my thoughts. So much to finger, contemplate, and reexamine. Chaotic thoughtsl No amount of work would bring order to my thinking. On this Sunday morning I could not leave my attic thinking. Over and over in my mind were the facts. I was branded with psychological problems. Now I had to face a whole ugly area of my life I had forgotten was there.

To compound the problem, I was now allowing a psychologist to tamper with my life. Was this psychologist even a Christian? There was certainly no Bible nor prayer during my session with her. Now I was concerned with where all her prying questions would lead me. “I’ve only made things worse. There’s nothing I can do with my life. I can’t do anything right.”

The kind of attic thinking I had subjected myself to was truly exhausting. Yet I forced myself to go to Sunday school and church. Forced is a good word choice here because that is exactly what was required to make myself walk down the hallway to the Sunday school room. I sat down, rigid, and allowed the panic that was welling up inside me take full control. Someone was called on to pray. As I bowed my head I squeezed my eyes; my heart was racing. I imagined that I was a dust ball in the most inconspicuous corner of the room. It was a mistake to have forced myself to come. I now felt myself losing all control. I was sure I would not make it to the end of the lesson. I wanted to run, to flee, to vanish from all people.

The attic thoughts from the early morning were now beginning to tumble out at breakneck speed. I told myself I must stop this. To get control I compelled myself to study the pleats in my white skirt. I fingered the pleats. I straightened them. I counted them. I was slowly calmed to the point that I was able to catch the teacher’s words. With heavy breaths I opened my Bible to 2 Timothy 1:7: “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.”

The verse pierced me. “Nancy,” I began lecturing myself, “how could you have forgotten that verse! And you call yourself a Christian. All this emotionalism you have been allowing yourself to wallow in must make God sick. ‘God hath not given us the spirit of fear.’ You messed that promise up good.”

Then I heard the Sunday school teacher mention love. I don’t know when the tears started to come, but I noticed them now, silent and hot on my cheek. Never before had I cried in public. My attic thoughts centered on the fact that love to me was just a word with no feeling whatsoever attached to it. “You are such a selfish person. ‘Spirit of love’? Don’t kid yourself. You’ve never given an ounce of love to anyone.” The teacher was now mentioning how few people cared enough to come on visitation.

Visitation. I suddenly saw a way to begin clearing up my problems. I would make myself love people! With clenched fists I determined to go on visitation faithfully. I would put myself on a schedule of caring for people every Monday night at seven o’clock. “I’ll stop thinking about myself and start caring about other people if it kills me!”

Now I began to catch the last words of the lesson; something about a real Christian, a victorious Christian having complete self-control even in the worst of life’s storm. There were a few references to well-known verses from Philippians 4 like, “I can do all things through Christ,” and “I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.” It all seemed so simple and clear. God gave every Christian a sound mind. Those people with unsound minds, emotional problems, had done something to damage their relationship with God. I reasoned that my sins had caused me to have this unsound mind.

Suddenly my attic thoughts were in sharp black-and-white focus. I told myself that emotional problems are sinful. Christians have no reason to suffer such problems. Christians have no business calling an emotional problem an illness. It’s old-fashioned sin against God. The Lord expects us to be content in every situation. I was discontented and troubled. And that was sin, pure and simple. God was the answer to every problem. So many people had told me before that all I had to do was to snap out of those blue moods and trust the Lord. Didn’t the verse say, “I can do all things through Christ”? Yes, those people had been right. I didn’t need to mess up my life with psychology. All psychologists will do is dredge up the past. Didn’t Paul also say in Philippians, “This one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before”? It was wrong for me to go to a psychologist for help. After all, the verse didn’t say, “I can do all things through bellyaching to people like Dr. Michaels.”

It was all so very simple . . . or so it seemed then. I actually thought my emotional problems were licked. Victory at last. Presto! No more loneliness. No more embarrassing hospital stays. No more weeping in the middle of the night for no reason, and no more selfishness. All I had to do was “turn to God” like so many Christians had told me to do, snap out of it, and get active in church and visitation. God will give you a sound mind if you stop sinning.

My “victory” lasted something like two minutes and twenty seconds. That is the time it took for me to walk from the Sunday school room to the main auditorium for church. I simply could not stand to sit down among such contented, happy Christians. These people had no fears, no lack of power. I was not good enough. I could not stand to be an unsound mind in the midst of these loving sound minds. These people were successful Christians. There were no problems here . . . except for me. And so I fled. I remember literally running from the church to my car. The next thing I recall was looking at the speedometer. I was doing seventy.

As I sat alone in my apartment that Sunday, I gave up on God. Yet even though I tried to rule him out, he remained alive and full of power, operating and energizing my life to heal me. In desperation, God’s desperation, I found myself driving to keep my appointment with Dr. Michaels.

I sat on the edge of the couch. My muscles were tense. My eyes stared straight ahead. My mind blocked out the music’s attempt to soothe me. My thoughts centered on what I thought would transpire in the forthcoming hour. I had arranged the scenario like this: Today Dr. Michaels would drill me with more embarrassing questions and details about what happened with my stepfather. All of that out of the way, she would finally open her Bible and drop pearls of wisdom at my feet about forgiveness, confession, Bible reading, and so on and so on and so on, ad nauseam. Oh yes, she would also throw in some psychological jargon-maybe even some more advanced stuff than what we got in Psychology 101.

However, at the end of the hour-long appointment Dr. Michaels had still not zapped me. Instead, she ended the session by saying, “Nancy, it’s like you’ve made a pact for life with yourself. That pact says, ‘Don’t ever tell anyone about the terrible, ugly hurt in life, the rotten times, your mom leaving you alone, what happened with your stepfather.’ ” She spoke quietly, like she was inside my attic thoughts with me. “You have worked so very hard for independence from these things in the past. But you missed so many depending experiences.”

How many times had I been told not to depend on people? What Dr. Michaels was saying sounded all wrong. We are supposed to depend on God, not people, I couldn’t buy what she was saying.

Dr. Michaels read my thoughts. “Nancy.” She leaned forward in her chair. The words were whispered, slow in coming, but full of conviction. “It’s not wrong to depend. You’ve stumbled along as much as you can alone. Now you’re going to get some help.”

Somewhere deep within myself I clutched at her words. Oh, how I wanted to believe I could be helped! In the two-week period before my next appointment how many times did I turn those words over in my mind? “Now you’re going to get some help. … Now you’re going to get some help. … Now you’re going to get some help. … “

Meanwhile, I endured two Sundays of self-recrimination at church. Somehow I was able to sit through the services, but I sat with a chip on my shoulder. Since my flight from church earlier, every mention of God’s caring or loving or meeting needs struck heavy chords of resentment within me. I dismissed this as yet another example of what a putrid Christian I was.

At home I busied myself with lesson plans for the courses I would be teaching in a few weeks when school started. But somehow there were always too many hours left over. Time was an enemy that always seemed to win. Hour after hour of bustling activity, full rich life, and adventure came pouring from the TV set as I sat staring into space. My apartment was small, and at times I felt so trapped, so confined, so lonely that I would run to my car to escape. Once on the road I had absolutely no destination. I would drive for forty, fifty, sometimes a hundred miles.

I went to my next appointment with Dr. Michaels as much out of curiosity as anything. Same comfortable couch, soft pillows, and soothing music. Same tense, rigid Nancy Smith still trying to figure out when Dr. Michaels would spring the Bible-prayer routine. How much longer before she would reveal the “solution,” pat me on the back, pronounce me “cured,” and send me on my merry way? After all, this was my third visit. How much longer could it take?

Walking to her office I determined I would find out where she displayed her Bible. As we exchanged artificial pleasantries I did my best to locate it.

She interrupted my search with a question. “Can you tell me how you feel about me now that you have told me about your experience with your stepfather?”

No answer came to her question. I didn’t know how I felt toward her. I gave her a blank look and shrugged my shoulders.

She repeated the same question as though it were a brand new one. “How do you feel toward me?”

There was a long silence. She leaned back in her swivel chair and scratched her head.

Dr. Michael’s next question almost led me to believe she had ESP. “Nancy, if you were upset with me, how would you feel?”

I quickly put the head scratching data away in my attic files, then I attempted a fake smile.

I did not get a smile back. She repeated the question in a more demanding tone. “If you were upset with me, how would you feel?”

I was beginning to get the idea that she wanted an answer. I turned the question over in my mind. How would I feel? I was getting very uncomfortable with the whole idea of my even sitting here talking to her about such a silly thing as my feelings. To end the silence, I blurted out a quick, “I don’t know.”

About this time the little voice inside me started to help me out of this sticky situation. “Come on, Nanc. How would you feel? Let’s play school. Okay. Fill in the blank. If I were upset with Dr. Michaels,” by this time the “if” could easily have been omitted, “I would feel ” No answer. “Try again, Nanc. I would feel ” I strained for an answer. Still nothing.

Finally Dr. Michaels “condescended” to help me answer her question. “Well, would you feel upset enough to feel like leaving this room?”

“I wouldn’t do that.”

“Did you hear yourself? You tell me what you’ll do or not do, but never how you feel. You won’t let yourself feel.”

Why was she making such a big deal about the way I feel? I didn’t really grasp what she was getting at.

“Nancy, Christians aren’t always honest about what they feel inside.”

All I knew was that feelings were what were giving me trouble. Why shouldn’t I ignore them and concentrate on being a good Christian?

“Christians are really quite good at covering up their feelings. Christian ‘ethics’-we tell ourselves, ‘I’m not supposed to get mad or hate or think wicked thoughts. Christians just don’t do that.’ “

Is Dr. Michaels suggesting it is all right to feel angry or upset? No. Everything in me told me that Christians are not to have those kinds of feelings.

“Nancy, so many times we lie to ourselves, ‘No, I’m not angry.’ But we’re fooling ourselves. Feelings are there even if we ignore them. But God wants us to be honest about our feelings so we can be honest with him.”

My mind was groping for some verse to tell her that feelings were wrong. The whole idea of paying attention to your feelings left me horrified.

“Nancy, there’s a difference between feeling and doing. You’re responsible for what you do with your feelings, but you can’t help having feelings. Feelings are. They’re there. And God wants us to be honest with ourselves and with him about how we feel.”

Something in her last statement struck a chord of genuine fascination. “God wants us to be honest.”

On the long trip home after the session, I thought about God wanting me to be honest. Heavy stuff. A lengthy Socratic dialogue with my psyche ensued as I chugged along the interstate.

Therapy is no easy street where your therapist tidies up your life. It is your efforts to grope and struggle with yourself that will eventually bring results. Let me warn that the process is slow and painful. Many of these dialogues with myself left me inundated with tears. I surmise I hold the world’s record for the most tears shed on the interstate.

My first running encounter with myself as I maneuvered my way out of heavy city traffic ran something like this: “Okay. I know God wants us to be honest. He’s the God of Truth, that much I know. But that stuff about feelings. So what if I don’t feel things? She said I don’t ever let myself feel. Well, what does she want me to do, walk around with my guts hanging out with feelings? It’s wrong to be angry and mad. Does she want me to be angry and mad?

“So maybe she’s right. I don’t let myself feel. Oh, Nancy, there’s no use covering up how I feel; after all, God knows. I really don’t know how I feel about stuff half the time. Maybe you want me to get honest, God. Okay, Lord, you already know how rotten I am, so I might as well get honest with myself. Help me to feel, if that’s what you want.”

As I talked that day in the car, it was a new way of communicating with God. No sweet platitudes, no fake, gushing praises. It was prayer in work clothes of desperation. After stumbling in depression’s darkness for so long it was so relieving to find something in the darkness. Honesty. I embraced it as a drowning man embraces a life line. In the weeks that followed I clutched at honesty, digging my fingernails deep into its fiber, clinging to the hope that honesty with myself and God would somehow lead me out of depression.

As I tenaciously held onto my first insight gained in therapy, I actually expected that all my problems would clear up automatically. Instead, it only led me through other doors. A long journey had begun in earnest. Dr. Michaels would now be able to probe into my past.

Probe into my past? But what had some of my friends told me? Aren’t psychologists and psychiatrists walking on dangerous ground when they tamper with the past? “Forgetting those things which are behind,” says Paul. Isn’t Satan the one who wants us to wallow in the muck and mire of past traumatic experiences?

Later I found out that was exactly the point. The past can be Satan’s territory. That is why we, as new creatures ingrafted in Christ who are experiencing emotional difficulties, must go back into our past and claim the subconscious for Christ. The battle for full Christian life and joy is often fought on the battleground of the past. Together, Dr. Michaels and I would take Christ’s power into my past and reconstruct it with God’s reconciling and redeeming love, adding a new dimension of honesty, cementing feelings to all my past experiences.

As we dissected the past I began to see poor patterns in my life, systems set up for failure, incorrect responses to people and situations, unbiblical cycles of thought-all of which contributed to my present depression and neurotic lifestyle. In later stages of therapy, the past would be strong enough to build a solid present. Once the present is established, then I could take Paul’s advice and “forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before,” press toward the mark for the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

The Rice Krispies had reached that soggy state of lukewarm idleness. No one could have coaxed them to snap, crackle or pop. Tears dripped into the cereal bowl, and I sat at the table trying to figure out why.

A steady drip, drip, drip from a leaky kitchen faucet slowly entered my awareness. I couldn’t help but snicker at myself when I noticed that every time a tear plunked into the cereal bowl the kitchen faucet also dribbled in syncopation. The game came to an abrupt halt when I found myself dashing to the sink and slamming the full force of my body against the faucet to stop the dripping.

“What’s wrong with me? For God’s sake, what’s wrong? I don’t know who I am anymore. Why am I crying? I’m going crazy. I know it. I can’t figure this out. I mean . . . I can’t stop crying. And who am I talking to?” I began rubbing the chrome with a dishtowel, polishing the faucet to a high sheen. ‘Well, I’m feeling something. Are you happy, Dr. Michaels? Is this what you want? I sure am feeling something! God only knows what! I hope you’re pleased, kind doctor! What are you going to do with yourself, Nancy? Well, for openers, how about if I stop talking to this sink. Get out of this apartment. I don’t care where I go. Just get out of here.”

At the beginning of the next session I said, “Look, Dr. Michaels, I’ve tried this business of letting myself feel. You know what happened? I ended up blubbering all over the place Saturday morning.” There was silence. Dr. Michaels just sat there. Maybe she still did not understand. “For no reason! For no reason at all, I cried all morning!”

“Nancy, I think maybe there are some reasons. You just aren’t aware of them yet.” She spoke very calmly and quietly.

From nowhere a thought tracked across my mind and I found myself blurting out, “Things would be different if my mom were alive.” I was surprised by what I said.

“How would they be different?” she asked softly.

“With my stepfather. That wouldn’t have happened.” There was more silence. “I loved my mom. I loved her a lot.” As I said this my mind replayed a pleasant scene from long ago. My mother had surprised me with a little puppy. I allowed myself to think about how kind and gentle she was. Even though no words were spoken, I felt very comfortable sitting with Dr. Michaels thinking about a happier time in my life.

After the session I did much reminiscing about my mother. Hazy memories almost forgotten in the sixteen years since my mother’s death came to mind. Hazy memories of picnics, birthdays, private little jokes, long walks, special moments.

A phone call also helped. My stepmother, Rita, called collect (as was her custom) to find out how I was since I left the hospital. After she talked to me for a while, Rita asked if I wanted to talk to my stepfather. Every nerve in me screamed out with utter repulsion. “Don’t make me talk to him. I can’t stand it!” I told myself. Yet I found myself talking to him.

“What did you do, forget I lived here?” he joked.

I played the game and let him talk. For years I had played this game and became quite skilled at it. Only now the game took on a deadly nature. When I finally hung the receiver on the hook, my hands were sweating. My teeth were clenched as were my fists, and I walked around the apartment in a rage. I wanted to explode but I was incapable. I felt like calling him back and screaming my true feelings, yet I couldn’t.

I didn’t know what to do with myself. I could not handle the strong feelings alone. I thought of Dr. Michael’s phone number on a little card. Should I bother her? I debated the question for ten minutes. Then in a cold sweat I dialed the number. I kept remembering her words as I waited for the operator to reach her. “I want you to call when it gets to be too much.”

Patiently she listened as I unburdened myself about the phone call. She concluded by saying, “You know, Nancy, you may not believe this, but I’m pleased that you called. You’re used to letting your feelings store up. Now we’re starting to put them out in the open. I want you to remember what you are feeling now. When you see me next Saturday, tell me all of it so we can really use the time and get somewhere.”

I would not admit it to myself at the time, but Dr. Michaels cared and something deep inside of my soul wanted to let her in to help.

“Dr. Michaels, how long am I going to have to live like this?”

“This is something that hurts, but I want to be honest with you. It’s going to have to hurt. All the pain from too many years is going to have to come out, like pus from a bad wound.”

I was silent for a long time.

Finally Dr. Michaels said, “Nancy, I can’t tell you how long this will take, but I know God wants you healed.”

I found myself dwelling on the loving, kind, caring family I didn’t have. More thoughts from the past concerning my mother entered my thinking. These thoughts from the past were contrasted by bitter thoughts about my stepmothers, Joann and Rita. And more and more dark thoughts about my stepfather gnawed at me. Waves of feeling were swelling, omen of a tidal wave. It was only a matter of time.

Finally poison, hate, and venom gushed out in the flood of a frenzied phone call to my stepfather. I expressed raw hatred and disgust for him. I wanted to hurt him deeply for hurting me. I wanted him to realize he was responsible for all my difficulties and failures in life. He was to blame for everything.

After the phone call I found myself in suspended animation. Although Dr. Michaels did not suggest or encourage the phone call, many sessions were devoted to the powerful feelings swarming around the entire issue of the rape.

Painfully honest, brutal sessions followed the phone call to my stepfather. These grueling sessions left me physically as well as mentally limp. The bottom of my false self was falling out. I had no desire to do anything except sleep or sit motionless for great periods of time.

I begged Dr. Michaels to have Dr. Walker prescribe something to help me endure each day. A mild dosage of Valium was prescribed. The medication altered my body chemistry, stabilizing me enough so I could continue to work on finding the root causes of my depression during this tense time.

The period after the phone call to my stepfather was a crucial time. The hostile emotions that sprang up were a part of me I did not know existed. What really lurked inside Nancy Smith? This first stage of therapy, this self-exploring, was like colliding with your own furniture in the dark, so much a part of you, yet so strange and different in darkness. It was a strange experience of feeling things. I found myself craving and seeking out solitude. Yet at the same time, more than ever before, I had an almost insatiable desire to know someone cared.

“Parents to put their arms around you and tell you everything will be all right.” I ached for that fantasy to come true. “Someone care about me, please.” Still weeping and physically exhausted I phoned Mrs. Hawkins. Instead of Mrs. Hawkins, Pastor Hawkins answered the phone. He had the awkward task of trying to comfort a Nancy Smith who lacked the ability to receive the caring she craved. He was defeated before he began.

In desperation Pastor Hawkins suggested, “You know, I don’t think this doctor is helping you very much. I mean, if this is the condition she puts you in after a session, Nancy, how can she be helping you?”

Pastor Hawkins was sincere in his suggestion. Therapy is not only difficult for the client but also for those who genuinely care about his or her welfare. To the observers of Nancy Smith, four months of therapy had brought only negative changes in her condition and explosions of feelings. Those who cared about me only wanted to ease the pain and stop the suffering. “Nancy didn’t used to be this way.” It was natural for Pastor Hawkins to assume it was the therapy that was having an adverse effect on me. However, his remark put me into a tailspin of confusion. What little trust I was beginning to experience in Dr. Michaels was now on shaky ground.

“I ought to tell Dr. Michaels to hang it up. Nobody can help me. I wish she could but she can’t. What is she trying to do to me? I can’t stand this. I can’t go on.” Pastor Hawkins would be disappointed, but I felt God did not have any answers for me either. No one could help me. In the silence of the apartment a pain was now developing. There did seem to be a way out. I walked into the bathroom and stared at the medicine cabinet. I opened it and took out the little bottle of Valium. I could stop the hurt. If things did not get better there would be a way out.

For some reason, I ended up keeping my Saturday appointment with Dr. Michaels.

“Well, I guess you want to know how things are going. I’ve been busy.” I proceeded to tell her a lie about how wonderful my week had been. I concentrated on my teaching activities and quite carefully deleted any mention of Pastor Hawkins and his suggestion. After all, I did not want to embarrass Dr. Michaels.

“Nancy, what happened to all that anger you had?”

Why did she have to bring that up? I told her I was feeling fine. “I don’t know what happened to the anger. I don’t want to think about it.” In the silence of the next three minutes I wondered why I wasn’t angry right then. Finally the silence got to me. “You know, I, uh, don’t know what to do when you don’t say anything and just stare at me.”

“Well, Nancy, sometimes I don’t know what you’re thinking, and I want to give you a chance to bring up things to talk about.”

That was a pretty straight answer. Okay. ‘Well, you know, yesterday-this is funny-I have these electric curlers in the bathroom. When I looked at them, I thought about something that happened a long time ago.” After my mother died, the lady next door used to curl my hair and comb it out the next morning before school. One morning when I knocked she didn’t come to the door. I waited twenty minutes, but she didn’t come. Finally in tears, I took the curlers out of my hair and went to school feeling ugly.”

Now I had the courage to look into Dr. Michaels’ face to see if she was laughing at me. She wasn’t. Instead, she was silently reliving the experience with me. I was now brave enough to do a little psychological guesswork. “Maybe that’s why sometimes I’m a bother to people now. Like I felt like a bother when I tried to call Mrs. Hawkins after I left here last Saturday. I felt so lonely.”

“Why did you feel lonely? Can you remember when you felt lonely before?”

“You mean in the past?”

“Yes. Like the curlers.”

I was really doing some searching now. “No, no, I can’t remember anything. I mean I don’t think I was lonely. My brother was always there.”

“Why did you call Mrs. Hawkins rather than anyone else?”

“Well, it was late and Donna works and was probably in bed. I’m not seeing many people these days.” I stopped for a minute and listened to my own words. “I’m more lonely than I’ve ever been before.”

“Maybe you seem to be more lonely now than before because you are allowing yourself to feel for the first time. And you feel lonely.” I appreciated the way Dr. Michaels never acted like she had all the answers. We were searching together. She gave suggestions I could feel free to accept or reject.

“Sometimes I think I’m thinking about myself too much. Like Pastor Hawkins said, if I keep busy with other people. … ” I stopped my train of thought because I realized that keeping busy with other people was not working for me. “. . . No, it doesn’t work.” “Yes, you’ve tried to keep busy all your life. Now it’s time to be honest. You are lonely. You don’t have any close friends with the exception of Donna.”

“Oh, I have friends. I’m the laugh of the teachers’ lounge.”

“Okay,” Dr. Michaels conceded, “You aren’t an isolate. But no close friends. Why?”

“Well, my moodiness.”

“That’s true. But what else?”

“I don’t know.” I now wished she’d drop the whole subject. ‘I don’t make the effort. I don’t ask people to do things. I wait for them.”

“Like you’re bothering them? Do you feel like you’re bothering me?”

I laughed. You’re getting paid for me bothering you, Emily Michaels! ”NO! I guess I’m oversensitive. Like if I call someone and ask him to do something and he can’t do it, I feel hurt.”

“Yes, I think that’s true. You are extremely sensitive. And l think that deep down inside you think you’re bothering me.”

‘Well, sometimes I am a bother.”

“That’s possible. I don’t know. Like the lady with the curlers. Maybe she just had a cold or was sick. I don’t know. But like you said, I may be wrong. But I think a lot of it is just in your own mind.”

“Okay, so what do I do about it?”

“Sometimes it just takes real guts to be honest about how we are. Nancy, do you know why you really called Mrs. Hawkins? What did you really want her to tell you?”

There was quiet, and then I answered Dr. Michaels’ question. “I wanted Mrs. Hawkins to say, ‘Nancy, I love you. I care about what happens to you.’ ” I was amazed at my answer. It was as if someone suddenly turned the lights on in my mind. I began to answer automatically all of Dr. Michaels’ questions with a wisdom I didn’t know I possessed.

“Do you know why you called Mrs. Hawkins instead of anyone else?”

“Because she’s like my mother.” I could not believe what I was saying, yet something deep inside me was affirming it was true.

“Yes. How is she like your mother?”

“She really cares about her family.” I was warm inside just thinking about how kind and gentle Mrs. Hawkins was. I was not bothered by the tears that began to flow. “She’s the kind of person you’d be proud to bring your friends home to and say, ‘This is my mom.’ “

“Not like Joann or Rita. You didn’t even want to go home.”

I nodded my head and grabbed a Kleenex.

Finally! Tears of sorrow for my mother’s death. Delayed for sixteen long years. Gone underground . . . buried . . . denied. But now this Saturday-released

I allowed myself to cry unashamedly all the way home. At the same time the tears flowed, a tinge of electricity swelled within me. It was a quiet delight, a sense of excitement at my discovery. There was a reason for all the nagging depression, the sadness. Finally some of that nebulous hurt was identified. Now I knew why I wept.

I can’t tell you how good those overdue tears felt! Welcome tears! Purposeful tears! Now I was aware of direction in Dr. Michaels’ efforts. This therapy was helping. After months of hard fighting, I claimed my first victory. I was determined to go on!

God’s love was touching me through Dr. Michaels. God gave me a burden bearer. Burden bearing, real burden bearing, is not a pleasant ministry. There is nothing sweet-smelling about the foul odor and repulsive sight of another’s wounds. Dr. Michaels was more than a clinical psychologist. She was a person who could experience hurt and pain, a person who cared. She could dirty her hands with my pain because she too had had wounds that Someone had to comfort and clean.

December 19, 1972.

“Did you ever feel out of place back then?”

“Yeah, well I suppose there were times in the past. Like when my mother died.”

“Exactly.”

“I mean when you’re young, you need a lot of things.”

“And you were always in the way.”

“I mean there were a lot of housekeepers and problems raising two kids. It’s hard for a man to raise two kids. I know that. He always said he didn’t have to raise us. He could have just put us in a home after my mom died.”

“Yes, he could have. And he always reminded you of that fact.”

“You think maybe that could make me feel this way now, like I’m always in the way, interfering?”

“There’s no doubt in my mind.”

Those old scenes. I focused on the floor rather than Dr. Michaels’ face. “I hate to go back there, even with you. I get embarrassed. It sounds like it could never have happened.”

“But I know it happened and I want to hear all of it.”

“You know, I want you to know. I guess I want someone to feel sorry for me.”

“Okay, maybe you do. Is that so bad? You probably do. But all your life, you’ve been slapping your hand and telling yourself it’s wrong to want that. And so you’ve been covering up. It’s too big a wound to keep covering up. Nancy, we’ve got to go back and let that pus out.”

How could I begin to let her know about Joann? This stepmother had so overwhelmed me that even as I sat in Dr. Michaels’ office her power crippled my thought and speech patterns, reducing my perceptions to that of the still frightened child. “Joann was mean.”

The words were just not adequate. An image flashed into my mind of her powerful hands gripping my brother’s head and pounding it into the wall. I relayed the scene to Dr. Michaels. Then I told her of the shame and hot tears I tried to hide the day Joann shaved my head like a boy’s. But you could never stop Joann -never. Her punishments, the slaps, the beatings, the bruises-they were over swiftly. But the standing punishments, they lasted.

In the summer, late at night, we would be forced to stand for long periods of time in the utility room darkness for being “bad.” “Let the rats get your Joann would yell. The winter standing punishment was worse. We had to stand on the back porch without a coat in the cold. As these old scenes were relayed a new thought struck me. “Joann must have been crazy. You need punishment, but that was crazy. She must have been sick, really sick. I understand now.”

Dr. Michaels interrupted my thoughts. “Don’t be rational now. Tell me what it was like then.”

The ugly pus oozed. I remembered the cleaning tasks that I was forced to repeat again and again and again, day in and day out. Cleaning! Cleaning! Cleaning! Pots, pans, bathroom, floors. I recalled shining all the chrome fixtures in the bathroom over and over, cleaning miles of baseboards only to be slapped when Joann found dirt in a crevice. I cowered on the floor near the bucket of pine-scented water and said again and again, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” as she struck me for not cleaning the floor to her satisfaction.

Next came the vivid picture of my brother, Jimmy, standing in his underwear, his skinny bruised body about to be beaten yet again by a drunken Joann. The scene was so real I smelled the stench of heavy cologne and cheap beer reeking from her. That was the one day, the only day, I ever tried to stop her. I grabbed that mighty hand and tore the watch from her wrist only to be thrown to the floor and hit and hit and hit. Finally she left me in a heap cringing under the dining table.

There was now a long silence in Dr. Michaels’ office. Finally I spoke. “I wish it didn’t all happen.”

It seemed Dr. Michaels was now speaking from a place far away. There was such sadness in her voice. “That’s not the way God meant for people to be when he created this world. Not at all.” She shook her head. “It shouldn’t be like that.” She was quiet for a moment, deep in her own private thoughts. Then she focused again on me. “Nancy, it is amazing, it’s a miracle you have come out of a situation like that as well as you have. God must really want you for something special, very special.”

Dr. Michaels didn’t realize it then, but her words were like a bouquet of caring from God. Petals of love were falling into the old wound. Someone cared.

As I rose to leave, Dr. Michaels touched my shoulder. “Do you mind if I say something?”

“No, I don’t mind.”

“Are you sure? It might embarrass you.”

“Go ahead.”

“Sure you can take it, huh?”

She really had me worried now.

“I just want you to know that I really, really care about you and what happens to you.” Quiet. “Did I embarrass you?”

I simply did not know what to do with those words or with the gentle hug she gave me. No one had ever told me such a kind thing. I did not say a word, but Dr. Michaels understood.

How do you bury a Volkswagen? The Yellow Lemon was dead-not just sick this time- dead! I refused to face reality. I turned the ignition key again. Zero compression.

I called the garage where just that morning I had spent $97 for a tune-up and repairs. “No.” They did not know what the trouble was. “Yes.” They would send a tow truck out to pick it up and take it back to the garage.

While I waited for the tow truck to come, I struggled to surrender the problem to my wise heavenly Father. “Lord, you know I can’t afford a big repair bill. You know how to take care of this best.”

A mustached mechanic said, “Lady, that generator froze up the whole engine. She’s locked up solid.” He shook his head as he made his remarks. I knew that was a bad sign.

“How much is all of this going to cost me?”

“Mmmm. We’d probably get you a new engine for five, six hundred.”

Late that afternoon I collapsed on my bed. I put my hands behind my head and tried to concentrate on the air conditioner as it labored to refrigerate my bedroom. It seemed to pound out “Five hundred dollars. Five hundred dollars. Five hundred dollars.”

My eyes fell on my Bible on the night stand. “The victorious Christian. What a joke . . . at least for me.” I suddenly thought of a verse, “In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.”

“In everything give thanks?” I grabbed another Kleenex. As I began thinking out loud I started to shred it into little bits. “Thanks, God, for letting the only person I ever really cared about die. And thanks, God, for the hell you let Joann put Jimmy and me through, the beatings, the cursing and yelling, the lonely nights. Thanks for letting my stepfather rape me. Thanks for the sickening feeling I get whenever I have to be alone with a man. Thanks for reminding me of all the scum. Thanks for messing up my life so much I now have bills up to my ears from having to see a psychologist. Thanks for all the pain I have every time I spill my guts to her. Thanks for all the love you denied me and gave to everybody else. Thanks for the rotten ache in my heart that hurts so much the sobbing won’t stop. And, oh, yeah, thanks for the engine going today. Just one more thing to be thankful for, God.”

The ache I was feeling settled in a tight knot in my throat and I sobbed. Anger and pity surged into frustration. I wanted to strike back. But at whom? How? The rage boiled within me and I could not release it.

As I dialed Dr. Michaels’ now familiar number the rage seemed to cool. While I was listening to the phone ring, I realized how ridiculous it was to call my therapist because of a burnt-up car engine. Fortunately, Dr. Michaels realized there was more involved than a V.W. engine. The anger with God which I for so long denied (because Christians are not supposed to be angry with God) was finally surfacing for me to inspect.

After I recounted the whole rotten day to her, she made several nonpsychiatrical suggestions: Call the garage and ask to speak with the owner instead of the mechanic. Have someone else look at the engine. Borrow money from the bank and get it fixed. Get a lawyer. Call your brother and see what he would do. For each of her suggestions I countered with a “Yes, but . . . ” The last “Yes, but . . . ” went something like this:

“I can’t call my brother.”

“Why not?”

“You don’t understand. He always depends on me. I don’t come to him.” I whined this last comment and wasn’t expecting her strong reply.

“Well, maybe it’s about time you did!” No calm, clinical psychologist speaking now. This was Emily Michaels, the disgusted person, fed up at my refusal to accept any help. She continued, “Really, Nancy, you are just about to cut yourself off completely.”

I could not believe this was Stoneface Michaels speaking.

“Maybe it’s about time you started to depend on someone else. Maybe that’s why God let you get into this mess.”

The remark was not exactly compassionate, but it was theologically sound. Our conversation ended with Dr. Michaels’ suggestion that I borrow a car and come see her.

In her office the next day, Emily Michaels quickly reminded Nancy Smith of Nancy Smith. “I’d like to know what happened after you phoned me. Did you follow any of my suggestions?”

“Yeah, I called every rental place in the phone directory. The V.W. place didn’t have anything but a stick shift, so I called all the places in the book just to be doing something. And I slammed a lot of doors, kicked things, then I finally borrowed a car and went to a lawyer.”

“So you put it into a lawyer’s hands.”

“Yeah, but it won’t do any good. I’ll probably end up having to buy a new engine, and owing the lawyer and you.”

Dr. Michaels surprised me-when she remarked, “I’m glad you’re telling me this. A year ago you would never have called and let me know how upset you were.”

‘What good does it do to tell other people. They don’t want to hear about your problems unless they’re paid.”

“Oh, unless they’re paid.”

‘Well, they don’t. Look, I just have a superabundant need for caring. I’ll never find anyone to care that much.”

“You expressed that beautifully-superabundant caring.”

I just stared at her.

“You know, Nancy,” she continued, “I’ve had people call me up and say something like, ‘I’m going stir crazy. Can I come over and let’s do something?’ “

I resented her attempt to reduce my problems to such a simple solution. “I was too angry to call anyone.”

“You were pretty angry. Maybe you still are. I might still be if I were in your shoes. Maybe you’re not ready to give it up yet.”

“Give it up? What do you mean? How?”

“You probably still are angry.”

Bang. She got me. I reacted with more anger. “So tell me, doctor, what can you do about itl I’ve been coming here thinking maybe I’ll get straightened out!”

“Nancy, I think you have the idea God is responsible for some of this. You don’t feel he cares.”

She hit on a crucial conflict. I had to admit to her and God “This is the way I feel.” It is a bewildering experience to come face to face with the fact that you are angry with the almighty Creator of heaven and earth. It was this very anger which had blocked the flow of love between God and Nancy Smith for too long. No magic wand, no miracle healing, but a skilled, surrendered Christian psychologist was God’s instrument.

“What could he do to let you know he cares?”

“Change things. Circ*mstances. Like my car.”

“But I mean more than that-people-how would people change?”

“People can’t change and I know it.”

“But if they could, how would you have God change people? Make people realize how terribly, terribly hard things have been?”

”Yeah.”

“Make people care. How could I make you feel God cares?”

Quiet.

“Nancy, I think you said it earlier?”

“What?”

“You said you had a need. A super need. A superabundant need for caring.” More silence. “But you never tell anyone. It’s like Joann is still there and you’re sick. But you won’t tell anyone, and you build this thick wall around yourself. If anyone shows you any caring, you toss it aside. Nancy, I understand why, but I want you to see it. You don’t want to be hurt again. Isn’t that how you feel?”

All I could do was nod. This session was a turning point. The anger was finally in the open. I was still alone. I was still without the car. I was still hurt. I was still very much angry with God.

But God is a God of truth. And he loves honesty. How he must grieve as we Christians cover up the gutsy stuff, the ugly thoughts, the fears, the doubts and, yes, the anger-hidden even from ourselves. How God yearns for us to bring the gutsy stuff to him in honesty. He’s God. He can handle it.

It was not an easy process, but as I released my anger in honesty, God slowly began to replace it with his limitless love.

I found myself transfixed to the television screen. Message from My Mother was an average movie at best. The plot involved a teen-age girl discovering tapes made by her mother before her death. The tapes were a means of new growth and understanding for the girl. For Nancy Smith, the movie was God’s tool to purge the mind of hurt, anger, and emptiness so he could fill her with something much better. Dr. Michaels had begun the process many months before, but only God could complete it.

As the movie progressed, I threw my feelings to God out loud. “God, I miss my mother. I wish I could remember her face, look into her eyes again, listen to that voice, or feel the gentleness of her hands.”

There is something mysteriously therapeutic about putting out those feelings, those gut feelings carried around for years, into audible words. Somehow as the words gushed out and I listened to myself, I realized God was also listening. God and me, leveling. All that

I felt for so long I suddenly realized God also felt. The tears poured out till God wrung all the hurt dry.

At ten o’clock the movie ended. I turned the television off and wandered into the kitchen. There had to be a way to find out more about my mother. I was driven with insatiable determination. An amazing series of thought patterns came into play. Ideas flooded my mind. Aunt Helen, my mother’s sister! She knew my mother better than anyone else. She would be able to tell me what my mother was really like. She could answer all those questions I had about my mother. But where was she now? After my stepfather’s remarriage we were not allowed to see Aunt Helen. Seventeen years. Had it really been that long since I’d seen her?

Resolute determination. “I have to find her. She could tell me so much about my mother.” The names of North Carolina towns flowed through my thoughts now. Charlotte, Burlington, Durham, Greensboro- familiar-sounding names I remembered hearing as a child. Did she still even live in that area? And even if she did, her last name is so common. Johnson. How many Johnsons do you find in the telephone directory of even the smallest towns? Where do I even start? My eyes caught my yellow wall phone and I had the answer. How many long distance calls will I have to make before I even get a hint as to where she lives?

Instead of hindering me, these questions only spurred me on. Ignoring the fact that my search was beginning at ten in the evening, I dialed directory assistance for eastern North Carolina.

“What town please?” the operator asked mechanically.

I wish I knew, I thought to myself. I guess I’ll be systematic and start at the top of the alphabet. “Burlington, operator,” I said with assurance.

“And the party you wish to speak with?”

“Johnson, Phillip and Helen Johnson.”

I grabbed a piece of notebook paper during the brief silence. I expected to get at least seven or eight listings for Johnsons in Burlington alone. This search could run into a little money, I thought. I began to doodle the number eight on the clean sheet of notebook paper, but I was interrupted by the operator.

“That number is 564-3425.”

Just one number? Not seven or eight? Just one? I could hardly believe my ears. As I copied down the number I told myself this was a good start. Not caring about the time or expense this search might involve, I quickly dialed the number. The phone rang three times. I took a deep breath and glanced at the kitchen clock. As a voice at the other end said “Hello,” it suddenly hit me that ten at night is not the best time in the world to be calling complete strangers in search of long-lost aunts. I started to hang up when the voice on the other end of the line said “Hello” again.

I found myself blurting out, “You don’t know me, but I’m looking for a Helen Johnson who might live in your area, at least I think she might. Ah, she had a sister, Miriam, who lived in Kentucky, and my name is Nancy Smith and I’m trying to locate Helen Johnson, I thought you might know of some other Johnsons and possibly they might know her, she has a husband, Phillip, they used to live in. … ” I finally paused to catch my breath. It was then I realized that all the time that I had been talking, the lady on the other end had also been talking.

Now as I listened, she repeated with gathering force, “Yes! Yes! Yes!”

I allowed her to continue as it began to register in slow motion in my mind that this stranger was trying to tell me that she was the right person. She was Aunt Helen! I was talking with the one person who could tell me everything I needed to know about my mother. As I tuned back in on her, she was still repeating, almost in a state of shock, ‘Yes! Yes! Yes!”

Now that I had found her, my mind went blank. I didn’t know what to say to her! Finally I managed a rather awkward, “You’re really my Aunt Helen?”

I got still another extremely positive “Yes!” Then we were both at a loss for words.

”Now that I’ve found you, I don’t know what to say.” My aunt laughed. I laughed. Then we were both silent as we attempted to assimilate the reality of the situation.

Slowly at first, then with more rapidity came a fusillade of questions that had been ready to go off for seventeen years. The exchange was lively.

“Where are you calling from?”

“How is Uncle Phillip?”

“Are you married?”

“Do you still have red hair?”

‘Where is Jimmy?”

On and on the questions continued. The arduous task of putting a confused past into proper perspective had begun. So many pieces, so many memories, so many questions, so very much that needed to be shared.

There was an immediate bond between us. The more we shared, the more it grew. We would never be strangers again. There was such an attitude of warmth and caring that I found myself pouring out all the hurt and pain of the past seventeen years. Those hard places, those suffering places in my life that Dr. Michaels had struggled and labored to enter for months were now laid open for Aunt Helen in a matter of minutes. My stepfather, Joann, the loneliness, the depression, the loss of my mother, the conversion hysteria. As I recounted these things to her, the heavy void, the emptiness, began to lose its strangling grip on my life. Into every crevice where the void had been, a new warmness began to flow.

Oh yes, there was a message from my mother-a kind, sweet, affirming message of love and tenderness, of caring and concern. That was the message that permeated Aunt Helen’s recollections of my mother. There was such joy in Aunt Helen’s voice as she searched for the right words to assure me that my fuzzy childhood memories were not merely a fabrication I had conjured up to satisfy my needs. Those pleasant memories were only a small part of the great reality of my mother’s character and strong love. Seventeen years later they still had impact and influence on my life.

As I listened to my aunt talk, I felt a warmness expanding and growing with me. God was healing. Earlier in the evening I had cried to him, I had shared with him the deep ache I felt inside since I had lost my mother. I had told God I wanted to remember her face, to look into her eyes again and to hear her voice. God heard those prayers, saw my tears, and was healing.

When I related to Aunt Helen what Joann had done to my mother’s pictures, and how I had lost the one remaining photo I had of Mommie, she began to laugh. I didn’t know it then, but the pieces of God’s plan were fitting together. Looking back, I think God was smiling too. Aunt Helen explained that about two months before my mother died she gave my aunt a large box of family snapshots to keep. At the time Aunt Helen was very puzzled by Mother’s insistence that she take the pictures. But now she understood! As Aunt Helen now promised to mail the pictures to me in the morning, along with some of the last letters my mother had written to her before she died, the warmness expanded, and I wiped away tears of joy.

The God of all comfort, the preserver, would allow me to remember my mother’s face, to look into her eyes and to hear her voice again, just as I had asked him.

I glanced at the darkness of night through the bedroom window, and in that stillness I laughed with God. God and I, together in the darkness. The darkness of God! In the darkness of the loneliness, the depression, the hurt, the anger, God was there. In the silences, in every tear, in the fear, in all my doubts and questions, in every inch of bitterness, God’s Holy

Spirit had been moving to heal. Working through Emily Michaels, as a human extension of his love, God’s months and years of labor had reached a culmination . . . tonight. For the first time, I was able to let God love me!

Euphoric shock! The growing warmness of God’s love now swelled within me, and I could actually feel my face glow. God was bathing me in a love and caring he had wanted me to have all along. God was surrounding me with his lovingkindness and cleansing my memories. I slept soundly in the darkness of God that night, possessing the peace of love secured.

The package of photographs and letters from Aunt Helen arrived four days after the phone call. Only God knows just how very precious it was to open the package. When I did, I was so nervous that the pictures slid onto the carpet. Bending down, I saw for the first time in one of the photographs my mother’s smile, her eyes, her facial features. And I made the staggering discovery that they matched my eyes, my smile, my facial features.

I looked like my mother!

I raced through the rest of the pictures in unbelief. I sat stunned and so very pleasantly pleased at the identity these pictures gave to me. Tears now, so many tears of happiness came as I read my mother’s letters to Aunt Helen. God was allowing me to draw courage and strength from my mother’s words. God’s work of reconciliation continued.

In past months and years Dr. Michaels had reminded me time and time again how much the Lord desired to bring healing and wholeness to my life, but still she was not prepared for the method God chose to speed up the process. The technique she employed for our next therapy session together was straight out of Philippians 4:4, “Rejoice in the Lord always: and again I say, Rejoice.” After sharing so very much of the ugly, the offensive in my life, God allowed her to share in the new elegance, the grace and symmetry he was giving to my life.

Dr. Michaels did not know it (then again, maybe she did), but without putting it into words, she had planted in me a desire to visit my aunt. In keeping with her practice, she never gave advice, but God sure did let her drop some hints during that session.

The trip to North Carolina was one long conversation with God. I didn’t have much practice in praising the Lord, but by the time I hit Kentucky I could not contain myself any longer. I had to praise God in song. I hardly knew any songs to praise the Lord, it had been so long since I had even wanted to. But one song did come to mind, and over and over I offered it up to the Lord in praise.

God is so good,

God is so good,

God is so good,

He’s so good to me.

Editor’s note: Watching a professional is a joy. It can also be deceptive. One is tempted to say, “It’s so beautifully simple! Why can’t I do that?” Hidden in the surface simplicity are the intricacies of foresight, experience, courage, and skill.

The same is true of the counseling sessions at the heart of Winter Past. So deceptively simple and effective, they leave a pastoral counselor wondering, “Can I do that?” Or perhaps an even better question, “How much of that can I do?”

Frances White, a psychotherapist who is associate professor of counseling psychology at Wheaton Graduate School, analyzes the excerpt you’ve just read, and shares three types of counseling principles:

¥ those any church leader could use

¥ those church leaders with special training in counseling could use

¥ those best left to the professional counselor

Dr. Michaels put it so aptly: “That’s not the way God meant for people to be when he created this world. Not at all. … It shouldn’t be like that.”

No, God did not mean for generations of sin to cripple us in the conscious and unconscious ways so evident in Nancy Anne Smith’s personal account of her search for emotional life. Her pilgrimage from emotional chains to freedom abounds with examples of the application of therapeutic principles. In some instances we watch them being applied by the therapist; in others, we recognize them from Nancy’s musings on the process.

1. What are the counseling principles inherent in Nancy’s story that can be useful to any church leader?

¥ The counselees have to be ready to deal with their own felt needs. Nancy’s friends exemplified this first principle when they wisely left her with the responsibility of calling for the first appointment. The resistance that might have come from even gentle coercion would have interfered with the therapeutic process.

¥ Any unresolved issues between counselors and counselees hinder progress. In the first session, Dr. Michaels’ authenticity is evident when she clears up a misunderstanding about her credentials with a simple explanation. There is no room for pretense on anyone’s part in therapy. Had it been an important issue for Nancy, Dr. Michaels no doubt would have explored it immediately.

¥ Counselees must accept responsibility for the healing process. Instead of giving pat solutions, Dr. Michaels very gently clears up any illusions about therapists having magical potions. For Nancy, the full impact of her own responsibility in the healing process came slowly but surely, reinforced through many tears, as she dialogued with herself while driving home after each session.

¥ The probability of suicide should always be checked out. Dr. Michaels was direct and unequivocal in her investigation of the possibility of suicide, while she checked out the depths of Nancy’s depression and her strength to deal with it. Had she seen suicide as a probable option, she would have been alerted to take direct steps to protect Nancy from herself.

¥ Effective therapeutic communication starts with capturing the feelings the counselees are experiencing. The counselor stepped inside Nancy’s frame of reference and focused on her feelings in her context. The therapist often reflects to Nancy the feelings of the verbal and nonverbal communication. Silences are included in the range of responses. Note that they were never filled in by superfluous interventions. She allows the counselee to be absorbed in experiencing her feelings. Interestingly, the silences often nudged her forward. Note also Nancy’s breakthrough in dealing with feelings about her mother. It is fascinating to study how quickly the responses led Nancy to develop deeper trust and openness that in turn opened the door to explore her emotions on progressively deeper levels. Labeled empathy, the approach is in direct contrast to sympathy, where the therapist would have experienced Nancy’s feelings in a subjective way, and consequently been rendered ineffective to help her probe deeper.

¥ A prime condition of good therapy is the calibre of respect that never knowingly says or does anything that would diminish the counselee’s self-image. Embedded in every word spoken by Dr. Michaels is the principle of respect, or unconditional acceptance for the counselee. Respect is clearly defined by what Dr. Michaels does or does not do. Nowhere in this account does the therapist reject, belittle, argue, disapprove, or even act condescendingly in a shocked or parental way. Study the effect upon Nancy in the various passages where she ponders to herself about Dr. Michaels’ interventions. Dr. Michaels further believes in Nancy’s ability to make decisions in her own way, in her own time, even to her need to contact her stepfather. This not only makes Nancy responsible for her own life, but also gives her a sense of being able to handle it. Further, she recognizes when Nancy has a pressing agenda and allows her the freedom to bring up her topics. Yet she confronts in a caring way when it promotes growth.

¥ A sine qua non of good counseling is genuineness, whereby verbal and nonverbal communication are congruent with the counselor’s feelings and thoughts. How empathic, respectful, and above all authentic is Dr. Michaels’ sensitively timed, yet spontaneously offered, expression of care and concern for Nancy! How appropriately she shared her own experience (a teacher, tool) yet never lets it be an occasion for the chitchat that could deflect from the issues at hand. How straightforwardly she answers even when it must be, “Yes, Nancy, it’s going to hurt.” How beautifully she reinforces Nancy’s faith with her own faith, “I know God wants you healed.” It is evidenced by Nancy’s reflections outside the session that Dr. Michaels’ authenticity rings true.

¥ All counselors have the responsibility to open themselves to opportunities for deeper selfunderstanding as they recognize and deal with their own hurts. Dr. Michaels does not apply her skills in a vacuum. Anything she has not dealt with in her own life interferes with her therapy; feelings are stirred up through the pain of others. She, like us, would find a way to skirt issues that are too close to her personally. Or, she might be surprised by the frustrations, resentments, or other negative feelings that reveal themselves in an anti-therapeutic response. It seems safe to say that somewhere along the line she has dealt with many of her own problems (” . . . because she too has had wounds that Someone had to comfort and clean”).

All these principles depicted in Nancy’s narrative are applicable for the person who is willing to consciously develop them. Within these parameters, support and encouragement can be a powerful impetus to the development of greater strength. Dr. Michaels interspersed her therapy with it (“I see a big change.” “God gave me a burden bearer”). Empathy, as opposed to sympathy, is a great conserver of the therapist’s strength. Those untrained in counseling skills can indicate empathy by simply rephrasing the feeling and content that the counselee expresses.

2. What elements of the article can be addressed only by a church leader with special training in counseling?

Dr. Michaels’ vocation was therapy. Church leaders need to distribute their energies among entire congregations. To give a disproportionate amount of time to a handful of people who see them weekly is not their role. Therefore, the counseling they do should center on problems that lend themselves to short-term therapy where the goals are more definable, where the stages of therapy are more predictable, and the focus is on the conscious rather than the unconscious level of the counselee. Examples are changes in location, job, health, or status; or developmental crises such as adolescent rebellion, parenthood problems, or a midlife crisis.

This does not preclude the need for therapeutic skills that go well beyond encouragement and support; that is, skills that require an understanding of those forces that resist change. The higher level of empathy Dr. Michaels so skillfully demonstrated is an example.

Time and time again she facilitated progress by bringing into focus underlying feelings lurking just below Nancy’s awareness, and by helping her see relationships between feelings, behaviors, and beliefs. Her further use of confrontation to point out discrepancies, resistances, and contradictions is appropriate for a trained leader. Well handled, these skills can pave the way for deeper therapy, even for the one who must be referred to others with greater skills.

3. What elements of this account require a professional counselor?

A pastor who is not a professional counselor does not have the time nor background to do reconstruction therapy such as Nancy needed. Dr. Michaels had the formidable task of leading Nancy to a modification of the very structure of her personality. It meant uprooting long-forgotten emotional experiences and correcting their effect on her perceptions of herself and others. It is long-range therapy that requires an intricate understanding of the dynamics of personality. Dr. Michaels’ interventions included elements that require extensive skill, i.e., working with transference, counter-transference, interpretation, repressed material-all beyond the time, energy, knowledge, and skill of a church leader whose responsibility is not therapy.

What were the clues evident in Nancy’s account that indicated the need for referral to a professional therapist?

¥ First, there was no clearly defined presenting problem. With Dr. Michaels’ help, Nancy mentioned her depression, but she also talked about her crippling conversion hysteria and her family. She evidenced intense emotions that seemed too tangled to sort out.

¥ Second, her problem had a long history rooted in her early background. It meant there probably would be deeply repressed memories that would need to be surfaced by a skilled therapist.

¥ Third, there was a strong, self-punitive, condemnatory tendency that easily became intertwined with her Christianity, making it difficult to differentiate between healthy and neurotic spirituality.

¥ Fourth, there was a denial of obvious feelings which, combined with the above clues, takes skill to remedy.

One final word. Regardless of one’s level of counseling skill, the vast majority of people are helped by those who lend a truly listening ear. It always helps a hurting person to unravel feelings and experience some release from pent-up emotional energy.

Copyright © 1980 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

The following list represents some of the best in the field; these are not highly technical books, but those useful to the busy pastor who has time for only a few. Some are general summaries about types and methodologies of pastoral counseling; others are addressed to specific needs and problems in counseling.

Adams, Jay E., Christian Counselor’s Manual. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1973. An overview of counseling from the nouthetic approach. This book gives good theological perspectives on the counseling process.

Adams, Jay E., Shepherding God’s Flock. Nutley, New Jersey: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1974. An excellent exposition of the role of the pastor as a counselor and shepherd of God’s people.

Clinebell, Howard J., Basic Types of Pastoral Counseling. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1966. Currently being revised. Outlines the basic issues facing a pastor who is forced to counsel in a variety of situations.

Clinebell, Howard J., Understanding and Counseling the Alcoholic. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1956. Revised edition. One of the best instructional guides for alcoholic counseling from a Christian perspective.

Collins, Gary R., Christian Counseling: A Comprehensive Guide. Waco, Texas: Word Books, 1980. Addresses 27 basic issues faced by general counselors. This book is perhaps the best Christian counseling overview.

Collins, Gary R., Effective Counseling. Santa Ana, California: Vision House, 1981. Revised edition. Written with pastors in mind, it gives a practical introduction along with suggestions for improving counseling.

Collins, Gary R., Helping People Grow: Practical Approaches to Christian Counseling. Santa Ana, California: Vision House, 1980. A summary of what is happening in the field. Half is written by the author as an overview, and the other half has chapters by Jay Adams, Lawrence Crabb, Howard Clinebell, and other leaders in the field. An excellent introduction.

Collins, Gary R., Hour To Be a People Helper. Santa Ana, California: Vision House, 1976. Useful tool for training others to counsel. Workbook available for group training.

Collins, Gary R., You Can Profit From Stress. Santa Ana, California: Vision House, 1977. Excellent resource on tension and its side effects on mental, physical, and spiritual health.

Conway, Jim, Men in Mid-Life Crisis. Elgin, Illinois: David C. Cook, 1978. Addresses contemporary problems faced by men in the middle years. Written from an honest, practical and biblical approach.

Crabb Lawrence, Basic Disciplines of Biblical Counseling. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1975. Overview of the foundations of pastoral counseling. A challenging book for the counselor for an inward view.

Fairfield, James G.T., When You Don’t Agree. Scottsdale, Pennsylvania: Herald Press, 1977. Guide to help resolve conflicts in marriages, families, and other relationships.

Grounds, Vernon, Emotional Problems and the Gospel. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1976. Biblical perspectives on anxiety, anger, pride, guilt, and mental health.

Hiltner, Seward, Pastoral Counseling. Nashville: Abingdon, 1969. One of the classics in the field.

Jackson, Edgar, When Someone Dies. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1971. Concise work on dealing with death. Short and to the point- it could be used to loan to those who are in the midst of grief due to a death.

Journal of Pastoral Care. This quarterly will contain helpful articles although many are not written from an evangelical perspective. The Association for Clinical Pastoral Education, Suite 450, 475 Riverside Drive, New York, 10027. Issues also include book reviews.

Journal of Psychology and Theology. A more technical quarterly, it is an evangelical effort to integrate psychology and theology. Rosemead Graduate School of Professional Psychology, La Mirada, California, 90639.

Lovelace, Richard, hom*osexuality and the Church. Old Tappan, New Jersey: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1978. This overview of hom*osexuality offers biblical and cultural insights to help understand, love, and confront those involved in hom*osexuality.

MacDonald, Gordon, Magnificent Marriage. Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers, 1976. Written with the biblical ideals of marriage in mind, this book is an effective tool for counseling engaged or married couples on what God intends marriage to be.

MacDonald, Gordon, Effective Father, The. Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers, 1977. An excellent guide to help fathers understand their God-given role and how to fulfill it.

Minirth, Frank B., Happiness Is a Choice. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1978. A manual on the symptoms, causes, and cures for depression.

Oglesby, William B., Jr., Referral in Pastoral Counseling. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1978. An effective resource for dealing with counseling cases beyond the pastor’s abilities that demand special attention.

Pastoral Psychology. Helpful articles, although theology tends toward liberal style. Human Sciences Press 75 Fifth Avenue, New York, 10011

Perez, Joseph F., Family Counseling Theory and Practice. New York: D. Van Nostrand Company, 1979. Although not written from an evangelical or pastoral perspective, this is perhaps the best book available on family counseling. Brief, and full of illustrations, it offers a concise, accurate overview of other authors’ work in this field.

Seamands, David, Healing for Damaged Emotions. Wheaton: Victor Books, 1981. Study book leader’s guide.

Ward, Waylon O., Bible in Counseling, The. Chicago: Moody Press, 1977. Presents a biblical basis and methodology in counseling. The book’s main strength is its series of Bible studies for counselees to do at home.

Welter, Paul, How To Help a Friend. Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers, 1978. An effective tool in training lay persons to care and to assist in the pastoral counseling functions.

Wheat, Ed and Gaye, Intended for Pleasure. Old Tappan, New Jersey: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1977. Of all the recent publications on sex and sexuality, this is the most realistic, medically accurate, and biblically sound in its presentation of sexual fulfillment in marriage.

White, John, Parents in Pain. Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 1979. Excellent resource for counseling parents who feel they have failed with their children.

Wright, H. Norman, Communication-Key to Your Marriage. Glendale, California; G/L Regal Books, 1974. A helpful tool in marriage counseling. A leader’s guide is available to use this book with groups of couples.

Wright, H. Norman, Pre-Marital Counseling. Chicago. Moody Press, 1977. One of the best on the subject. Gives good presentation of the purposes of and approaches to premarital counseling.

Copyright © 1980 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

Frankly, it’s been a wild-but invigorating-ride. Paul Robbins and I keep using this analogy on each other: we thought we were birthing a canary, but out came this huge eagle. Here we are, clutching its talons as it flies up and up to new vistas, whereas we thought by now we’d be watching a polite little yellow thing twittering in its cage.

Our original LEADERSHIP plans were for 5000 circulation and modest beginnings. But testing and research showed intense need and interest. We soon knew we had to give it our best shot- extensive editorial work, full-time staff, major promotions. Keith Stonehocker then did magnificent work in launching circulation to 60,000 this first year. Roy Coffman, as one of the key strategists, kept the ad sales and other business aspects humming.

It’s been a delight to see the response -but the “canary/eagle” dynamics have generated a lot of pressure, especially on Paul Robbins, who also carries heavy corporate responsibilities. After the first issue, and even after the second and third, the question we heard most often was, “Well, you’ve really helped us. But is it just a flash in the pan? Will you let us down on other issues?”

Apparently Paul’s efforts to maintain quality have not been misplaced, for we continually receive comments such as these in letters: “Many of the articles hit home and became very personal. It’s almost as if they were written just for me.” “I cannot tell you how much the journal has excited, motivated, and inspired me!” “Most of the articles speak to the issues I confront daily.”

I can identify with all this enthusiasm because working with each issue stimulates me personally. The interview with Dick Halverson was a refreshing three hours, and reading and re-reading it in manuscript and galleys reinforced to me the strength of this vulnerable man. On a recent Saturday night I was working on the little article by Don Bubna on encouragement cards, and also the article on youth groups by Dave Veerman. Dave’s thought that perhaps the most essential ingredient for a youth group is leaders who love kids sparked my thoughts about the youth leaders in our church. The next morning I said a word to the husband, then talked to his wife in the foyer, trying to affirm their ministry. I knew they really cared about kids and put themselves on the line. Her response was, “The Lord must have wanted me to talk to you this morning,” indicating she needed the encouragement. The incident said to me that a lot of people might feel God led us to them if we’d get more involved in this ministry of encouragement.

Veerman’s point-that the most vital element in “programs” is love and concern-hit me also in regard to this issue’s main theme. Effective counseling? I recall reading Paul Tournier’s quoting a study made of various counseling techniques. Freudian? Jungian? The study showed the technique mattered very little-the one common factor in patients who were helped was deep interest and concern on the part of the therapist. Those counselors who really listened helped their patients far more than impersonal counselors.

In preparing LEADERSHIP, we keep hearing that what the church needs is people who will listen. Duncan Brown, chairman of our executive committee, told me last week of a man who ran an ad in the papers saying he would listen -simply listen-to anybody about anything for $6 per half hour. He was soon swamped with jobs!

One last thought, and this applies to all four editions we’ve worked on. As we’ve gone through so many manuscripts which detail pain and even devastation in the church, I sometimes feel overwhelmed by these leaders’ problems. It seems especially discouraging when I read of the pain unnecessarily inflicted by other Christians.

But Thomas a Kempis (The Imitation of Christ) has been helpful to me in this. He says, in effect, “We Christians say we’ll take up our cross, declaring ‘Whatever it is, I’ll bear it for you, Lord.’ ” But then the cross that comes along we reject. We say, “No fellow Christian has the right to impale me like that!” We do not see our terrible hurt as a cross to bear, but as an indignity God has no right to afflict us with. After all, Christian stupidity and nastiness is not what God intended!

True. But we are called to overcome evil, whatever its source. The dagger in my chest from a fellow Christian may be as emotionally and psychologically “fatal” as a Roman cross was physically fatal; but that’s a point of the analogy. When we suffer, we can either cry “Foul!” or we can say ‘yes, this too is the sort of evil Christ suffered, and I will also suffer; and I am fully capable of doing such evil myself.”

Our theology is clear on these matters, but in the heat of grinding circ*mstances, we squirm instead of appropriating grace. I vividly recall sitting in a Washington, D.C., cafeteria one morning a few years ago, drinking coffee and reading my New Testament. I found myself asking, “Why am I here?” Tensions and pressures were mounting. I had moved my family across the country into a situation that might explode on me at any time. “Crazy!” I thought. “How complicated-all the people and circ*mstances!” But then this phrase came hammering at me “For this cause are ye brought to the kingdom.” The phrase just hung in that smoke-filled cafeteria like a living thing. It lifted me. This absurd situation, yes, this one, “For this cause were ye brought to the kingdom.”

That phrase has come to me again and again. Whatever our difficulties and disappointments, we can be assured they’re the ones God intends for us to have, to bring us into completeness. If we’re embroiled in pain, that’s our cross. Do we resent it, renounce it, or grow in grace through it?

We need not be morose in all this. “For the joy that was set before him, Christ endured the cross.” Whatever my cross or yours, there is joy set before us. That’s what is possible in the midst of pain and brokenness in the church today.

Harold L. Myra President, Christianity Today, Inc.

Copyright © 1980 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

Carl Jung, the famous Swiss psychiatrist, wrote, "Among all my patients in the second half of life (over thirty-six years of age) there has not been one whose problem in the last resort was not that of finding a religious outlook on life . . . and none of them has been really healed who did not regain this religious outlook."

Though Jung was not known to be a devout churchman, his observations reminded me of a statement Augustine made in his Confessions: "You have made us for yourself, and we are restless until we rest in you."

These are challenging words for any Christian leader, Fallout from an almost totally secular culture has created an enormous need for sound, biblio-centered therapy. David Seamands, one of our forum participants says, 'We live in a sick society that produces emotional cripples the way Detroit mass-produces automobiles. The Holy Spirit wants to work in people's lives; sometimes he needs a temporary assistant. That's the theological basis for counseling."

Pastoral care and counseling is one of the largest agenda items confronting the local church. If my mail is any indication, Christian leaders are inundated with "people problems" and are struggling to keep pace with the demand. One pastor/friend put it this way: "When I go home at night, I feel like I've been bled dry." Another said, "I feel more and more people want a piece of my soul; the better I try to do my job, the more problems I seem to attract. This good problem is killing me!"

Sound familiar? Actually it's a very old problem. Richard Hunt (another forum participant) points out that "As fast as Jesus helped one person, he was deluged by a crowd of needy people." Even Christ had to find relief from the pressure of people and their problems.

How does one deal with a deluge? How many times can one be "bled dry" before he burns out? How can preventive pastoral care and counseling be applied to lives before the seeds of trouble become a harvest of disaster?

As we thought about these questions, it seemed that the most appropriate way to address them within the limitations of 148 pages was through modified case studies. I don't think it's stretching the analogy too far to suggest that Jesus often presented solutions through modified case studies. His parables were colorful stories about the events and experiences of everyday living that contained the principles of life itself.

We have tried to emulate this concept. Some of the articles will take you deep into the thoughts and feelings of hurting people and give you a glimpse of their despair, as well as show you the means by which they returned to healing and wholeness. Others will immerse you in the problemsolving process-the "how to" methods some Christian leaders have used to meet the ministry demands of specific situations. Whether you're a professional minister or one of our growing number of lay readers, I urge you to keep a sharp eye for the nuggets of truth that can be applied to your own ministry of caring.

I always write this note after the issue has been put together so I can evaluate my own response to the content. This time my heart was stirred by Richard Hunt's statement: "Christian leader, be encouraged. You are doing a good job; the better you do it, the bigger it will become. Just remember, you are finite; only God is infinite."

Sometimes I forget that the kingdom belongs to Christ, not to me and my friends. He will never forsake his bride; he will accomplish his purposes through the church.

Helmut Thielicke once said, "The congregation of Jesus has its hand, as it were, on the longer end of the lever, and therefore it can afford to possess only the feeble arm of a widow. It can tip the lever with folded hands, whereas on the shorter side, the weight of all the world powers are not sufficient to budge it. For the church stands at the strategic keypoint of world history. She rests in the heart of God, and God has promised her that his heart will not be deaf to her pleas. He who has influence upon the heart of God rules the world."

In a world that puts such a high premium on pure power, the local congregation is potentially one of the most potent forces in existence. Its capacity for support, help, love, acceptance, and intercessory prayer has yet to be fully realized or developed. May God help each one of you as you guide it toward its full potential.

Copyright © 1980 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

Dick Halverson has been pastor of Fourth Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C. for twentyone years. He says ministry means being with people, and he spends a large percentage of his breakfasts and lunches meeting with parishioners singly or in small groups. He preaches love and acceptance of all God’s brothers and sisters, and he demonstrates genuine caring for his peers despite their differing methods. He teaches that church programs must be unique to each church, and he has labored hard to tailor his efforts to meet the needs of Fourth Church.

When we decided to do an issue of LEADERSHIP on the theme of pastoral care and counseling, we started looking for a man who personified the meaning of pastoral care. Dick Halverson immediately came to mind. We looked no further.

Editor Paul Robbins, publisher Harold Myra, executive editor Terry Muck, and assistant editor Dan Pawley met with Dick at Chicago’s O’Hare airport.

Dr. Halverson, almost any observer would say you’re a successful pastor of a successful church. Your church is large and still growing. You have been with the same congregation for twenty-one years. How do you explain your success?

The word success troubles me. The implication pervading the Christian church equates bigness with success, and I think that’s absolutely wrong! Most criteria for success have their roots in materialism: congregation size, budget size, building size. These aren’t bad in themselves, but they are not criteria for success.

I’m very concerned about people who pastor small churches for there is an unspoken assumption in our culture that if one is really doing a good job he’ll eventually become a Bob Schuller with a Crystal Cathedral.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not speaking disparagingly about Bob Schuller. I respect his philosophy of ministry, and I’m personally convinced God has honored it. I don’t take too well to criticism of Bob Schuller from people who haven’t taken the time to see what he’s doing and why he’s doing it.

What do you mean?

For one thing, when Bob Schuller began his ministry, he concluded that he was called to meet needs nobody else was meeting. If a need was being met, he saw no point in competing with somebody else. If I understand Bob, there isn’t a trace of competition in his ministry philosophy. As a matter of fact, when a new ministry idea is brought up by his associates, the first question is, “Is anybody else doing it? Is that need already being met?”

But my original point is this: because God has honored Bob Schuller with numerical growth doesn’t mean that my ministry success is to be measured by volume. Size is not the criterion for success.

What are the right criteria?

Chuck Colson of Prison Fellowship recently told me he had hired someone to travel the country and evaluate their ministry. I asked Chuck what criteria he used in the evaluation. Not one of the items on his list was statistical. Every one had to do with values: what was the spiritual climate of a group of Christian brothers in a prison? Were they studying the Bible? Did they have the spirit of reaching out to others? These are some of the criteria for successful ministry.

What kind of ministry philosophy and program structure should a local church adopt to foster these values?

Your question is hard to answer because I can only speak from the viewpoint of my own ministry and experience. What works for me and the people of Fourth Presbyterian may not work for anyone else. But to answer your question from my own viewpoint requires a bit of historical background.

When I went to Fourth Presbyterian in 1956, I had come out of eleven years of small-group ministry. I thought I was a small-group expert. I wasn’t. but that’s the way we operate in this culture; when you’ve done something a few years you become an expert. After my first pastorate from 1944 to 1947 at Coalinga, California, I never intended to be a pastor again because I didn’t think I was very good material. So I worked with small groups as an associate minister for eight years and then joined International Christian Leadership for three years. After God led me to Fourth, I realized that I didn’t have a ready-made ministry program. In fact, I was so out of touch I didn’t even know what programs other churches were using or what programs were even available for use. Now, after twenty-one years at Fourth, I look back on that “problem” as one of the greatest assets I took to the church.

Why was it an asset?

The greatest baggage a pastor carries to a new ministry assignment, whether he is going from seminary to a church or changing churches, is ready-made programs. He is programmed to think that he should try out this program as soon as he’s finished trying out that program. He’s buried in an avalanche of “how to”. He constantly compares program ideas with his colleagues. Therefore, ministries never become indigenous.

In the kind of mild frustration I experienced in those early days at Fourth Church, God taught me two things: First, treat the Sunday morning congregation just the way you’d treat a small group of people meeting in your living room. Second, fully implement the commandment Christ gave: “Love one another as I have loved you, and you will demonstrate to the world that you are my disciples.”

How did you learn this lesson?

I was captured by a simple little statement in Mark: Jesus chose twelve and ordained them to be with him. Suddenly the word with became a big word, one of the biggest in the New Testament, because implicit in it is koinonia prayer and support. That word convinced me to have a ministry of being with people. I didn’t worry about what I was going to do with them; I didn’t need an agenda. Jesus began a movement that would be universal and last forever, and yet he spent most of his time with twelve men.

When I moved from comprehensive pastoral responsibility in Coalinga to small group responsibilities at Hollywood Presbyterian, I intended that my ministry would be an unstructured one, being with people at their convenience, on the job, or at breakfast or lunch.

Are you saying that in your opinion the most effective church structure is one composed of small groups?

Not exactly. I’m saying that attitude about ministry and approach to ministry is more effective than a lot of canned expertise.

For example, I have a regular Wednesday morning breakfast with some of our lay leaders. I learned long ago that if I came to the breakfast burning up with a message I had prepared in my study, it would invariably fall like a lead balloon. Afterwards the guys would say to me, “Halverson, it just wasn’t the same this morning.” It took me some time to understand that there is a chemistry about each group of people that generates its own agenda. I believe it comes from the Holy Spirit in our midst. That doesn’t mean I should neglect preparation, but it does mean that I have to prepare with a high degree of awareness and execute with a high degree of sensitivity. Even when a congregation or group is silent, something is still transmitted to the speaker.

When I was a student at Princeton Seminary, Dr. Blackwood was the homiletics professor, and he used to say that 75 percent of a good sermon depends upon the people. I’m more convinced of that now than ever; everything is affected by the chemistry of the company.

Let’s apply what you’re saying to Sunday morning at 11:00. How do you approach your congregation?

We begin every worship service with a little greeting that reminds the people of the importance of their contribution to what is about to happen. The greeting is: “There is something to be captured in this moment that we can never give nor receive at any other time or in any other situation. Let’s be alive to what Christ wants us to do here and now.”

Doesn’t this greeting soon become just another part of the regular Sunday morning liturgy?

That, of course, is the danger. I relearned that lesson recently when I had a cataract removed. After surgery there was a period of two weeks when I couldn’t read. So I listened to all kinds of cassettes, mostly tapes of sermons. I distinctly remember becoming so weary of one preacher’s voice that I finally yelled out, “Shut up!” I happened to like this preacher and his preaching, but I found myself so buried with his words that listening to more words was driving me crazy.

I began to visualize myself standing in the pulpit on Sunday morning and talking to a group of people who have been literally inundated all week long with words. Now I want them to listen to my words. I suppose that’s what originally challenged me years ago to treat my congregation like a small group of people in my living room.

When you invite a few people to your home for an evening, you don’t line them up in rows and lecture them unless you’re an absolute bore. Although the task of host or small-group leader may require you to focus the thinking or the discussion of the group, the objective is to get them involved in the process, to get them to participate.

But how can this be done from a pulpit in a Sunday morning worship setting?

I try different things. One time I’ll say, “Here’s what Jesus said . . . now do you hear that? Do you hear it?” If the congregation just sits there, I’ll persist, “Do we hear it?” I’ll begin to get response. “What did he say?” I’ll wait until somebody says it out loud from the congregation. I don’t see any point in throwing words out at people if they are not listening and responding to them.

It seems that much of what you are saying is the direct result of thirty-five years of ministry experience channeled into a pastoral style that complements your personality. What hope do you offer to the inexperienced young pastor?

We had a Gordon-Conwell student who interned at Fourth this past summer. He asked me a question very similar to yours. My answer was this: “John, you have learned many things at Gordon-Conwell, and before that you gained some valuable experience working with the Navigators. As you go to your first pastorate, you’ll be tempted to bring to that new situation all of the ideas, plans, and programs that you picked up in your training, and you won’t be patient enough to discover what is already there. Take the time to become part of what is there, and then these things you have learned to find proper adaptation and application; they’ll become indigenous to that situation. You can grow a dandelion in a few hours, but it takes seven years to raise an orchid.”

How would you describe the ideal organizational structure for a church?

I see it as concentric circles. I don’t like to diagram church organization on a vertical plane. I prefer a horizontal plane as illustrated by the relationship of any individual believer with Christ.

The scriptural model might start with John, who was called the beloved. At the Last Supper he laid his head on Jesus’ breast. Somehow that very intimate relationship John had with Jesus, the first circle, so to speak, was not a problem to the others. In the second circle were Peter, James, and John; Jesus took them to the Mount of Transfiguration, to the raising of the daughter of Lazarus, and to the Garden of Gethsemane. Somehow Peter, James, and John had a relationship with Jesus that was not enjoyed by the nine but was accepted by them, even though the disciples were a normal group of human beings and prone to peer-group jealousy.

The core group around Jesus was the 12; then there were the 70 around the 12, and the 120 around the 70, and out beyond that the 500. The church should be the same.

Is this the way you approach pastoral care at Fourth Church?

Exactly. Paul says in I Corinthians 12:25, “That they may have the same care for one another.” A true Christian community is not something you organize. Now, I’m not saying you shouldn’t have some kind of specific program, but the more spontaneous the caring is, the better it is. My mind keeps coming back to the Sunday morning service, which I believe is the pastor’s greatest opportunity for real caring.

For years the back page of our bulletin has been called “The Family Altar” and is devoted to congregational needs: the sick, the shut-ins, the students, four or five “Families of the Week.” During our service we have a period of time called the “Praise and Prayers of the People.” This is followed by a period of silence in which we urge our people to pray for each other. Then we ask them to touch someone near them. I personally step down from the pulpit and walk into the congregation and touch various people. Other pastors do the same. Then we pray for the people on the back page. These simple gestures and expressions of concern create and encourage an environment of caring.

After your Sunday morning responsibilities, what do you see as your next pastoral priority?

My associates. Our weekly staff meeting is oriented toward their personal needs. Although we conduct a great deal of business in these meetings, the atmosphere is one of a family visiting together.

Next on my list of priorities is my relationship to the officers of the church. I really work at those relationships and try to spend as much time as I possibly can with each individual.

Howard Hendricks told us a story about going with you to visit one of your lay leaders who is a junior high principal. He said that after lunch in his office, you walked with him all the way around the building, prayed with him, and encouraged him to claim that school as God’s area of service for him. Do you do this with all the officers of your church?

Usually, though not always in the same manner. I have real problems with the humanistic assumption that we can find the “right way” or the “best way” to do everything, and that if we find it we’ll get the desired results.

But aren’t there some very good reasons for an increasing emphasis on ministry specialization and the development of a vast array of ministry methodologies?

Perhaps. I’d rather not make a lot of judgments on that. I’ve arrived at the place where I give the benefit of the doubt to anyone who believes God has led him to a particular ministry. I respect and honor his convictions regardless of how much I might disagree with his methodology.

For example, one of my dearest friends is Bill Bright. Well, I strongly disagree with Bill and Campus Crusade regarding some of their ministry methods. We can’t even talk about it anymore. Yet I really believe he loves me, and I certainly love him; and I’m not blind to what God has done through Campus Crusade.

But in talking to young colleagues I always say, “Well, this is the way God has led me, and this is the way I’ve done it. But it’s the dynamics that are important, not the mechanics.”

Your point is well made, but would you be willing to share with our readers more of the specifics of your pastoral care program, both the good parts and the bad parts?

Obviously we encourage small groups, but we don’t try to organize them. It’s common for people to come to me and say, ‘We’d like to start a small group. Will you meet with us?” I usually do, and in the first session I show them how to study the Bible inductively and encourage them to make the group experience more than just a straight Bible study. Every small group has the potential to become a support church.

Within our church, this dynamic is modeled for our small groups by the steering committee of the small groups. I meet as often as I can with all of our steering committees. The other pastors do the same. We try to model supportive relationships. Sometimes we fail, but that’s good for us.

Would you give us an example of a pastoral care methodology that didn’t work?

Twenty-one years ago we started with the “flock system,” whereby each lay leader was responsible for a certain number of members. That responsibility was clearly defined. For example, they were to meet with each member at least once a year, maintain contact at least twice a year, and so forth. It never worked. One reason was the nature of community life in metropolitan Washington. Some of the members said, ‘We don’t like to be thought of as sheep.” That was the final blow that killed the flock idea. More seriously, the sense of regimentation didn’t seem to set very well.

So we tried other programs. We have tried fellowship committees and other forms of congregational care. Right now we have a Ministry of Concern office.

Would you describe that?

We were fortunate to secure the services of Pat Brown, a lovely woman from South Carolina with a beautiful southern accent. She obviously likes people and cares for them, and they in turn immediately respond to her. She creatively handles all kinds of situations.

For example, if a family is being evicted, they call her. If somebody can’t pay a hospital bill, she acts as a liaison with the deacon board. She’s developed what she calls a “Going Forth” ministry. This is a group of people who voluntarily make themselves available to help others by going wherever she sends them. She has also organized what she calls “Family Connection,” an event-centered ministry of fellowship which encourages entire families to do things together. For example, Family Connection will be going to this month’s home game of the Redskins. During the summer they attended an outdoor concert at Wolftrap, and soon they will be chartering a train to spend a day together at Harper’s Ferry.

This kind of fellowship brings together young and old, married and single. Pat’s office tries to be especially sensitive to the need of singles who want contact with married couples, and to young people who want contact with older persons.

None of these programs are once-for-all solutions, but we keep trying new ideas. Our present Ministry of Concern office is working as well as anything.

But the real point is that in all of these things we are less than perfect; we are going to come back tomorrow and try harder.

Hospital visitation is universally recognized as a form of pastoral care, yet pastoral house calls seem to be suffering the same fate as the physician’s visit. How do you feel about reaching out to people in their own homes?

When I first came to Fourth, I did a lot of conventional visitation nearly every afternoon in the week. Little by little I discovered that suburban culture doesn’t allow for effective pastoral calls.

In the first place, it’s almost impossible to find the family together. Second, the suburban housewife tends to be very busy, and she usually doesn’t see any particular value in sitting down with the pastor and visiting for thirty minutes. Third, when children are present, a pastoral call can be looked upon as a family intrusion. I’ve had the experience of calling on families where they tried to accommodate me with one eye while watching television with the other.

In place of home visitation, we have assigned each of our pastors the responsibility of a certain number of members to contact by phone four times a year. That kind of contact has been very satisfying to me. I’ll take a couple of hours on a regular basis, sit at the phone, call a family and say, “Hi, this is Dick Halverson. I’m just calling to find out if you have any special needs I ought to be praying about today.”

We recently revived a term that was used a great deal when I was in seminary: care of souls. I hadn’t heard that term for years. Dr. Bonnell, who was in the vanguard of pastoral counseling, taught a course by that name which was required for seniors. His objective was to make us as sensitive as possible to the needs of the believer, and to the many different means we could use to meet those needs. However, the emphasis was always on the person’s needs, not on the method to meet those needs.

Let’s dwell on the subject of sensitivity for a moment. After all these years in one church, do you ever experience that searing kind of criticism or gut-wrenching confrontation so common to many pastors and religious leaders?

Absolutely! I was recently the focus of some very critical comments from a family whose fifteenyear-old boy was in trouble with the law. His father called me by telephone and really leveled me about my personal failures and the failure of our church. It wasn’t all true, but there was enough truth in it to make it hurt.

Even more devastating was a letter I received from one of our former elders who is now separated from his wife-two pages of very nasty notes about the church’s failure.

How did you deal with these situation?

First of all I had to face it head on. In the case of the former elder, I called him as quickly as I could after receiving the letter. He didn’t want to talk, but I persevered. I let him say everything on the telephone he had already said in the letter. Then I apologized: “I’m sorry. I’ll accept this criticism for myself personally, and I’ll apologize for the church.” I tried to give him some explanations while bracing myself against defensiveness. Since then, I’ve been talking to him by phone on a regular basis, and we are going to get together in two weeks.

In the case of the father and son, I went first to our director of youth ministry. The night after I talked to the father, the director went to their home and spent a couple of hours talking with them.

For me, the best way to handle criticism is to respond quickly, directly, and sensitively.

But how do you deal with the emotional trauma down deep in your own soul?

That’s hard to answer. I suppose the most honest response would be to tell you the story about a frog who fell into a pothole. Regardless of what his frog friends tried to do, they couldn’t help him out of his dilemma. Finally in desperation they left him to his destiny. The next day they found him bouncing around town as lively as ever. So one frog went up to him and said, “What happened? We thought you couldn’t get out of that hole.” He replied, “I couldn’t, but a truck came along and I had to.”

I don’t know any other answer than “you just have to.” Many times I would love to run away, ignore the situation, or try to justify it, but Christ has given us very specific instructions in Matthew 5:24. If you know you have offended a brother, you must go to him; if he has offended you, you must go to him. We have to do it!

The ancient image of the pastor being the shepherd with the long crook on one arm and a cuddly little lamb in the other is only one perspective. The other is the shepherd who must look disease right in the eye and come up with a cure or a recommendation for a cure no matter how painful it might be. Cancer can’t be treated with a skin salve.

In our culture, where everybody does his own thing and no one wants to crowd somebody else’s space, knowing how to deal with confrontation is a tricky, sensitive thing.

In light of what you’ve said so far, it would appear you’ve developed an unusual ability to love and work alongside of people with whom you disagree. How have you cultivated this ability?

Ephesians 1:9,10 is God’s agenda for uniting all things in Christ. I also think of the passage in Ephesians 4, where Paul says that when Christ ascended he left gifts: apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers to equip the saints for works of ministry until we all reach unity and become mature in the fullness of the stature of Christ. Then we will not be tossed about by every wind of teaching, but will speak the truth in love, growing up into Christ.

If I am taking my call seriously as a servant of Jesus Christ, that’s my agenda, and I must be about unity, not conformity. Diversity is essential to unity. I can’t imagine a painting that is all one color.

The issue is Jesus Christ, and if a person honors Christ, then that person is a brother or a sister, and we can have fellowship regardless of other differences.

Abraham Vereide, founder of what was then called International Christian Leadership, used to recite a little poem that went something like this: “He drew a circle that shut me out-heretic, rebel, a thing to flout. But love and I had the wit to win: we drew a circle that took him in.”

Has there ever been a time in your ministry when you had to draw a line and take a stand against a Christian brother because something was involved you thought might be harmful to the church?

I’m deeply concerned about the emergence of Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority. I’m opposed to his political stance, but I do not repudiate him as a Christian.

For some time, Jim Wallis of Sojourners has been very critical of the whole prayer breakfast movement, a movement in which a great piece of my life has been involved. The best he can say about it is that it is a civil religion. But he is still a good friend and I need him; I need his influence in my life. I’m the pastor of a suburban church with an upper middle-class congregation; he s in the inner city breaking his heart for Christ’s sake with the poorest of the poor. I need that kind of influence.

Unless a person denies Jesus Christ, I feel we have a responsibility to one another and to one another s ministry.

May we focus a bit tighter? How about the differences in a marriage relationship?

The first element is commitment, despite the differences. My wife and I are married for life. I have an arrangement with Doris that God witnessed as an unconditional covenant for life. No matter how difficult it is to live together, we’re going to stay married. Every struggle we have that could be used as an excuse to separate or divorce is the very material God wants us to use to create intimacy in our marriage. We can’t get it any other way; it comes by hammer and heat. Good marriages are always forged. Likewise, the relationships which are created between staff members are not negotiated agreements; they are forged in much the same manner.

I’ll be the first to admit I’ve made some mistakes in my marriage and my family. During the early days of my ministry, I’d say the first eight or ten years, I equated the work of the church with God himself. I justified neglecting my wife and my children on the grounds that I was serving the Lord through the work of the church. I had to correct that. Now I believe that my family is more important than the work of the church. God expects me to give priority to my wife and my children. Doris and I realize that we made some serious mistakes with our children when they were growing up. But they love us, and they are all in Christ.

I’m always amazed by the grace of God. Paul Tournier, the Swiss physician, has a chapter in one of his books where he points out that some parents are extremely authoritarian and others are extremely permissive, but most parents are somewhere in the middle. Then he goes on to say that regardless of the parental style, if one’s children turn out all right, it’s by the grace of God. I like that-a grace that allows me to fail.

I think one of the greatest freedoms any pastor has is the freedom to fail. Again and again, in my private life and in my public ministry, I’ve had the pressures build until I think I can’t stand it any more. When I stop long enough to take a spiritual inventory, I discover that I’ve failed many times in the past, and it’s likely that I will fail again. How liberating!

This past Tuesday morning I awakened about 4 o’clock after some kind of dream about which I couldn’t remember a thing except that I had failed. I tried to go back to sleep, but I couldn’t relax. I felt like my skin was crawling right off my body. I finally slipped out of bed onto my knees and began to pray. As I talked to my Father, I again eventually realized that my failure does not constitute God’s failure. It was so liberating to say, “Lord, when I fail, I know your grace will be there to cover the bases.”

Obviously, we can’t presume on God’s grace or use his goodness as an excuse for negligence, but likewise, we don’t need to fear failure. Failure is a part of the forging process. Failure is God’s way of consuming the dross so the gold may remain.

How much personal counseling do you do?

Not as much as I once did. At one time I allowed my counseling load to become so heavy I began to lose my effectiveness. The elders took the initiative and released me from crisis counseling.

We are now in the process of developing a comprehensive counseling program for the church. At this point I don’t feel we should establish our own clinic. However, one of our members is a psychiatric nurse. She visits with people who request counseling and decides on the best way to meet their needs. She can refer a person to one of the pastors, to an elder, to somebody in the church who has faced a similar problem, or to a professional counselor.

When you first started pastoring you probably didn’t have these kinds of resources. How did you deal with the problems people brought to you? How did you avoid making major mistakes?

I tried to listen. It’s been said many times before- which doesn’t make it less true-listening is hard work.

When I began my ministry, I had taken a required course in counseling at Princeton and had read the one or two books that were available on this subject. I really wasn’t very well prepared to face the problems that came my way. So-I had to learn counseling by listening to people. Let’s face it, there is no substitute for being with people and trying to understand them and empathize with their needs.

For example, I was counseling a church member who was a closet hom*osexual. In our sessions I could sense he was getting close to admitting his problem. Instinctively I knew that if there was anything in my facial expression, anything at all that would indicate shock or change in attitude when he admitted his problem, I’d lose him. I so well remember how I prepared myself for the moment he shared who he was.

Have you made major mistakes in counseling?

Yes, but only when I failed to spiritually prepare for my task or allowed outside pressure and personal frustrations to desensitize me to the situation.

I’m embarrassed to admit this, but early in my ministry at Fourth, a couple-she was Japanese, he was Jewish-came to me for help. Their marriage was in terrible shape; I spent hours with them. It seemed at some point in every session the young man would rise and start pacing back and forth across my office. Then he would start talking, getting louder and louder until he worked up into a frenzy.

One Sunday morning right after church they asked to see me, and he began his little act, thoroughly embarrassing and intimidating his wife. He ended his performance by saying, “You know, if it weren’t for my wife’s sake, I’d take my life.” By then I was fed up with him, and in anger I said, ‘Well, you sure aren’t much use to her now.”

Monday morning I found he had attempted to take his life. I went to the hospital and the first thing he said was, “Mr. Halverson, you told me to do it.”

I had failed him-both of them, because I stopped listening and allowed myself to become insensitive to the real problem. Even to this day I rarely give what might be considered direct advice. Although I like Jay Adams’ book, Competent to Counsel, I’m usually uncomfortable with anything but indirect counseling. If I get an insight I’ll share it; if I think of something they ought to do, I’ll suggest it to them. Occasionally I’ve said, “Until you do this, there’s no point in us seeing each other again.” But such a statement from me is highly unusual.

A frustrated young seminary graduate recently approached us and said he had taken a secular job because he wasn’t sure he should go into the ministry. At the heart of his reticence was the feeling that he didn’t have the personality for it. He said, “All the personality tests I’ve taken say ’emotionally strong, but tends to be a cold person and has trouble relating to people.’ ” What hope can you offer a reader who may find it difficult to identify with your warm, vulnerable personality and yet sincerely wants to be a pastor?

The first response that comes to my mind, and I don’t think he will mind my saying so, is that Louis Evans, Jr., pastor of National Presbyterian Church, is just that kind of person. All of the vocational and aptitude tests he took disqualified him for the pastorate. Louis thinks mechanically, he’s orderly. The tests say he should be an engineer. He’d rather take an engine apart and put it together again than almost anything else in the world. But God called him to be a pastor, and he persevered in spite of the tests and has developed a tremendous ministry.

Isn’t it true that almost every pastor has some problem in his personality that may also be a potential strength?

Some of the most successful pastors I know have been poor preachers but tremendous with people. Others have been poor with people and tremendous in the pulpit. If God is calling you to be a pastor, he’s going to put you in a ministry situation that needs your

skills. A person cannot foreclose on God’s plans because of self-perceived weaknesses. It usually doesn’t occur to us that we might not have liked the apostle Paul. Several scriptural passages indicate that he might have been a very abrasive person, and everyone agrees that Peter was a hard person to get along with.

How would you describe Dick Halverson?

In some ways I’m a very private person. I’ve always struggled with low self-image. Because of that image I’m easily intimidated. To this day, if I have to walk into a room full of strangers, I must brace myself for the experience. Although I think I have accepted my low self-image, I compensate for it with a gregarious air. But if I’m not careful, I find myself resenting the intrusions of people into my life. Thus, I must keep working with myself; for in my own eyes, a pastor must be a people person, a servant of the servants of the Servant.

What do you see as your innate strength?

I’m an idea person. The man who led me to Christ was my first pastor, and he taught me how to handle ideas. He taught me to treat ideas like good seeds and showed me how to plant them in the soil of a heart or mind and let them grow.

That’s why I have a bias against “canned” or readymade, mass-distributed church programming. My style is to plant a seed, water it, and watch it grow of its own accord.

I also think ahead. Almost from the beginning of my ministry, I’ve planned my sermons a year in advance. I love to preach; I’m at home on the platform. Interestingly, that is one of the characteristics of many up-in-front people. They’re comfortable addressing large crowds, but scared to death of intimate contact.

When Billy Graham was having his first Madison Square Garden Crusade, he asked me to come and work with laymen’s breakfasts and luncheons. Just before Billy was to address a luncheon of thirty-five businessmen, he turned to me with visible nervousness and said, “Dick, I’m scared to death to talk to those guys. I can stand in front of the Garden, but I don’t know what to do in front of thirty-five men.” But he did, and he has become a master of almost any ministry situation.

What process did you go through to move your self image from the liability to the asset column?

Since I met Christ forty years ago, I have never sought things for myself. I am not ambitious for myself as a servant of Christ.

Is this strictly a matter of spiritual conviction?

Yes and no. Part of it goes back to the origins of my low self-image. Mother married my father against the will of her parents. My father was an itinerant worker. He’d ride railroad freight cars to the midwest where he worked as a harvest laborer. Then he would return to his home in St. Paul and live on his wages. He was a kind person, soft-spoken, gentle, a good dancer, and very handsome; but my mother soon discovered that he was completely irresponsible. He never did support the family. My mother’s father set him up in business twice, but he never made it go.

When I was ten years old my parents divorced-in a little North Dakota town where nobody got divorced -and we moved into a flat where we shared a bathroom with twenty families. I can still hear the co*ckroaches crush in the doorjamb when I closed the door.

I’ve been afraid of my father’s traits all of my life. To this day, I feel there is something in me that wants to run as far away from responsibility as I can get.

As a youth I compensated for my circ*mstances with arrogance. Apparently I was born with a gift for singing, for people seemed to enjoy my efforts at entertainment and encouraged me to seek a career in the theater. That became my burning ambition until I met the Lord at twenty years of age, and he made it clear that he had another plan for my life.

How did the Lord make that plan clear to you?

A man of God, a pastor, began to deal with me. He helped me see my arrogance; that there was no substance to it, and I was covering up all those awful fears I had about myself and my inadequacy.

He showed me how to study the Scriptures. The verse that helped me turn the corner was Paul’s marvelous testimony that in weakness he became strong. In II Corinthians 12 he says, “Lest I be exalted above measure, a thorn in the flesh was given to me.” And in another incredible passage, I Corinthians 15, he says, “Last of all, Christ appeared to me also as one born out of due time and not worthy to be called an apostle because I persecuted the church of God. Nevertheless, by the grace of God, I am what I am.”

I grabbed that truth with both hands as my valid place of self-acceptance; by the grace of God, I am what I am.

Would you say that this spiritual truth is still at the heart of your ministry at Fourth Presbyterian, even though it’s one of the better known churches in the country?

During the eight years I ministered in Hollywood, California, I observed that the one thing which destroyed more prominent people than anything else was the temptation to believe in their own publicity.

Do you recall the Old Testament story in which three of David’s soldiers overheard him say, “Oh, if I could only have some water from the well in Jerusalem”? At the risk of their lives, they sneaked through the enemy lines to bring him a drink of water.

But he refused to drink it; he knew they had risked their lives. for it. So he poured it out as a libation to God.

That has become a symbol for me when I receive any praise or credit. I’m thankful for it. I know I have an ego that loves to hear it, but I refuse to accept it. I pour it out to Christ.

Copyright © 1980 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.