The politics of pastoral care Introduction

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The politics of pastoral careIntroduction

• Malcolm Masterman

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A Biblical notion of pastoral care

• What is pastoral care?
• Where in the Bible does it come from?
• Shepherd and sheep
• Have a responsibility for those in your care

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Old Testament views

• Belief in a God who acts
• Covenant relationship
• Not individuals but communal and corporate
• Leads to practicality in care for the orphan, the
  widow, the hungry
• Allows for the expression of feelings
• Biblical care characterised by diversity

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New Testament views

• Incarnation and agape
• Crucifixion and suffering
• Resurrection and life
• Spirit and presence
• Hope
• Church and the world

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Traditional notions(Clebsch and Jaekle 1964)

• Healing
• Sustaining
• Guiding
• Reconciling
• Nurturing

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Healing

• Since Freud changed by talking
• Not physical interventions alone
• Many therapies have evolved
• Christian pastors influenced
• Listening to peoples stories

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Sustaining

• Ministry involves helping people through crises
• We too will undergo our own crises
• Recognising peoples neurosis or psychosis
• Pointing in the right direction

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Guiding

• Spiritual guidance essential ministerial function
• Expands to preparing people for marriage and life
• Ethics and moral guidance

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Reconciling

• Relies upon the basis belief that Gods work is
  about reconciliation
• Family distress or brake up of marriages

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Nurturing

• A way of improving people's lives
• Marriage enrichment
• Personal spirituality

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A definition for today

• Stephen Pattison
• Pastoral care is that activity, undertaken
  by representative Christian persons, directed
  towards the elimination and relief of sin and
  sorrow and the presentation of all people perfect
  in Christ to God

• Alastair Campbell
• Pastoral care is surprisingly simple. It has
  one fundamental aim to help people know love,
  both as something to be received and as something
  to give. The summary of Jesus of all the Law and
  the Prophets in the two great Old Testament texts
  on love. (Lev.19v18 Deut. 6v5) Tells us all we
  need to know about the tasks of ministry.

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A definition for today

• David Lyall following Campbell the integrity of
  pastoral care
• Honesty and steadfastness
• Wholeness and oneness
• As a discipline
• Theological integrity
• An integrating paradigm (relationship between
  belief and practice)

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Pastoral Ministry todayDavid Lyall - Integrity
and Pastoral Care

• Ministry in complexity
• On finding words
• Initiative and availability
• Diversity and integrity
• Systems theory and pastoral ministry
• Isolation and interdisciplinarity
• Incarnation and agape
• Being available without needing to be
• Suffering death resurrection and hope
• Different roles

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Ministry in complexity

• Complexity of family situations to which we
  minister
• No longer mum, dad and two children
• Partners and multiple families

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On finding words

• What do we say
• Often more important to be than to say being
  there
• But words are our stock in trade
• Finding ways to express hope and fears
• The Christian story of new beginnings of new life
  and forgiveness for the past and hope for the
  future

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Initiative and availability

• Pastoral ministry is proactive
• Expectation to visit
• A willingness to be involved
• Need to be known and involved

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On not finding words

• Sometimes a need not to impose your own
  interpretation
• Allow others to find the answers for themselves
• Pointing beyond ourselves to a deeper grace

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Diversity and integrity

• Can we respond to the situations in the present
  time whist keeping our own integrity
• Baptism of a baby
• Marrying the divorced
• Baptism of a dead baby

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Systems theory and pastoral ministry

• Systems theory a way of looking at pastoral care
• People not simply individuals but part of
  networks
• Individual care has repercussions on the networks
• Caring for one in a family affects others

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Isolation and interdisciplinarity

• A member of a team but in isolation
• An amateur surrounded by professionals
• The need for study but also the need to be
  creative
• Often the first to notice
• Need to refer
• Support without interfering
• Aware of the multiplicity of roles
• Sensitive of the other relatives

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Incarnation and agape

• Pastoral care rooted in the incarnation
• But also in the agape shown by the pastoral care
  giver
• Not hard sell but out of respect

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Being available without needing to be

• How do we set boundaries
• The need to be available but also the need for
  rest and family
• The need to care but not to care
• Not to take over peoples lives

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Suffering death resurrection and hope

• Often in pastoral care we encounter suffering
• Bereavement and death
• Need to stay with the pain
• Recognise that God is present and there is hope.
  Without being trite

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Different roles

• Within a week or even a day you will be called
  upon to take different roles
• Preacher, pastor, committee chair, community
  leader all public roles
• But also father, mother, friend
• Often in two roles at once
• In all shaped by the Christian story

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Howard Clinebell

• Working to change the wider systems that
  diminish peoples growth often is essential to
  sustain growth within them and their close
  relationships. Rather than adjusting people to
  growth crippling institutions, constructive
  counselling and therapy seek to empower people to
  work with others to change the institution and
  societal roots of individual problems.

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George Furniss

• Pastoral Care assists care seekers in finding a
  sense of divine vocation and in facilitating
  their empowerment through participation in
  mediating structures to have a meaningful impact
  on their society and its larger structures.

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According to Stephen Pattison

• The social and political dimensions and
  especially the central issue of justice have
  tended to be ignored.

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According to Stephen Pattison

• The social and political dimensions and
  especially the central issue of justice have
  tended to be ignored.
• The theories and methods have tended to be drawn
  from the domain of humanistic psychology.
  Disregarding the contributions of sociology,
  politics, and social policy.

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According to Stephen Pattison

• Pastoral care has found it difficult to develop
  critical theories of action, and practice and
  theory often betray some kind of pastoral
  pragmatism while failing to assess and challenge
  those practices.

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According to Stephen Pattison

• Pastoral care has found it difficult to develop
  critical theories of action, and practice and
  theory often betray some kind of pastoral
  pragmatism while failing to assess and challenge
  those practices.
• Pastoral care has largely failed to engage
  contemporary theologies.

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• "Pastoral care in the Northern hemisphere needs
  both to be liberated from some of its own
  practical and theoretical limitations and
  narrowness, and to become socially and
  politically aware and committed to the cause of
  those who are oppressed. It is by looking at the
  practicalities of performing the latter aspect of
  the task that the former will be thrown into
  relief."

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What is to be done

• Analysis of the social and political context of
  pastoral care.
• The option for the oppressed
• Becoming organic intellectuals of oppressed
  groups
• Working with other groups
• Using unfinished models for social and
  political action
• Appropriate pastoral care of individuals