One of the new rules instituted for Major League Baseball in 2023 limited the conditions under which a position player like an infielder or outfielder could be called upon to pitch. A team’s shortstop, for example, could become the pitcher only if it were the ninth inning and the team had a ten run lead, or if the game had entered extra innings. We may wonder why a team would ever consider putting a non-specialist into one of the most specialized roles in the game, but it’s at least entertaining.
Of course my concern here is not baseball but pastoral ministry. For some there has existed the expectation that pastors be, among everything else they are called to be, competent counselors. While there are circumstances where we do counsel, it’s dangerous to suggest such specialized work is our regular responsibility.
Pastors are jacks of all trades and even the master of some. All baseball players can field a grounder, chase a fly ball, and throw to first. But the good ones know that certain roles, like turning a double play or throwing a pitch without beaning the batter, are best left to those who have made those tasks their specialties. Pastoral gifts are many, and the roles we fill are diverse, but the skills and gifts necessary to manage an ongoing counseling relationship are not ordinarily among them. We are in most cases, in fact, incompetent to counsel, and it’s important for us to accept and acknowledge this.
Of course we do provide counsel. We listen and offer direction. We give to our congregants the attention they need to help them think through the decisions they are facing, the sin they are confronting, the hopes and dreams they are pursuing. There are clear elements of counseling in our ongoing and regular pastoral ministry, and such regular pastoral care can have significant therapeutic impact. According to Andrew Solomon in his book The Noonday Demon, a 1979 study of therapeutic techniques concluded that, given certain criteria such as a good therapeutic, or I might say pastoral, relationship, “English professors were able to help their patients as much as the professional therapists.”1
By simple presence and good listening pastors can and do bring great therapeutic value to the mental health and stability of their flocks. This is pastoral care, though, and not counseling as it is popularly conceived. We should be trained for these fundamental skills of pastoral care without the expectation that we bear the deeper, ongoing, specialized work of the therapist. It’s okay to hand that ball to those trained for it. Or, to change the metaphor, someone skilled in applying first aid to a wound is not the one I’d like to see for cataract surgery.
God has gifted some to be pastors and others to practice therapy, and it’s good to accept and embrace that distinction. A pastor may, for example, be the first to hear that a man was as a boy humiliated by his father. That pastor may be the first one to show this man sympathy and understanding. But the pastor is not the one who’s equipped to engage this man in the long, arduous work of dealing with the deep inner wounds and significant relational impact of that humiliation. And that’s okay. Pitchers and surgeons have specialized preparation for a reason.
Therapy is an art as much as a science, and a gifting as much as training, and both the gifting and the training are different than those of the pastor. As well, therapists (or counselors - by now you see that I am using the words interchangeably) receive specialized training far beyond that received by pastors. Some therefore possess particular expertise in dealing with marital conflict or sexual trauma or other deeply affecting pathologies. And they have the time and the structure to allow for the long, hard, deep work necessary to effect personal change in those with whom they work. Pastors have their role, a role they should not shirk or too quickly pass off,2 but it is not to counsel in this way.
It’s important for our congregations that that we pastors recognize our limits. Sure, I counsel, but I do so with an eye toward doing no harm. Sometimes the best thing I can do for many is to direct them to a good therapist who is trained and equipped to provide the care that I dare not try to give. In so doing I am not abandoning my calling but fulfilling it. Only then can I remain someone’s pastor, encouraging them to take the steps the counselor suggests, even though those steps may be hard. But I cannot be both counselor and pastor at the same time and I’m grateful that I don’t need to try.
I’m a good first baseman. You really don’t want me to pitch.
Andrew Solomon, The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression, (United States: Scribner, 2015), p. 111.
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A concern for another day is to address the opposite problem, pastors passing off the regular pastoral responsibility of being compassionate listeners and offering attentive presence.
EXCELLENT post, Randy. I love your extended metaphor with the baseball scenario. I have lived long enough to see that church people no longer expect pastors to be effective in all elements of ministry. We love our pastors and do not expect them to be the proverbial "Jack of all trades and master of all." That's why small group ministry is so important. We pray for, love, encourage, and support each other in smaller bodies of Christ. Even so, we all must know our limits. Very few of us are trained and licensed health care professionals. Our church is exploring the Stephen's Ministry, which has a long and effective track record. But even that ministry is honest about delegating the need for more intensive counseling to those who are trained well beyond laypeople. Thanks for prompting my interaction with you. I enjoy your writing.
Conversely, years ago my son interned for a counselor who told his clients that he couldn’t help them recover unless they also had a good pastor.