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Originally Posted by Wannabee  Now I've received the academic training that helps one handle God's Word better, but have not received the pastoral training that I wish I had. What are some things you need to know about hospital visits? Like, don't sit on the bed or use the room's bathroom. How do you respond when a woman calls and tells you that her husband just walked out and drove away with another woman? How do you respond when a 30 year old man drops on your floor in tears because His wife and the mother of their four precious children just found out she has cancer; and it's metastasized throughout her lymph nodes? What do you say to someone who's just lost a son? Not the textbook answer, but the answer to a couple you've known for a while, who's son you've held in your arms and maybe changed diapers. You don't get these answers in seminary. These are earned through experience and the blessing of having mature men of the faith walk along side and help you grow into being a faithful shepherd.
I'm not trying to sell myself here, but my vision was born of a lack. My experience and other influences in my life have given me a burden and vision for shepherding, otherwise I don't think I would have made it to where I am. Now our prayer is that men will rise within our church so that we can equip them for ministry. We have opened our pulpit to a pastoral training school not too far from here. And I'm trying to instill a vision in our church for these things. All of this is a result of my failure to find someone to help me grow in the ministry. Recently at a church meeting I was asked to share the leadership's vision for the church. One of my statements was that we don't ever want to call another pastor like I was called. Instead, our goal is to train my replacement. I hope he's here long before I'm done. And I hope I'm not done for a long time.  |
I am glad to hear that you have a sense of inadequacy. That qualifies you to stand with a figure like Bunyan's Great-Heart, who when asked by Christiana how he managed to defeat the Giant Maul, replied, "It is my duty to distrust my own ability that I may have reliance on him that is stronger than all."
A felt sense of pastoral inadequacy is not a strange experience for many of Christ's servants, and often qualifies them for the very service for which they sense their own inability. That is a good thing, because it forces us (as it did Great-Heart), to rely on Christ's help.
I think the worst mistake a minister (or any Christian) can make when attempting to minister to someone who has just received soul-shaking, catastrophic news is to attempt to say something (at least for the sake of appearance) rather than nothing. In other words, what people with news like that need is your presence far more than they need your words. After all, they are hurting so bad that they are not going to remember much of anything you say, unless you say something stupid or hurtful. They don't need your words of comfort so much as they need to see in you someone who, to some degree, shares a sense of their loss, or their pain, and/or feels their burden. The truth of the matter is that sometimes a person's pain or hurt is simply too deep to be reached with words, and all we can do in such situations is to sit down beside them and weep with them.
I recall when my father died how one of my cousins tried in his own clumsy way to offer comfort. He walked up, took my hand, and said, "Hey David, hate to hear that about your dad, but whatcha gonna do?" Then he promptly patted me on the back and walked away. Now, I have nothing but loving memories for this dear cousin, but he taught me a very important lesson - viz., that it's better to say nothing than to say something stupid.
DTK