Elders & Counselors – Part 2

May elders seek help in caring for the congregation? In the difficult and complex pastoral cases that are encountered, how can the church’s elders cooperate effectively with counselors or therapists?

In the first installment, we suggested a few principles for pastoral care. Now we’ll apply those principles to the question of whether and how we can use the services of external counselors:

1)     We should maintain the priority of the work of the office bearers.

Besides being ordained by God, at a practical level too, there are advantages to receiving care from the church’s elders. These office bearers are closely connected to the community of believers, so they can mobilize support and activate involvement to care for those in need: for example, by arranging a wise mentor, or by arranging meals.

Sometimes complex pastoral cases involve a pattern of unrepentant sin, and a person may require church discipline (e.g., in the case of an abusive spouse). The elders are positioned to administer the key of discipline in order to protect the community and restore the sinner.

So the role of the office bearers must always be seen as the first sphere of pastoral care. 

Without diminishing this at all, the outworking of the task of ministers, elders, and deacons does have its limitations. For example, there are temporal limitations. Elders and deacons are men who typically have fulltime jobs; besides that, they are likely to have families and other commitments. This presents a limit on their focus and attention when helping. As for the minister, his focus is on the preaching of the Word. Along with other responsibilities in the church, the minister usually has various demands on his time and will need to limit his involvement with pastoral cases.

A second limitation that office bearers face relates to expertise. Certainly, they should have specific skills for their roles. Ministers and elders should be good listeners and wise teachers, while deacons should be practical and compassionate men. But when pastoral situations become very complex (e.g., because of trauma or serious mental illness), the skill and knowledge level of the office bearers means they can’t give adequate care. They don’t know enough about bi-polar disorder to help, or they don’t have much experience with marriage counselling when there has been a relationship breakdown.

Then there are the personal limitations we face. Office bearers get confronted with difficult and challenging scenarios, ones that require intense engagement with the struggling members. When an elder has been involved in a difficult pastoral case for years on end, he can feel its effect; it is vital work, but it can be immensely draining, spiritually and emotionally. An elder faces his limitations at a deeply personal level.

So, while we maintain the priority of the care given by Christ’s office bearers, we recognize that they face limitations of time, expertise, and personal resources.

2)     We should maintain the value of the help given by the communion of saints:

God has placed us fellow believers into each other’s lives so that we can all be well-supported. An active church community is so helpful and encouraging for members who are wrestling with difficult matters. Say there is a person struggling with alcoholism, or the effects of a recent traumatic death, like in a car accident—the person’s fellow church members are often willing to get involved, and they do get involved in giving support. They pray. They bring meals. They write cards. They come by for visits.

This is as it should be in the church, every member doing its part, showing concern for the rest of the body.

But what is true of the office bearers is true of all the members when it comes to supporting someone in pastoral need. Every member of the church faces their own limitations of time, knowledge, and fortitude. Sometimes there’s only so much that fellow members can do.

3)     We can grant a place to external pastoral supports, such as Christian counselors.

When we’re realistic about the limitations faced by office bearers and church members, we’ll begin to see that counselors can provide useful pastoral support. Typically, a counselor will have studied in the area of mental illness, marital breakdown, child development, etc., and they will have practiced intensive counselling in such scenarios. So they are well-equipped to give effective care.

Now, I acknowledge that this has been a contested point: Should we use insights from the study of psychology? There’s a range of views on this. Some say that the sufficiency of Scripture means there is really have no need of any other source of knowledge. If Scripture is useful for all things, as 2 Timothy 3:16 says, we shouldn’t need or search for any other insights to do truly effective counseling.

On the pages of Scripture we find a world of resources to assist people in their walk with God.

And I agree entirely that Scripture speaks with infallible wisdom about the spiritual life of believers. It gives us God’s own resources for correction, teaching, and encouragement. But it is not wise to ignore the insights that God has helped people to discover in the area of the life of the mind, or the behaviour of the heart. We believe that in the beginning, God gave us the task of dominion, a calling to explore and develop his world, to his glory. This is why we work on new technologies, study science, and refine our farming methods; we are working with what God has given us in creation, so that our daily work can be done better, with a better effect.

We can view the study of psychology or the behavioral sciences in the same way. Through these disciplines, we can add to our understanding of human beings so that we can help them better. For example, psychologists have studied the causes and effects of alcoholism. Every alcoholic has his own story, but when you study the accounts of tens of thousands of alcoholics, you notice that there are many commonalities. And it is good for a person to be aware of these patterns, so that they can give good and discerning spiritual help.

Likewise, there are patterns of behaviour that are evident in many situations of marital breakdown. A counselor might have studied the ways in which many combative spouses communicate, or how they deal with anger, and this can be useful knowledge for helping in a particular situation of pastoral need.

Or when someone suffers from mental illness, it is good to know about how their genetics might have contributed to this, as well as their environment, and past experiences. Psychology studies a person’s thought patterns in circumstances of depression, anorexia, phobias, and schizophrenia.

Without this specialized knowledge of patterns, medications and treatments, an elder will enter situations where he can give some help, but limited help.

Just like medicine has explored disease and brought benefit to millions, so in the psychological realm there is a place for observation, research, and therapy. It is certainly the case that we should approach these things with caution. We recognize that many of the scientists and authors are unbelievers, which will affect their assumptions and conclusions.

We ought not make anything besides God’s Word foundational or authoritative; therefore, we must always test the findings (and assertions) of the scientific disciples with the standard of Scripture. But neither do we shun any knowledge outside the Bible that God has given to mankind. The counselor we’re consulting might well have benefited greatly from such knowledge.

Expectations for a Christian Counselor

What would we expect from a counselor whose help we’re seeking? A few things:

A counselor should have an in-depth, advanced and practical knowledge of Scripture’s relevance to counselling. They should have the requisite degrees in psychology, but they should also have a very strong familiarity with Scripture and Christian theology.

When a counselor advises treatment, including medication, this treatment should also include what Scripture says are keys to life-change: the regular reading and hearing of God’s Word, regular prayer, and Christian fellowship. These should always be part of a person’s path to healing.

A good Christian counselor will have a genuine respect for the authority of the church in relation to the struggling member. He or she will be happy to work with the office bearers, meeting with them periodically, or providing updates (with permission, of course). Working alongside the elders, a counselor can promote a better understanding of complex personal and relational challenges, and he or she can even provide the elders with tools for effective helping.

It can take time for a church to find reliable, competent, and Scripture-based counselors. Through research and personal interviews, it is advisable to start a referral list of resources in the church’s region, so that the elders can make an informed choice about involving someone. In the cautionary words of one writer, “Having no counselor is better than sending your member to a bad one.”

But a good counselor, by God’s grace, can bring immense benefit!

I want to underline that when pastors and elders refer someone from their flock to an external counselor, the counselor does not become the member’s spiritual authority. The person remains in the spiritual care of the office bearers, those to whom Christ has entrusted this responsibility (1 Pet 5:1-5).

Working together with the wise and the godly, we pray that Christ will bless our efforts to take good care of his flock!