Religion and Theology - Essay Example

Introduction Unlike in the formal organizations, the church adopts a different mode of leadership owing to its core objective, which is to teach theology and provide spiritual care to the believers (Asquith 2010, p. 45). The activities of pastors, followers and the church leadership are guided by biblical teachings and the needs of the followers. Holistically, pastoral care bears close relations with chaplaincy. However, in the modern context, other people outside the Christian religion may practise pastoral care (Capps 2002, p. 132). To be a pastoral care worker, one has to be willing to willing to provide emotional and spiritual guidance or counsel and support to people in some form suffering. This is a demanding career, which requires empathy, objectivity and the ability to listen keenly to the people. Theoretically, pastoral care is independent of any religion or culture, but in practise, pastoral care is practised in tandem with cultural and religious values, which guide the conduct of the people (Westerink 2009. p.67). It is difficult to dissociate the practise of pastoral care from religion and culture owing to their jointed nature. The people are a social construction of their society’s values, which may be cultural and religious. Training My working as a pastoral care was in a Jehovah witness church. It began with a week of initiation into the program. During that week of induction into pastoral care, experienced pastoral care workers and the pastor taught me on how to undertake relevant activities (Cecsa 2014). One of the important aspects is to create a rapport with the needy person to enable them to open up. A pastoral care worker can only provide a remedy, if they have a perfect understanding of the problems or the pain the needy person is experiencing. A pastoral care provider must seek to know vital information regarding the problem the needy person is facing. This according to my inductors can only be achieved if the pastoral care worker creates an appropriate environment in which the needy person will cooperate exemplary. The success of pastoral care will rest hugely on the skills of the pastoral worker’s skills in manoeuvring different situations. For instance, the worker should be empathetic and understanding as opposed to being judgemental. The worker should also develop the ability to probe the needy individual to establish the facts of the situation and their feelings. Subsequently, the pastoral worker should integrate Christian teachings to resolve the situation. Pastoral care is therefore as structured process, which requires the pastoral workers to employ their skills and Christian teachings to resolve the different situations. From my field experience, tutoring is an imperative stage, which provides the workers with initial skills to help them navigate some of the problems that may hinder the success of this form of counselling or care (Moore & Hermans 2006, p. 61). Irrespective of the setting of the pastoral care, induction into the imperative aspects of practise is essential for any new pastoral worker. Evidently, I gained hugely from the induction process since I experienced some of the challenges that were discussed during the induction process such as uncooperative persons who will not provide vital details. Church established Structures and Procedures Most of the followers, I dealt with were teenage experiencing drug problems or those facing neglect. For one to receive pastoral care, he/she must come to the church and register. This is the system the church has established to enable proper management of the program. In addition, the church leadership may also identify people who they feel need pastoral care despite not being members of the church. The beneficiaries have to be vetted to ensure that the pastoral worker can handle the cases. Moreover, the church leadership also gets a chance to access the probable risks that the case may pose to the workers. The church leadership has the responsibility of managing various aspects of the program (Pastoral care Council 2014, p. 1). The church has established a pastoral office, which has a senior counsellor who is tasked with evaluating the cases individually while also identifying followers in the church who can serve as pastoral care workers. The pastoral caregivers or workers have to be members of the church so that they can solve the cases through the Christian values and ideals. The senior counsellor in charge of the pastoral office assigns the pastoral workers cases, which the pastor approves later. The church has established a bureaucratic process of administering its pastoral program after considering the skills of the workers, the nature of the case and the risks involved (Doehring 2006, p. 89). The success of the pastoral programme is dependent on such meticulous planning, which enables the assessment of various aspects of the case to ensure that the pastoral worker assigned can resolve it successfully. Evaluation of Progress As earlier stated, I dealt with youths going through drug and substance abuse and poor parenting. The church found me fit to handle such cases since I can easily relate and empathise with their problems. Being a beneficiary of a pastoral program a while back, I was motivated to give back. My experience in dealing with such cases has revealed that the pastoral workers have to be objective about the case (Pastoral Counsellors 2014, p. 32). They should not let their individual experiences drive them instead facts and Christian values should be the determinant of the solutions for any case. This requires the pastoral workers to dissociate themselves from their individual experience, which may blind or blur their objectivity when providing a solution. The church takes keen interest in the progress of the cases by undertaking weekly briefings between the pastoral workers and the pastoral office. Evidently, many young people are facing drugs and substance abuse and parenting problems. Most of them are however unwilling to receive pastoral care within the confines of Christian values. To them the church’s approach is extremely rigid and rests upon being part of the church. Pastoral programme are nonetheless effective ways of resolving some of the challenges the society is facing (Farris 2002, p. 271). To make it more effective, the practice of pastoral care should adopt some of the ideas in theoretical work undertaken by philosophers, which states that it should be independent of any religious influences. It is imperative for pastoral program leaders to establish which of the theoretical ideas can be integrated into practice. Pastoral care should be subjective owing to the differences in the cases and the individuals involved. However, undertaking pastoral care in the Christian context has resulted in diminished subjectivity. Sheepherding the Community In the Christian context, the key role of pastoral care is to attend to the followers. In biblical terms, pastoral care amounts or equals to shepherding the flock, which is the equivalent of taking care of the follower in the church. Therefore, pastoral care is based upon the principle of caring for the people. Theoretically, there has been a lot of focus on the structural aspects of the program such as the leadership hierarchy, training and group structures. These structures are vital in the implementation of an effective pastoral program. These structures have been replicated in the program I was a part off. Theoretically, the strength of any program rests upon its ability to establish relevant structures and use them appropriately. The existing theoretical work has also focussed on the relationship between the church and the program and the changes undertaken to ensure that pastoral care may also work outside the confines of the Christian faith (Moore 2002, p. 162). Pastoral care to Christians is similar to missionary work where Christians spread the gospel which also assisting the community. The church has a responsibility to not only meet spiritual needs but also other physical needs. This is in line with taking care of the community. In the Christian community, the practise of pastoral care may vary depending on the denomination. For instance, Roman Catholics have a rigid and conservative ideas and processes while Protestants are contemporary in their religious undertakings (Gerkin 1997, p.321). However, at the centre of all the different activities by the different Christian denominations is the need to shepherd or take care of the community. The church therefore has varied influence on pastoral care. The Roman Catholics have set preconditions for persons willing to be pastoral care workers such as baptism. These are structure adopted by Christianity to ensure that pastoral care is administered within the context of the religion and its values. Vital Resources Undertaking a pastoral care programs entails constant learning. Each encounter with one of the subjects requires the worker to listen, reflect and learn. The lessons gained from each encounter should enable the caretaker to build knowledge, which should inform future actions. This kind of learning is typical of the action- reflection theory, which is the most dominant theory underlying pastoral care practice. Pastoral care is a continuous process of learning which results in a build up of knowledge. The Christian program I participated in had taken note of this aspect and established ways through which the caretakers would benefit massively from the action-reflection nature of pastoral care. The program had established a range of related cases, which would be assigned to workers based on their suitability and the similarity of case. For instance, most married pastoral workers were assigned a series or marriage related cases while younger workers in their late twenties were assigned a series of drug and substance abuse cases. This enabled each group to specialize in a certain field of the cases the church received. Over time, the workers will gain extensive experience in their areas of specialization. However, each pastoral care program does not have to adhere to this idea or structure as its aim is to harness the capacities of the workers in a certain areas. The above case underscores the need for a well-thought out structure, which will harness the abilities of the pastoral workers in order to make the pastoral care effective. The integration of theoretical work that emphasizes on the setting up of necessary structures yielded huge positive results as the program could reach many people who are part of the Christian community. Concurrently, it also enhanced the pastoral skills of each employee under the program in their area of focus. However, the application of theoretical work may be limited by the lack of knowledge of the relevant aspects of the theoretical ideas that may work in practice. As such, most churches or Christians look for ideas that will work given their time and resource constrains. For instance, a church may lack adequate pastoral care workers. Accordingly, the supervision will be inadequate. In addition, religious matters tend to be complex since they are centred on believing (faith) instead of physical results that can be quantified. If a Christian community lacks relevant resources, its training of pastoral workers may be inadequate which will affect the effectiveness of the program. From my experience, for pastoral care to be effective under the Christian context certain things have to be availed. Firstly, there must be Christians willing to partake in the program. The church has to establish an appropriate hierarchy, which will support the program the activities of the pastoral workers. The church has to avail resource for training the potential pastoral workers. Conclusion In view of my experience as a pastoral worker under supervision, the success of any pastoral program is a factor of numerous variables. The variables have to be availed in their appropriate quantities to give a certain result. The first stage requires training to open up the potential pastoral workers mind to the challenges, which they will encounter in the fieldwork. Secondly, a leadership hierarchy has to be established. The church adopted a flat leadership structure in which the supervisors were in charge of the pastoral workers. The supervisor reported to the chief counsellor who subsequently relayed the relevant messages to the pastor for approval. Leadership in such as program is normally subjective subsequently churches adopt a leadership hierarchy, which will work for the entire group of pastoral workers. Ultimately, the pastoral workers have to be members of the church or Christians so that they provide solutions to the needy based on the Christian values and in adherence to the religion’s teachings that emphasize on caring for the community. There is substantial integration of theoretical ideas in practise as revealed by the analysis. However, the complexity of some of those ideas and their differences with the ideals of the Christian religion has hindered their implementation. References Asquith, G., 2010. The Concise Dictionary of Pastoral Care and Counselling. Nashville, TN: Abindgon Press. Capps, D., 2002. Life Cycle Theory and Pastoral Care. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers. Cecsa., 2014. Pastoral Care. [Online] (2014) Available at: < http://.org/pastoral> Doehring, C., 2006. The Practice of Pastoral Care: A Postmodern Approach. London, UK: Westminster John Knox Press Farris, R., 2002. International Perspectives on Pastoral Counseling. London, UK: Haworth Pastoral Press. Gerkin, C., 1997. An Introduction to Pastoral Car.e Germany: Abingdon Press.  Moore, B., 2002. Introducing Feminist Perspectives on Pastoral Theology. London, UK: Sheffield Academic Press. Moore, E. & Hermans, C., 2006. Hermeneutics And Empirical Research In Practical Theology. Mason, OH: Cengage Learning. Pastoral care Council., 2014. A pastoral or spiritual carer offers a friendship. [Online] (2014) Available at :< http://www.pastoralcareact.org/pastoral.html> Pastoral Counsellors., 2014. Pastoral care specialist training program. [Online] (2014) Available at: < http://www.aapc.org/education/pastoral-care-specialist-training-programs/> Westerink, H.,,2009. Controversy and Challenge. Germany: LIT Verlag Münster. Read More