Spiritual Care Basics and Beyond: What Do I Say? What Should I Do? Interpersonal Tools and Resources for Spiritual Care

By Joel Hempel

This book is a practical guide for any lay or professional minister or seminarian who wants to become more competent in providing spiritual (pastoral) care within a congregation or institutional setting.
Through the use of personal stories, spiritual care theory, Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) methodology, and his experience as an educator and practitioner, Joel Hempel offers concrete ways to be helpful to those we serve. The book is rich in empowerment, grace, and encouragement, with a hefty dose of challenge. It will provide practical advice on how to handle real-life problems that a spiritual caregiver will encounter. The reader will also be invited to identify his or her healed and unhealed psychological and emotional wounds that impact ministry, and to clarify their living faith, which undergirds spiritual care.
Spiritual Care Basics and Beyond also addresses important questions such as: What is spiritual care, and who needs it? How does a minister assess what the other person needs? What do you do when you get in over your head or mess up? What about sensitive subjects such as confrontation and boundaries? And the most important question: How do you grow in trusting the guidance of the Holy Spirit?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Release date: Feb 21, 2023
• ISBN: 9781666757897

Book preview

Introduction

Say you are a professional or lay minister in a congregation providing spiritual care. Imagine the following scenarios: After services on a Sunday morning, a member asks to speak privately with you. Of course, you make yourself available. Or, maybe a member calls you at home and asks to talk confidentially with you as soon as possible. You settle on a good time to meet, and after you close your office door, the first words out of her mouth are: I just found out my husband is having an affair.

What do you say? What do you do?

Or, imagine someone saying to you: I don’t know what to do with my daughter. She keeps acting out.

What do you say? What do you do?

Can you help me? I don’t know where to turn! My job is too demanding! And, life is too hard.

What do you say? What do you do?

My mother is in so much pain! Her cancer is in its fourth stage. I don’t know what to say to her. She asks why God is letting this happen.

What do you say? What do you do?

These and so many more scenes like them will play out in the life and ministry of those who care for others in the church. I know! All of the above situations and many like them have been among the challenges of my ministry.

This book is not about the history of spiritual care. It is not about the theology of spiritual care, although there are plenty of references to God’s Word and how it can be helpful. It’s about competency. It’s about how to be most beneficial to others and care for yourself in the process.

A number of years ago, during Holy Week, I had an appointment with a medical specialist. His name is Lawrence Goldmann. I had been seeing him for years, so he knew I was a minister. Based on his name and appearance, I assumed I knew what I needed to know. Walking into the treatment room, he said, Happy Easter, Reverend!

Thank you, I responded. And a blessed Passover to you.

Thanks! He replied. But I’m Episcopalian.

We both laughed!

I was grateful the doctor could laugh and not take offense. I wanted this to be a moment of mutual respect and appreciation for each other’s spirituality. But my preconceived judgment led me to the wrong assumption.

Similarly, the most helpful intervention or comment in spiritual care will not be based on an assumption. It will be founded on evidence gained from deep listening and testing information gathered through various interpersonal tools. That may seem technical and not very spiritual. But the most helpful intervention will not be effective, if like with the doctor and me your comments are not carefully thought out.

On the other hand, I hasten to add, most ill-considered interventions are forgivable. We can thank God that most people forgive us when we make a mistake—especially if we apologize or catch it and make corrections.

No one has to tell you that life presents multiple challenges—some pleasant, others painful. As I will define in the first chapter, spiritual care is one of the means by which the minister can assist a person facing life’s more difficult challenges.

As life unfolds with sorrows often outnumbering the joys, faith is repeatedly tested. As St. Paul once declared in Romans 8, the Christian faith of believers gets knocked around and trampled down by . . . trouble, hardship, persecution, famine, nakedness (literally and figuratively), danger, sword . . . and death . . . Yet, amid all these things, not only are we spared separation from God, we can also grow and become stronger in our faith.

But most people need help if their faith is going to grow during times of hardship and if they will find meaning amid life’s challenges. This book intends to provide lay and professional ministers with the understanding and skills to assist people in this life’s journey.

Because of my background, this book is directed most toward those who serve as a lay or professional minister in a Christian context or an institution like a hospital, prison, or nursing home.

Part I looks at first things first, meaning the initial groundwork that needs to be understood in order to be as helpful as you want to be. In Chapter 1, spiritual care is first defined, and then a purpose for providing spiritual care is offered. In Chapter 2, I present a process and model for growing in faith and the Christian life. Spiritual care is not only for working with hurting people who are dealing with individual issues; it is also for helping people identify where they are in their faith journey and what God wants them to do with their lives.

Parts II and III offer concrete ways of thinking about spiritual care. During my 45-year career in ministry, I served as a parish pastor, an institutional chaplain, a mentor, an administrator, a Clinical Pastoral Educator, and a pastoral counselor. Now in retirement, I serve as the director of diaconal ministry for my church. Based on Scripture, my training, reading in my fields of interest, and my experience, I have identified specific skills, interventions, and resources that are helpful in providing competent spiritual care. I also offer examples of how to effectively use the interventions for the well-being of others.

Other aspects of my spiritual care philosophy and practice are insights that came to me by the grace of God throughout the course of a career teaching spiritual care to hundreds of students, as well as providing pastoral care and counseling to countless individuals and groups.

Therefore, in Part II (Spiritual Care Skills), Chapter 3 will describe and illustrate a means for assessing what a person needs at the moment. Chapters 4–7 offer six tools for ministers’ use in providing spiritual care.

In Part III (Essential Elements to Spiritual Care), Chapters 8 and 9 are a deep dive into looking at ourselves as wounded healers and ministers of faith. In Chapters 10 and 11, we will consider healing touch and then three aspects of ministry that technically are not skills but contribute significantly toward competency in the art of spiritual care. Chapter 12 deals with personal hygiene.

This book concludes in Part IV (The Sent One) with Chapter 13 dedicated to the Holy Spirit and what the SPIRIT of GOD does to hold up the other interventions and resources in spiritual care. It is also a reminder that we are all empowered to serve by the Holy Spirit, whom the Christian Scriptures refer to as our Helper, Advocate, Counselor, and Comforter.

The book ends with Chapter 14 and the reminder that although our culture does not value Christian ministry as highly as it once did, and although there are way too many stories in the public forum about failed ministries, the truth continues to be the truth: God calls God’s people—you and me—to care for God’s people. We have been set apart to co-create with God—to be God’s instruments in birthing life, growing faith, and healing wounds.

Part I

First Things First

Chapter 1

What Is Spiritual Care and Who Needs It?

Spiritual Care Defined

In the broad understanding of the term spiritual care, it is what the people of God provide. It is attending to the needs of God’s people in the local church and the family of God’s creation, utilizing all of the resources the church has available by the grace of God.

Spiritual care also includes using the church’s prophetic voice in an unjust world, human care in response to people’s needs, intentional missional and evangelistic programs, liturgy and worship, and financial wealth. Spiritual care in the broad sense also comprises the people’s use of the church’s facilities and all administrative planning and programmatic implementation to care for God’s people and the community. Inclusively speaking, spiritual care encompasses anything and everything that the children of God invest in to enrich their own lives as Christians and the lives of others. This care includes admonishing sin, declaring forgiveness, promoting spiritual growth, facilitating healing, and communicating God’s demand for justice and God’s astonishingly generous and ever-present mercy.

In the narrow sense, however, the sense in which I am using the term, spiritual care is more precise. In this narrow sense, spiritual care is a set of activities (spoken and unspoken) designed, taught, and learned so that God can grant healing grace and mercy to the person being cared for. In addition to our Lord applying the healing balm of God’s Word and wisdom through God’s servant, our Lord may also move through the minister to empower a person to grow in faith, increase in devotion to God, flourish in Christian service, and find life to the full (John 10:10).

Also, in this narrow sense, spiritual care is the ability of lay and professional ministers to confidently but not arrogantly enter the pain of another human being and stay there until it is no longer helpful to be there. And being helpful is what spiritual care is all about.

If that is what spiritual care is all about, then who is it for? It is for everyone, of course. But it is especially for those in your ministry who are dealing with struggles in their lives that are hindering or destroying their belief in God and the saving grace of Christ Jesus. Spiritual care is meant for those who are hurting and in need of comfort. It is for people who are in despair and in need of our Savior’s loving arms. Spiritual care is for those in need of renewed hope, and for people who may not yet know they are seeking a solid footing in faith.

Our goal in spiritual care is to help those who are hurting or struggling in life. Of course, it is also a part of a person’s ministry to encourage and join with people in celebrating, laughing, and praising God for the joy of our salvation. But never should we provide the latter to avoid the former. Laughter and fun feel good. But they won’t last, and they will not grant healing if they are only part of an intentional or unintentional cover-up.

This is not to say that laughter is without benefit in the healing process. It is. Laughter, for example, is used as a natural pain reliever when individuals are suffering unbearable emotional pain. An example of when laughter was present as a way of managing the unimaginable was the most horrifying experience in my parish ministry. It was the murder of my fellow pastor’s daughter.

I drove my friend and his wife to the airport to pick up their other daughter and then drove them home. When the parents first greeted their daughter coming off the plane, the three of them held each other as the pain of the violent loss of their precious sister and daughter was released in deep sobs.

The crying continued in the car as the family remembered the stories of the deceased daughter. Then someone would recall a funny story, and the three of them would laugh. Of course, it wasn’t long for the sorrow to return, followed by more crying. A person can only handle so much emotional pain at any one time. Then relief has to come in some form. Laughter is often the balm that gives temporary relief.

The author of Proverbs declared, A merry heart is good medicine . . . (Prov 17:22, NKJV).¹ Laughter is a blessing! It lightens the spirit—at least for the moment, which can be long enough to find one’s footing in life once again. Said another way: Laughter . . . will clear your mind, lift your mood, and help you cope. Unfortunately, it will not change your problems or minimize their importance. It will, however, change you so you can deal with your problems . . .²

Laughter, smiling, reflecting on the pleasant times in life all contribute to the healing process. But when laughter is the only tool available to ministers when their people suffer, the people have not been served. They have been abandoned while in the depth of their pain.

By pain I mean all personal or interpersonal or communal life experiences and suffering that interfere with God’s desire for a person and all people to live life to the full (John 10:10). Pain, of course, can be physical. But the pain that can benefit the most from the healing ointment of spiritual care is emotional or spiritual.

The impact of the Gospel of God’s grace and mercy on people can be profound, especially for those who have not yet received that divine grace and mercy. God’s love changes lives! One such story from my ministry is what happened to a woman I will call Judy. Judy came into our church office at just the right time (God’s timing). We were looking for office support, and she needed a job and had the necessary skills. We needed the help but had a limited budget. Because her emotional needs were greater than her financial needs, Judy accepted the position.

After working with my colleagues and me over a several-year period, and after immersing herself in our worshipping congregation over this same period—a congregation that believed in and practiced generosity and hospitality, Judy began to get stronger emotionally and spiritually. She started to believe in herself as God’s beautiful creation. This was very important because a most unhealthy relationship with a man resulted in him physically abusing her, leaving visible marks on her face. Thus, she was self-conscious of her appearance.

Thankfully, our inner-city church was made up of different people. We were a microcosm of the world with obvious differences in ethnicity, race, gender, age, sexual orientation, body shapes, mental abilities, and talents. We were not a wealthy church, but we were rich in the love of God and Christian fellowship. Judy fit right in!

Three factors were vital to Judy’s healing: First, this was a Christian community in the best and fullest sense of that expression. There were many mistakes and hurt feelings over the years due to trial-and-error ministry attempts, foolish choices, and blatant sin. But the people (staff and congregants alike) were open and willing to apologize and forgive. Second, the team had gone through their own healing and faith development, and more often than not, they were able to keep their own issues out of the way of the Holy Spirit’s healing and empowering agenda.

Third, while experiencing our strengths over the years, she then tested whether or not we were genuine. When Judy confirmed that we were—with all of our human shortcomings—the Holy Spirit empowered her to begin laying down her resistance, increasing her trust, and receiving the love of God that was ever-present for her growth in faith and life.

Judy comes to mind because she recently emailed me after 45 years, having found my name on the internet. She now has a degree in theology, pastors her own church, and provides counseling to those in her parish and those who may accidentally cross her path.

Spiritual care is the healing power that changes lives!

There is something else that is exciting about what we do as ministers. Scripture states, Perfect love casts out fear (1 John 4:18, ESV). Just how does that work? I do not pretend to know how the Holy Spirit acts to change people’s lives. How, why, and when God intervenes is often mysterious and beyond our understanding. But there is a growing body of research to confirm what we already know and have experienced anecdotally.

That is, it is broadly accepted that psychotropic medication, like antidepressants, changes brain chemistry. If someone in your congregation is suffering from moderate to severe depression, it generally means their brain chemistry is not normal. That is, people are unable on their own to get out from under the unusually heavy funk that impedes their living. So, the proper medication can help return chemical balance to their brain and quality of life to their daily living.

Interestingly, research is now showing that talk therapy, especially the kind that emphasizes the release of emotions and learning new ways of thinking and functioning, also changes brain chemistry for the better.³ You are probably seeing the connection between talk therapy and what we do. The love of God revealed through preaching and teaching, as well as the love of God demonstrated in the way the congregation accepts and includes a person in the fellowship of forgiven sinners, and the love of God working through the minister’s competency in spiritual care all come together to have a direct impact on the brains of parishioners, resulting in a measurable change in chemistry.

If you ever had any doubt that what you do makes a difference, read the research! Not only do we get to be a part of a person’s eternal well-being, but we also get to be a part of a person’s here-and-now quality of life—abundant life in Christ! Fear, depressed pain from the past, unreleased grief, and the like, all can be cast out through the perfect love of God.

Of course, spiritual care is not to replace medical care when the latter is needed. Recently, my pastor asked me to meet with a woman in the congregation whom I will call Jane. She was struggling with depression—enough so that the pastor was concerned for her well-being. Jane and I had several sessions together in a private room at church where she unloaded her questions about God and what she was experiencing as God’s apparent lack of care for her. I praised her willingness to meet with me and her honest expression of disappointment with God. I listened with respect, empathized with her pain, and carefully challenged some of her spiritual assumptions. At the same time, I encouraged her to see her doctor.

One could argue that the doctor’s prescribed medication alone helped Jane get back to living life. As she has repeatedly told me, Jane was grateful for the time, compassion, and service I gave to her. Her smile is back, along with her enthusiasm. The colored printout of Scripture passages about the love and faithfulness of God I gave to her is now framed and hanging on her wall. Her thank you tells me that it was the combined services of the medical and ministerial community through which God worked God’s grace.

The Purpose of Spiritual Care

Pain was not part of God’s original creation. It is the result of living in a fallen, sin-inflicted world. Pain enters people’s lives in countless ways through accidents, disease, broken promises, broken relationships, and unrepentant, out-of-control destructive behavior imposed on oneself and others. Pain grabs hold of a person’s body, mind, emotions, and soul. Pain occasionally takes a break, but it will return. Pain—like death—is the enemy.

But we can learn a lot from our enemies. And God can teach us a lot by placing God’s Self in the midst of our pain. Thus, mysteriously, pain, which is a product of evil, can become our friend due to the presence of the Holy One. That is, the Spirit of Christ takes what was intended for our suffering and then uses it for our good.

Anyone who knows Scripture knows the story of Joseph being sold off into slavery by his jealous, older brothers only to have God open the way for Joseph to become royalty and in control of his brothers’ lives. What follows is another story that does not have the same outcome as the blessing of Joseph and his family. But in this story, we only see the beginning of God’s intervention and the inception of the blessing. The end of the story has not yet been revealed.

While making rounds in the nursing home where Chaplain Marty was serving, he stopped by one of the nurses’ stations. The nurse looked up from her computer screen as the chaplain leaned over the counter: Anything going on I should know about? Marty asked.

Chaplain, I was just going to call you! Mrs. Tumoch is a new resident. She was just admitted a couple of days ago, and she just found out her daughter died in a car accident.

Oh my gosh! the chaplain replied. How awful! Is she in her room?

No, she’s in the sunroom—just staring off into space. Someone should be with her, she added with a pleading look. Her son will not be able to get here until this afternoon.

Assuring the nurse, he said, I’m on my way!

Walking toward the lounge with a prayer on his heart and tears already welling up in his eyes, Marty was hoping no one else would be in the area so he and Mrs. Tumoch could share the time in private. Thankfully, she was by herself.

She was sitting in a wheelchair staring out the window in the direction of the wooded area that was just beginning to show its spring colors.

Mrs. Tumoch? the chaplain inquired.

She looked up without acknowledging her identity. But her moist eyes were sufficient confirmation.

I’m Chaplain Marty. The nurse told me where to find you.

Oh, Chaplain, my daughter was just killed in a car accident! Mrs. Tumoch exclaimed with an explosion of tears.

The chaplain dropped to his knees and put an arm around her. I am so sorry.

Mrs. Tumoch, who had outlived all of her siblings and many of her friends, was now forced to outlive her daughter. She wept.

I can’t imagine anything more awful. I am so very sorry, the chaplain repeated.

After a few minutes of mourning, Mrs. Tumoch managed to put words to her pain: Why, Chaplain? I don’t understand! Does God . . . The grieving resident temporarily held back her feelings. She then continued with anger evident in her voice.