A Practical Handbook for Ministry

Language is powerful; so is the ability to speak. It has the power to heal or hurt, build or break, comfort or confuse. Hence, the role of the pastor as translator and interpreter of people’s stories is very crucial in the ministry. The words used to edify people must be clear and meaningful (3-4). Wayne Oates says about some misconceptions on temptation and sin. Failure to distinguish the difference between the two has caused obscurity on some people. The Christian understanding about temptation as a “universal human experience” has something to do with human defense mechanism, fantasy formation, and reaction formation where temptation is not sin per se but a state of sin whereby the tempted is faced with a crucial decision to cling or avoid temptation as a part of self-understanding. “Self-understanding,” Oates says, “comes from knowing what you are thinking and doing what your purpose to do under God, not being drawn by your own fantasies”(7).

Feeling of abandonment can be fatal and depressing; it is the feeling of abandonment by God that draws a person to be psychologically orphaned—sometimes guilty. Several views about sin were also analyzed: sin as complexes, as unfitting, as cowardice, as shrinking back, refusing to grow, as impaired judgment, as bondage of the law, as idolatry, as self-elevation, as destruction of creation, as missing the mark, and as violation of a covenant with God. In many ways, Christian ministers are called to be “articulate and redemptive in the exercise of its covenantal nature”—and not to be secularized in their attempt to minister unto the hurting and wounded (15).

The Ministry of the pastor does not involved verbal communication but also of pastoral identity and integrity. With various works and functions to fulfill, the Christian minister ought to discern and follow closely his call to educate the community of God through integrating pastoral care in teaching, preaching, administration, worship, and caring fellowship (23). In such as way, the health of the church is taken cared harmonically. The sense of commitment, self-awareness, self-transcendence and openness are all centered upon instruction in the church. All of these aspects are relational components to a healthy community of God (37).

It should be noted that there are different levels of pastoral care and relationships in the ministry. Oates argued, “Every pastor needs to know what to do when called upon for more complex and detailed pastoral counseling which might be characterized as one of the ‘nonmedical forms of psychoteraphy’”(42). As a nonspecialist, the pastor’s ministry cannot do away with caring for the members. As an overview, Oates specified the level of friendship, comfort, confession, and teaching as integral to pastoral counseling. The pastor as a friend needs not to be in contempt but also observes a degree of detachment to maintain relational balance, especially when there is “triangling” of opposing relationships (45-7). The pastor on the level of comfort deals with bereaved persons, dying, chronically ill, handicapped, parents of deformed and mentally ill, mentally depressed person, disappointed lovers, etc. As a comforter, the minister reminds the hurting of God’s presence and reassurance (50). The ministry of prayer ought to be appropriate, brief, relaxed, and supportive (52-3). In every aspect of pastoral ministry, there is a high degree that pastoral care is present.

Review: Thomas W. Chapman, ed., A Practical Handbook for Ministry: From the Writings of Wayne Oates (Louisville, KN: Westminster Press/John Knox Press, 1992), 3-63.