A Shepherd's Message

03 Wednesday Dec 2014

Posted by admin in Advent, Arkansas Conference, Bible, Pastoral Care, United Methodist Church

There are many bishops, with many different gifts. I’ve always thought that the greatest gift a bishop can have is to be a true pastor to the pastors under his charge. Here is a remarkable example of that virtue in the person of my bishop in the Arkansas Conference, Bishop Gary Mueller:

The Apostle Peter teaches the presbyters of the church that they are to “shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you.” He also says that the church’s leaders are not to do this for personal gain or through an appetite for power. Rather, they are to be “examples to the flock” (1 Peter 5:2-3).

In this season of Advent when we have so much for which to be thankful, I am thankful for a bishop with a pastor’s heart—who has a deep and abiding love for his pastors which flows from his deep and abiding love for Jesus Christ.

From Wesley's pen — May 12, 1759

28 Tuesday Oct 2014

Posted by admin in Christianity & Culture, John Wesley, JW Journal, Pastoral Care

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John Wesley had a lifelong interest in medicine. He made medical advice and pharmaceuticals available to the poor in a number of ways during his ministry. He also believed that a human being was fundamentally a union of body & soul, so he thought that salvation should have to do with both the material and spiritual aspects of human life.

One of the areas that Wesley showed real foresight was the way in which he grasped the psychosomatic aspects of illness. That is, he realized that the mental and emotional parts of human experience could often play a role in physical symptoms. If we want to treat the body, Wesley knew, we have to treat the soul as well. There is a deep interconnectedness between body and soul.

Take this entry from Wesley’s journal as an example, where he comments on the condition of a woman he met and the limitations of the standard medical treatments of his day:

“Reflecting today on the case of a poor woman who had a continual pain in her stomach, I could not but remark the inexcusable negligence of most physicians in cases of this nature. They prescribe drug upon drug, without knowing a jot of the matter concerning the root of the disorder. And without knowing this they cannot cure, though they can murder the patient.”

The problem with most physicians, Wesley argues, is that they want to treat the body like a broken machine. They don’t have an adequate understanding of the way in which stress, anxiety, depression, traumatic experiences, and the like can manifest themselves through bodily ailments. A proper diagnosis—and treatment!—requires a deeper understanding of illness. Wesley goes on:

“Whence came this woman’s pain? (Which she would never have told, had she never been questioned about it.) From fretting for the death of her son. And what availed medicines while that fretting continued? Why then do not all physicians consider how far bodily disorders are caused or influenced by the mind? And in those cases which are utterly out of their sphere, call in the assistance of a minister—as ministers, when they find the mind disordered by the body, call in the assistance of a physician?”

This is a good example of Wesley’s concern for holistic health and healing. Today, of course, we’d add to his two examples of the physician and the minister: nutritionists, psychologists, pastoral counselors, strong friendships, and a supportive faith community all play a big role in how we can be healthy and whole persons. The Wesleyan insight into the body-soul union is not always appreciated even today, though, and that’s a good reason to take his pastoral wisdom to heart.

Do you have thoughts on this issue? Experiences of your own that relate to it? Feel free to share below.

[This post is part of an ongoing series that highlights important themes that emerge in the Journal that John Wesley published throughout his adult life. For other posts in the series, click here.]

Pastoral Care in the Wesleyan Tradition

13 Thursday Feb 2014

Posted by admin in Pastoral Care, Theological Education, Wesleyan Theology, Wesleyan Tradition

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What does pastoral care look like when viewed through a Wesleyan lens?

That’s a question that my colleague Dr. Lee Ramsey and I have been engaged with over the past year. Lee and I serve on the faculty together at Memphis Theological Seminary. He teaches pastoral care & preaching, and I teach church history & Wesleyan studies. We’re both also ministers in the United Methodist Church—Lee currently serves as pastor of Elm Grove United Methodist Church in Burlison, Tennessee, and I am on the staff of Marion United Methodist Church in Marion, Arkansas.

About a year ago, Lee approached me about the possibility of a project to investigate the understanding of pastoral care embedded in the theology and practices of early Methodism. His idea was naturally interesting to me, and it immediately suggested the intersection of a number of topics: the history of early Methodism, John Wesley’s theology, the contemporary discipline of pastoral care, and the practice of Christian discipleship. I’ve long been convinced that Wesley’s account of the significance of Christian community for faithful discipleship is one of his signal contributions to Christian theology. So my initial impulse was to go into our joint investigation with an eye for how that aspect of Wesley’s thought might bear on a Wesleyan understanding of pastoral care.

Click here for a look at a seminary course in “Pastoral Care in the Wesleyan Tradition”

Lee and I share a belief in the value of the “communal-contextual” model of pastoral care articulated by Dr. John Patton in his book, Pastoral Care in Context. That paradigm for pastoral care emphasizes the role of the caring community within pastoral care—with “caring community” being a congregation or some subset of it. The communal-contextual paradigm also sees as significant the role that various contextual factors play in the giving and receiving of care. By “context,” we would mean considerations such as: social factors like gender, race, and power dynamics; the need to recognize that theological commitments always play a role in the giving and receiving of care (and hence there is always an underlying theological context at play, whether recognized or not); or the concern to care for whole persons in all their particularity (as opposed to treating isolated diseases or dysfunctions). Much has been written about communal and contextual considerations within pastoral care in the last 30 years or so, even if the clinical-therapeutic paradigm that was so dominant throughout most of the 20th century still has a lot of influence as well.

Dr. Lee Ramsey / Photo courtesy of the Center for Transforming Communities

When we set about to investigate pastoral care in the Wesleyan tradition, we had a number of interests. One was an historical interest in discerning where pastoral care was occurring in early Methodism itself—the forms it took, the counsel offered by Wesley and others about it, and the theology that underlay it. Another interest was in exploring the secondary literature written in the past few decades on topics ranging from Wesleyan pastoral care & counseling to health & medicine in Methodist history. (We were surprised early on to find that little has been written at anything longer than the length of a journal article. There are exceptions, but not many.) Finally we were interested in what kind of benefit a “traditioned” look at pastoral care might offer for the practice of pastoral care in the present. In other words, what might a specifically Wesleyan approach to pastoral care provide in terms of resources and possibilities for the church today? I see our project as falling within Dr. Patton’s account of the communal-contextual paradigm, but I also think our focus on a particular theological tradition gives what we are doing a unique flavor.

In the past year, the work in which Lee and I have engaged has developed (or is in the process of developing) a number of outcomes. One of these is some joint writing we’ve been doing that has been both enjoyable and enlightening. (I’ll likely post about this angle in more detail at a later date.) The outcome that is taking up most of our time at present is a course we are co-teaching at Memphis Theological Seminary this Spring semester entitled, “Pastoral Care in the Wesleyan Tradition.” In the course, we are inviting students to consider historical and contemporary expressions of pastoral care through a Wesleyan framework. You can see the syllabus for the course at this link.

We’re only three weeks into our Spring semester, so it’s probably too early to tell how well our course will go. But the early returns look good. Beyond that, we’ve also got a lot more reading and writing to do before we’ll feel like we’ve done justice to the topic itself. It’s been wonderfully fruitful, though, and this project has shown me how enjoyable cross-disciplinary work can be. My hope is that we’ll have something concrete to offer for pastors and laity by the time it’s all said and done.

Pastoral Care and Wesley's Methodism

15 Saturday Jun 2013

Posted by admin in Church History, John Wesley, JW Journal, Pastoral Care, Wesleyan Tradition

≈ 4 Comments

I’ve written in the past about how instructive John Wesley’s Journal can be for understanding ministry in the present. Reading Wesley’s Journal is a part of my daily spiritual discipline, which also includes Scripture reading and prayer. And not uncommonly I will come across a real gem.

Take the following passage for example, which is from the year 1774:

[Wednesday, November 16th.] In the evening, I returned to Norwich. Never was a poor society so neglected as this has been for the past year. The morning preaching was at an end, the bands suffered all to fall in pieces, and no care at all taken of the classes, so that whether they met or not, it was all one. Going to church and Sacrament were forgotten, and the people rambled hither and thither as they listed.

On Friday evening, I met the society and told them plain I was resolved to have a regular society or none. I then read the Rules and desired everyone to consider whether he was willing to walk by these Rules or no. Those in particular of meeting their class every week, unless hindered by distance or sickness (the only reasons for not meeting which I could allow), and being constant at church and Sacrament, I desired those who were so minded to meet me the next night, and the rest to stay away. The next night, we had far the greater part, on whom I strongly enforced the same thing. Sunday 20, I spoke to every leader concerning everyone under his care and put out every person whom they could not recommend to me. After this was done, out of 204 members 174 remained. And these points shall be carried if only fifty remain in the society.”

This entry is remarkable for a number of reasons. For one, you see so many components of what Wesley believed authentic discipleship to be about—even though here he is being critical because in the Norwich Society at the time they seem to be falling apart. He talks about the regular morning preaching in the local Society, and he refers to the dedication to go “to church and Sacrament.” He also mentions the General Rules as the foundation of common life within the Society, as well as the bedrock small groups in which most Methodists met: classes and bands. And he alludes to the crucially important role played by class leaders in maintaining discipline and providing regular pastoral guidance for the members of the Society.

I would argue that this Journal entry is really about pastoral care. It is a reflection by Wesley on the kind of pastoral work necessary to help guide and sustain a group of people in their discipleship, as they strive to love God and one another. As usual, Wesley does not mince words on what he thought such a process required. As he says, he was “resolved to have a regular society or none.” The logic behind such a view may seem harsh on the surface, but it is actually full of compassion.

You see, in Wesley’s mind, we actually do spiritual harm to people if we allow them to delude themselves into thinking they are pursuing the way of salvation when they are actually just treading water spiritually (or worse—sinking so subtly they don’t realize they are drowning!). So the proper pastoral approach is to discipline your people, but to do so pastorally. You display for them all the resources of ministry that your community has to offer. And then you allow them to decide if they really want to be a part of that. If they do, then there is a reason for rejoicing. If they don’t, then you allow them to do something else. But what you don’t do is waste everyone’s time and allow them to believe anything spiritually beneficial is occurring through their nominal connection to a form of discipleship that requires a full bodied commitment.

Read the Journal entry again, and then think about your own church. How do we practice truly Wesleyan pastoral care today?

The Church and Motherhood

12 Sunday May 2013

Posted by admin in Baptism, Ecclesiology, Pastoral Care

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In September of 2010, my wife, Emily, gave birth to our first child, a daughter named Alice. This past February, we had twins. Their names are Stuart and Anna Charlotte.

I am finding fatherhood to be a singularly remarkable experience.

Like many new parents, I’ve experienced the wonder at new life, the thankfulness for the blessings of God and the intense love for a child of my own making.

But one of the most remarkable parts of all of it is in witnessing the relationship of mother and baby. Never was this impressed upon me more than when I saw Alice and Emily together in the days and weeks after Alice’s birth.

From conception to birth, and from birth to the present day, Alice has relied on her mom for everything she needs. In the broad sense, all life is a gift from God. But in the narrower and even biological sense, life is a gift that a mother gives her child.

To be present at each stage along the way is to bear witness to this astounding reality. Human babies are among the most helpless of all God’s creatures, both at birth and for a long time afterward. Without the enormous investment of the mother’s love, they simply couldn’t survive.

I’m not trying to diminish my own role in Alice’s life, or any father’s role in the life of his child. But I am saying that the order of creation puts mothers in a unique place with respect to the welfare of their children. For life and for the sustenance that life requires, the mother’s role is indispensable.

Necessary to faith

This recognition can give us a key insight into our connection to the church. We too often tend to see the church in functional terms: as a voluntary association, helpful to the Christian life in a variety of practical and spiritual ways but not absolutely necessary to our faith.

But the functional view of the church is a deep error, best seen when we look at how the church is understood as our mother in Scripture and tradition. In fact, the motherhood of the church is one of the most needed Christian teachings we should seek to better understand in the present.

The New Testament sees the church as the “New Jerusalem” that God is establishing to serve as the home for all his people. The Apostle Paul speaks of the church in this way when he says that, whereas those still under the law are in chains, “the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother” (Galatians 4:26).

The church’s motherhood is established first because the church is the bride of Jesus Christ. So in Revelation, John of Patmos tells us, “I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband” (Revelation 21:2).

We experience the church’s motherhood in our own lives first through baptism. Our confession about baptism is that it is a sign of new birth, which comes through water and the Holy Spirit. Baptism is a birth that comes through a sacrament of the church, so that the church is the mother of all Christian men and women.

Feeding her children

The early church fathers recognized the significance of the church as mother in a way we often do not. St. Augustine, for instance, writes that “those born of [the] flesh are not Christians, but become such afterwards through the motherhood of the Church.”

But the motherhood of the church extends beyond the sacrament of baptism as well. Just as a mother feeds her newborn baby by her own body, the church feeds her children through Scripture, prayer and especially through Holy Communion.

Life is given to us through our baptism, and the sustenance that life requires thereafter is given through the ministry of the church throughout our earthly sojourn.

If we reflect on the church as the mother who gives us birth and nurtures us as we travel the journey of our lives, we can begin to reverse the long and unfortunate trend to see the church as an optional part of our faith. It is the church that gives us the food of salvation.

That conviction seems especially appropriate now, and indeed at all times for Christians who await the coming of Jesus Christ, who is himself the bridegroom and who shows us the way to the New Jerusalem.

[Originally appeared in the United Methodist Reporter on November 24, 2010. The current form has been slightly altered from the original. Used by permission.]

The calm assurance of faith

07 Thursday Feb 2013

Posted by admin in Assurance, Jesus Christ, Pastoral Care

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My wife Emily and I are spending our final night at Methodist Germantown Hospital following the birth of our twins — Stuart and Anna Charlotte. Our little critters were born on Tuesday night around 10:15 pm. Experiencing the birth of one’s child is an awe-inspiring thing; I wrote on my Twitter account earlier today that there is a great deal of theology wrapped up in the experience of caring for newborn infants — it’s just that it is so visceral it is hard to put into words.

I ought to write more about parenting on this blog in general. But what I want to write about tonight is a certain part of our experience at this hospital in particular. We are in the Women’s & Children’s Pavilion here at Methodist Germantown, a wing of the hospital that was opened in 2010. It is a wonderful facility with a wonderful staff. The care we have received from physicians, nurses, housekeepers, and other folks has been remarkable. Having a child (and especially twins!) is an anxiety-filled task. So being shepherded by caring and skilled people makes the entire process much easier.

There’s one other aspect of what Methodist stands for that I wanted to highlight as well. It has been as important to me as the staff. And some of it is represented by the photos that accompany this blog post (which I took with my phone and which are all from different places in the hospital). There are statements of the Christian orientation of the hospital everywhere: from crosses in each room, to Scripture passages in hallways, to a wonderful series of drawings of Christ and the Apostles in the hall leading to the cafeteria.

The Apostle Andrew

All these items are quiet reminders that the work of the hospital is done out of the Christian calling to care for the bodies and souls of needful people. And as I have walked these halls over the past 48 hours, they have been a reminder to me that God is present here and caring for us and everyone else here. That has been incredibly reassuring to me.

Deuteronomy 33:27 says, “The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms.” It is a good thing to be reminded of that, especially in times and places of real vulnerability.

Andrew C. Thompson

Category Archives: Pastoral Care