Bible Students

Introduction

Pastoral counsel is not something done in a somber room after something horrible has happened. Rather, pastoral counsel can be done through preventative care. This preventative care is done through the many ministries of the church, and is done out in the open on a person-to-person basis. Pastoral counsel (caring for souls) is practiced through the pastor’s leading of the church toward a more spiritually-healthy community. Individuals go through many seasons of difficulty, so soul care is always needed in the local church. Leading a church to take care of the souls inside and outside of it is the heart of pastoral counsel. What can the pastor lead the church to do to take care of its members and outsiders? 

4:2; What Functions of the Church are Means of Soul Care?

Soul care is the group of activities practiced by the church in order to take care of its members (and outsiders) spiritually. These include exhortation through preaching, disciple-ship groups, and counseling. The church seeks to make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28), and must take care of them in order to do that. However, churches can easily neglect the less obvious forms of soul care. While most churches participate in Sunday preaching, this can not be the only form of soul care. 

There is a difference between impersonal and personal forms of soul care. Impersonal forms of soul care include Sunday service preaching, daily devotionals recorded and sent out by the pastor, and taking a group for volunteer work. These forms of soul care do provide spiritual growth for the individual, but they are not structured for personal discipleship. The personal form of soul care is defined by personal discipleship. Where Sunday preaching is to a whole group of people and does not need to be particularly personal to one individual, personal soul care and discipleship must be targeted to one specific individual. This kind of soul care would involve one-on-one counseling, a small-group, or an accountability partner. 

Three examples of soul care in the church are preaching, small-groups, and lay-counseling. Preaching is an impersonal form of soul care, which is not directed as one individual’s needs, but to a large group. Preaching is usually more generic and universal, rather than addressing a specific issue for an individual. Preaching is the explanation of the Word, which encourages, exhorts, admonishes, and corrects its hearers. Preaching teaches about the character of God, especially as applied to the group. It demonstrates Christ’s heart for sinners and sufferers. To dwell on the character and love of God as shown throughout inspired history is an effective means of soul care. However, it can not be the only means.

Small-groups is another popular form of soul care. Small-groups are meetings with a small group of people, usually held in a casual setting, such as a home. Small-groups are more focused on a manageable group of people, where the facilitator can have a personal relationship and application for each individual in the group. The important function of small-groups is that they allow a facilitator to help apply the Word directly to the circumstances of the individuals. By nature, small-groups are personal. This personal setting is important for deliberate and personal spiritual aid, especially during times of difficulty. Moving further into personal relationships, the final example of soul care is explicitly one-on-one. 

The final example of soul care is lay-counseling and one-on-one discipleship. These functions are often seen as different functions, though they operate in the same functional space. Lay-counseling is a personal, one-on-one encouragement during times of suffering, through someone who is not a professional counselor. The lay-counselor both encourages and suffers along-side the one who is suffering. To bring someone out of the depths of suffering and encourage them both through the Word and through one’s life is incredibly important. One-on-one discipleship is similar to this. One-on-one discipleship is the coming-alongside of two individuals, usually one who is more spiritually mature and one who is less, to be encouraged and brought up in the faith. Both of these functions (lay-counseling and one-on-one discipleship) minister to the individual in focus through the Word. Both of these functions are essential functions of soul care. 

7:2, Equipping the Church for Action

In order to practice the most pressing forms of soul care in the local church, lay-Christians must be equipped for that mission. Preaching, small-groups, discipleship, and lay-counseling are all expressions of soul care, and are all forms of administering the Word through word and example. Therefore, in order to practice these functions of soul care, lay-Christians must be equipped to understand and communicate the Word, and live as an example accordingly. 

The church as a functional organization can seek to help lay-Christians in this area through creating awareness, creating space, and actively equipping lay-Christians for this work. Equipment must be end-oriented. It must be for something useful. First, the church must raise awareness of the need for soul care. In the local church there is always a need for soul care, as there is both a constant need for spiritual renewal and a constant need to uplift the downcast. Churches can raise awareness for mental health, burnout, and the reality of personal hurt through nearly all of its regular functions. Sermons, bulletins, and the mission statement can all act to raise awareness for the reality of hurt in the life of Christians. 

Second, churches can create space for these kinds of soul care to happen. For example, encouraging and hosting a weekly Saturday-morning prayer group, hiring professional Christian counselors, and popularizing small-groups all give the opportunity for the previously-mentioned soul care to take place. When churches do not create space for these functions to happen naturally, it can be difficult for the lay-Christian to go against the cultural flow toward a deeper form of discipleship. 

Finally, churches can equip their congregation for the work of soul care. If Churches expect soul care to be practiced by lay-Christians, the lay-Christians can also expect to be equipped by the church. Equipping lay-Christians can take place in a few different ways. These include sending individuals to formal education, using online platforms for free education, encouraging Bible literacy, and encouraging living life with others.

Methods of Equipping the Congregation

First, individuals can be sent to a Bible College or online seminary to have formal equipping in a particular area (for example, biblical counseling or biblical studies), for the purpose of practicing soul care toward others. Sending an individual to a Bible College usually means they will be away from the church for extended periods of time, and will effectively no longer be able to contribute to the congregation. However, Bible College can be a great place for formal education on understanding how to properly interpret and apply biblical texts, and how to practice biblical counseling. Living on campus with other individuals is a major advantage to learning how to do these activities in community. However, online seminary is also an option, which allows an individual to have a similar education while staying at the church. While formal education focuses primarily on head knowledge, it provides a proper foundation for approaching heart and hurt issues properly. However, Bible College and seminary both are expensive and time-consuming options. A less expensive option would be using an online video platform for free education.

Second, the church can use video platforms for free education. Video platforms such as YouTube allow for free content to be easily created, posted, and viewed. This is a major advantage to churches. For example, if an individual took a Bible College course on pastoral counseling they could record and post free content to YouTube based on their personal reflections and take-aways from lectures, readings, and meditation. This would allow for a free way to access the learning from someone who was formally trained in a subject, while off-setting the cost of having a whole team educated the same way. In this method, posted videos could be viewed freely by those who desire to be equipped in a particular manner. The church can post any number of topics, including how to set up and take down a room at the church used for a mid-week small-group, how to solve particular printing issues for printing lay-counseling materials at the church, how to interpret the Bible for one-on-one discipleship, and how to suffer well with those who are suffering. All of these particular contextual issues can be directly addressed for free using an online video platform. 

Third, the church can encourage Bible literacy in the congregation. This can be done by teaching Bible study methods through sermons (walking the congregation through observations, interpretation, correlation, and applications of the text) or teaching a Bible literacy course at the church. Sound biblical interpretation in the church culture is key to having lay-Christians who provide biblical soul care well. 

Finally, the church can encourage and teach the congregation how to live life well with others. This may be the most difficult and time-consuming of the methods mentioned so far. To provide proper soul care, one must know how to live life with those who are suffering. Individuals who are suffering do not only need to know the hope present in the Word of God, but also be able to live the hope alongside others who have been in similar difficulties. The church can encourage knowing how to suffer well with others through making the first example. Top-down discipleship can be used to set the example and culture for suffering well with others, through the use of church staff who disciple others. Creating a culture of proper discipleship (which includes suffering well with others) begins with the example of the church staff. 

However, no matter what the method used, one must not be deceived into believing that the power behind proper soul care comes from the individual. Rather, the power behind soul care comes from the hope given in the Word of God and the comfort given by the Spirit of God. The power of soul care comes from God, not man. 

8:4; A Culture of Depending on God

Mental health can be a sensitive topic in today’s culture, even in the church. In a typical Sunday-morning gathering, greetings can often sound like this:

“Good morning! How are you today?”

“I am well, how are you?”

“I am well also.”

This is a common interaction at churches. However, though the question seems genuine, this kind of interaction does not give way to genuine personal connection. This kind of conversation is superficial at best, and helps to create a foundation for stigma against mental and spiritual difficulties, and therefore the need for soul care. Alternative methods of medicating mental health difficulties may address the chemical problem, but may not address the outside agitator. The need for soul care is a firm reality. All individuals go through seasons of extreme difficulty, both internal and external. These seasons are difficult to express apart from personal, vulnerable relationships. 

The typical Sunday-morning greeting does not give way to a personal, vulnerable conversation. Apart from the Sunday-morning greetings, most members of a church will likely not speak to most of the other members until the following week. This lack of interaction also does not give way to the kind of personal relationships required to push back against stigma toward mental and spiritual difficulties. However, this can be compared through the functions of the church if they make a deliberate shift away from cordial relationships and toward a more God-centered community. 

If one of the major hindrances in the church is a lack of serious relationships, then the church should seek to make a place for these relationships to happen. The way to move toward vulnerability and away from cordial relationships is through a Christ-centered community. This kind of community would not be concerned about the social norm of outward contentment and mental health, but would accept the real need of all individuals for soul care. One way to introduce this real need of all individuals would be to encourage praying for others, rather than only greeting them. 

While praying for individuals may be difficult to popularize in a congregation not used to it, it may be an effective method for breaking ground toward normalizing the need for soul care. Praying for others could involve a time just after Sunday-morning worship, before the announcements, where individuals are to greet others around them. This time of regular greeting would be replaced with a time to pray a short prayer for those around. This practice may begin with superficial prayer requests (or none at all, especially if practiced in a youth room), but eventually may transition to more heart-felt prayer needs.

Regardless of the method of introducing regular soul care as a church culture norm, the foundation for making that change is dependence and vulnerability before God and His Word. To be vulnerable before other people requires that one is vulnerable before God. They must know their need, accept their need, and admit their need before God, through the use of His Word. When a congregation is centered around being vulnerable before God, they can more easily be vulnerable before each other.

Conclusion

One of the cultural problems for Christianity today is the denial of the need for soul care, even amongst Christians. All Christians need soul care, and soul care must be practiced both as a church and on the individual level. The church as an organization has a responsibility to equip lay-Christians for this work of the ministry, and lay-Christians have a responsibility to act on that. Churches and lay-Christians alike must fight against the stigma surrounding mental and spiritual difficulties through knowing, accepting, and admitting their need for soul care. 

The church as a whole has a mandate to go out and make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:16-20). Making disciples requires taking care of individuals. To care for people well, churches must be aware of the tools God has given them, know how God has equipped them to use the tools, and fight stigma against mental health and spiritual difficulties. All people suffer, including Jesus (John 11:35). Jesus sought out the broken and desired to help them. If the church is going to abide by the Great Commission, they must also seek to love on those who are hurting. 

Bibliography

Johnson, T. Dale, Jr. The Church as a Culture of Care. Greensboro, NC. New Growth Press, 2021.

Kellemen, Bob & Jeff Forrey. Scripture and Counseling. Grand Rapids, MI. Zondervan, 2014.

Vairs, Steven. Loving Your Community. Grand Rapids, MI. Baker Books, 2020.