Modern people are becoming busier and busier. As a result, it is often difficult to meet with them unless someone contacts them first or goes to them. This is especially true in Korea, where people are often less open than Westerners. We cannot simply wait for people to come to us. We need to go to them. This is one of the essential ways I understand pastoral care.
Pastoral care is not limited to the church building or to any particular place. It should take place wherever people are, just as Jesus went to people where they were. Some people are unable to come to church. They need someone to visit them, talk with them, pray with them, and even worship with them where they are. Jesus promised that “where two or three are gathered” in His name, He is present among them. Therefore, there are countless opportunities for pastoral care that we may miss because of our stereotypical understanding that ministry must take place inside the church. I do not believe we should limit pastoral care to a particular place or narrowly defined sphere of mission.
Pastoral care is also not simply about distinguishing between religious and nonreligious people. In a broader sense, the whole person has a spiritual dimension. Human feelings such as sadness, loneliness, anger, love, and joy all have a spiritual dimension, whether a person is religious or not. Eventually, a conversation may turn toward explicitly religious matters, but that is often a process. We should first meet the person as a whole human being.
In pastoral care, I see two different approaches to ministering to individuals: the Thinking Level and the Feeling Level. Pastoral care should not be merely a head-to-head dialogue; it should be a heart-to-heart encounter.
The Thinking Level can easily become like the approach of a perfectionist. Everything is processed first in the head—in the mind and through thoughts. Every situation is analyzed and classified as right or wrong. This often produces a schoolteacher-style ministry, what I would call a Teaching Ministry Style. The minister may feel satisfied because everything has been explained clearly, but the relationship can eventually become, “I am me, and you are you.” Nothing really changes, and nothing necessarily leads to action. The ideas simply swirl around in the mind and eventually disappear like mist.
I cannot tell you how many church ministries end this way. They may be intellectually sound, but they never become effective pastoral ministry.
I once knew a Lutheran pastor who had studied philosophy as an undergraduate in the United States and theology at Concordia. He had been a pastor for twenty-three years, but he understood pastoral ministry primarily as teaching and preaching. Even his counseling was approached mainly as a process of teaching and learning. It took five people working with him for eight hours a day over three months to begin changing his philosophy of ministry toward a genuine concept of pastoral care. Even after that, it was only the beginning of his awakening.
If we understand, teach, and minister to people only with our heads, we will never truly meet their souls. The relationship may end as soon as the conversation ends.
I remember something a seminary professor once said to me: “You have a developed head, but you don’t have a developed heart, and you cannot pastor properly with that.”At the time, I did not fully understand what he meant. But later, I realized how true his words were.
Sometimes in ministry, something happens and the congregation says, “We need you.” The pastor may immediately begin thinking at the Thinking Level, working through principles, procedures, and possible solutions. A person may be suffering or even dying right in front of us, yet we continue to think this way and that way while our bodies do not move.
Hundreds of people may live and die depending on the pastoral philosophy of their pastors.
A ministry transmitted only from head to head—a ministry that continually seeks to determine what is “right” or “wrong”—may produce church members who know many things, but it will not necessarily produce people who are moved, inspired, or transformed. Knowledge alone does not make a pastor influential.
People may respect such a pastor, but sometimes they respect him simply because of the title “pastor,” not because they have been touched by his character, compassion, or philosophy of ministry. They may listen, turn around, and leave with little more than a bitter smile. Sadly, many pastors are judged in this way.
Why did people such as Jesus and Mother Teresa have such an enormous impact on the world?
I believe it was because they cared for people individually. They did not merely speak about love; they lived it. They did not minister only from their heads. They served from their hearts.
Pastoral care begins when we move beyond thinking about people and begin caring for people. It is where the head meets the heart, where knowledge becomes compassion, and where compassion moves the body to action.