Pastoral Care: The Core of Christian Ministry by David B Pettett
Published by Ark House.
This book is about ministry. The conclusions Pettett reaches after a careful exegesis of Ephesians 4:11-12 are surprising and challenging yet convincing. The book challenges pastors to be thoroughly pastoral. It describes pastoral care as an exercise in Practical Theology and throws down the controversial challenge that pastoral care should only be exercised by those who are trained in theology.
Rather than only applying pastoral interventions to people in crisis, Pettett sees the primary aim of pastoral care is to equip the saints to build the body of Christ. He does not imply that people in crisis be left without pastoral care. He has an insightful chapter on practical listening to process and another on exercising discipline in the congregation. But for all that, Pettett suggests the idea of pastoral care has been hijacked by counselling and psychology which apply it to ministering to people in crisis. He calls on pastors of churches to make their ministries saturated with a pastoral focus.
As Eugene Peterson complained about ministers “running a church” so this book encourages ministers to be less concerned with administration, to be less focussed on management, and to be more focused on caring for God’s people. Applying illustrations from his long and varied ministry experience, Pettett encourages pastors to equip God’s people for ministry. He questions the minister who complains of not having enough time to spend with people because they are running a church.
This book does not simply present pastoral care as a ministry which equips the saints to build the body of Christ. The book suggests pastoral care is also a ministry which prepares God’s people to live as Christians in the world. Pettett says that Christians want to have a distinctively Christian voice in a secular society. He says that Christians want to be involved in public discourse and that it is the responsibility of pastors to equip God’s people with this voice.
One interesting chapter is entitled, “Getting Sunday Right”. The book does not tell is how to run a Sunday service. Rather, Pettett suggests the Sunday service should be thoroughly pastoral whatever shape it takes. The suggestion is that Sunday is about equipping God’s people, so the body of Christ is built and so that God’s people take a respected Christian voice into the public square.
Chapter Six is where Pettett gives some practical advice to pastors on pastoral counselling. He doesn’t suggest pastors become counsellors but understands they must have some basic counselling skills in caring for God’s people. The chapter is illustrated with examples of where pastors have done a horrible, even damaging, job of pastoral intervention. The skill of listening to how a person processes what is happening to them is presented as a way of pastorally caring for those facing difficulties.
The final chapter deals with pastoral discipline. I found this one of the most interesting chapters as it dealt with a biblical approach to “sharply rebuke”, as St. Paul tells Titus. Questions of excommunication are raised. Accountability and forgiveness are discussed. Frustratingly, Pettett does not give us comprehensive solutions to these issues. They are raised and we are left to think through how we might apply them in our own pastoral context.
This is a book that is a must read for every pastor. It is a book that should be in the bibliography of every course on pastoral care and every course on Christian ministry. It is a book that should
be close at hand for everybody who wants to pastorally care for God’s people. This is not a book that will give you a detailed step by step “how to” of ministry or pastoral care. It is a book that raises the issues and leaves the theologically trained pastor to work out how to focus their own ministry on pastoral care.
The book is available at any book retailer, or you can follow this link for various options:
davidbpettett.com 