Perhaps preaching, leadership, and administration keep you preoccupied, and you do not do much hands-on pastoral work. It can easily happen. Many pastors don’t make and take time for serious talking with people. In effect, they are counseling people to think that most of us don’t need the give and take of candid, constructive conversation. This absence of engagement, whether intentional or not, communicates that the care and cure of wayward, distractible, battered, immature souls—people like us—can be handled by public ministry and private devotion. The explicit wisdom of both Scripture and church history argues to the contrary.

 
In a recent JBC article entitled “The Pastor as Counselor,” David Powlison encourages and exhorts pastors to hold with serious conviction their call to engage people personally and thoughtfully in wise pastoral ministry. He writes,

During eras when church life has been vibrantly responsive to Scripture, pastors have counseled well and wisely. They have understood that their pastoral calling includes a significant ‘counseling’ component. The faith proclaimed and practiced in congregational life also finds a natural home in conversational life.

Pastor, you are a counselor.

Perhaps you don’t think of yourself that way. (And perhaps your people don’t think of you that way, either.) Perhaps you don’t want to be a counselor. But you are one.

Perhaps preaching, leadership, and administration keep you preoccupied, and you do not do much hands-on pastoral work. It can easily happen. Many pastors don’t make and take time for serious talking with people. In effect, they are counseling people to think that most of us don’t need the give and take of candid, constructive conversation. This absence of engagement, whether intentional or not, communicates that the care and cure of wayward, distractible, battered, immature souls—people like us—can be handled by public ministry and private devotion. The explicit wisdom of both Scripture and church history argues to the contrary.

Many read the article by purchasing and downloading here, but less are aware of the workshop Dr. Powlison delivered at the 2011 Gospel Coalition Conference. Starting with a defense of counseling as being every bit as much a part of the pastoral ministry as preaching, Dr. Powlison goes on to detail both the practice and the heart of this vital ministry function.

This article appeared on the Christian Counseling & Educational Foundation blog and is used with permission.