Different people respond better to different motivations. Some congregants respond better to warnings, a firm-but-loving exhortation and gentle rebuke; others respond better to promises, encouragement and indirect admonition. All of this is bound up in personality type, spiritual condition and background. A combination of those factors tends to shape the way in which particular congregants respond to scriptural and pastoral motivation for growth and change.

Pastoral care is exceedingly complex. In seminary, our professors taught us to labor to become discriminating preachers–that is, men who preach to different categories of hearers in the congregation. In any assembly it is fairly certain that there will be present hard-hearted hearers, spiritually mature believers, believers with wounded consciences, etc. Additionally, there are husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, children, singles, etc. This means that the applications of Scripture must be pinpointed to specific people living in specific situations. The same is true in pastoral ministry. Pastors need to become discriminating pastors.

We must abandon any idea of “mechanistic pastoral ministry.” Far too many adopt a “slot machine’ approach to ministry–just put the coin in and pull the handle. Rather, pastoral ministry takes a keen knowledge of the personalities, life-situations and struggles of congregants. When the Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Thessalonica, he charged the whole congregation to  “warn those who are unruly, comfort the fainthearted, uphold the weak, be patient with all” (1 Thess. 5:14). Here are five categories to keep in mind when laboring to become a discriminating pastor:

1. Different personalities. Introverts and extroverts respond differently to direct pastoral interaction. This is important to keep in mind when seeking to pastor members of a congregation. If you know that someone is more introverted, you know that they are more apt to keep discontentments in. Extroverts tend to let it all out. In some ways, pastoring extroverts can be easier for a pastor who is an extrovert because you can more often directly address issues that you know are issues. This is not always the case, as different spiritual conditions and levels of maturity are contributing facts. Still, it is good for a pastor to consider the personality type of the congregant(s) he is seeking to pastor. For a bit of a developed treatment of this aspect of ministry, see this post.

2. Different spiritual conditions. This is arguably the most significant factor to discriminating pastoral ministry. If you have a spiritually weak believer, you will have to seek to approach him or her with a great deal more prayer, patience, wisdom and skill than you may need with a more spiritually strong believer. Spiritually strong believers tend to receive rebuke, correction or instruction more quickly and with less diplomacy than is true of spiritually weak believers. Spiritually weak believers tend to get their pride wounded–rather than crushed–far more quickly than spiritually strong believers.

Jack Miller’s orphan/son paradigm is helpful in sorting through the spiritual condition of the men or women you are seeking to pastor. If someone has forgotten their sonship, they will live like orphans. In the physical world, orphans tend to labor to take everything into their own hands. Since they have not had a father, they do not tend to take directions well. Sons, by way of contrast, have grown up under the leadership, loving discipline and instruction of a father. Sons tend to take instruction and correction better than orphans.

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