If we aren’t making a difference beyond our walls, are we the church? But if we are making a difference, there’s going to be battle fatigue.
—Paul Anderson
A few years ago, our church began to catch the vision: Christ our Lord was sending us out to be his agents in the fight against evil, suffering, and brokenness.
That was about the time churches in our community began to take more seriously our responsibility to the local needy. We started small, first opening a simple food pantry at one church, offering food once a week. Eventually sixteen churches were offering help several times a week.
We also “converted” a bar so that we could feed and minister to the homeless, destitute, and street people. Next a home was opened to disciple men who became Christians and wanted their lives changed. A women’s home is now in the planning stage.
Our church became acquainted with the staffs at the local Alcohol Recovery Center and Eating Disorders Clinic. We were eventually asked to start a chaplaincy program at the hospital, as well as a Sunday morning worship service.
In addition, a twelve-step group was established at our church to help recovering alcoholics strengthen their roots in Christ. Another group worked with the sexually abused.
We continue to look for other ways to advance the gospel beyond the church walls.
We’d realized anew that Jesus does not want us to minister just to transplanted Lutherans but also to the poor and lost. So, pastoral care mainly meant getting people ready for battle. Our church was first and foremost an army barracks, from which members go out, march against the forces of evil, and establish outposts for the kingdom in enemy territory.
This concept is certainly justified by Scripture, from Jesus’ strong words “Go, therefore …” to the eloquent model of Paul’s ministry. But it took me awhile before I discovered that pastoral care was bigger than rushing people through basic training and sending them off to war.
War Makes for Heroes
Not that the church as army barracks has nothing to offer the church. There are many practical advantages to emphasizing this aspect of pastoral care.
• People are drawn into action. Recently I asked the man who heads our ministry called “The Crossing” what experience he had to equip him for work with street people. He answered, “None; just availability.” He also encourages others to make themselves available to God and then see what happens.
This man recognizes the spiritual battle going on. He’s not going to wait around until he gets training for every contingency. He doesn’t want to squander a minute, so even if he’s not fully prepared, he’s willing to do something. When people see the church engaged in spiritual warfare, they are more willing to be drawn into ministry outside the church.
• People squabble less about nonessentials. Soldiers complain about their food when they are in training. On the front lines, where far more critical issues are at stake, it’s no big deal if you find an ant in your stew.
The church that isn’t dealing with life-and-death matters eventually squabbles about relatively insignificant things—like what color to paint the kitchen or which room to let the Boy Scout troop use. When a church is engaged in front-line ministries, people are less concerned about niceties on the home front.
• People are more willing to sacrifice. Just as soldiers on the front lines often build up a high tolerance for pain and more willingly perform the heroic act, so are front-line Christians more willing to sacrifice for their Lord and one another.
Because of his concern for needy people and his love for God, Ed has poured himself into a ministry with the poor in our community. In the morning, before going to his job, he often stops at the church to attend to some matter of this ministry. After work he sometimes goes straight to church, often working for three hours or so.
Once I expressed to his wife my concern that Ed might exhaust himself. She replied, “Nobody will burn out Ed.” And it’s true; he’s been going at it like this for years now.
It is clear to me, then, that my pastoral-care ministry includes deploying the church “militant.”
Battle Fatigue
For a while our army barracks contained no infirmary. We sought to be sensitive to needy people, but we were not aware of how much some of our soldiers were hurting.
A young man gifted in finances took over our bookkeeping and joined the church council. John spent countless hours cleaning up our books and helping establish better financial policies.
Everyone appreciated his work, except John’s wife. John had been spending so much time at church, his family life began to suffer. His wife particularly resented his being away from the home so much. Finally, she said she had had enough, and John’s involvement came to a screeching halt.
Things are better now. His wife, in fact is more involved than John these days. But for a time, they were a wounded family.
I recently learned a song, “I am a wounded soldier, but I will not leave the fight.” I like the song, but I fear for the corporal who badly needs treatment yet keeps on righting. We had more of that kind than I cared to realize.
And I was one of them. Over the years I began to notice that some of my dreams of spiritual victories had to yield to hard reality. I have been tempered by personal defeat (I am not getting holy as fast as I planned to), by family loss (two believing sisters were divorced by their husbands, one a minister, altogether involving seven children), by unanswered prayers (my father died of cancer despite the fervent prayers of many, and our fourth child died shortly before birth in spite of our confidence that “this birth is going to be easier”).
I love the ministry, but it’s a lot harder than I previously thought. I still talk about victory and glory. But I talk more about the Cross, more about suffering for Christ’s sake. I’m still a fighter, but I’ve come to see that the church must be more than an army barracks, where soldiers are trained to go out from victory to victory. It’s also an infirmary, a hospital where those bruised in battle and battered by life can receive the healing touch of the Great Physician.
Pastoral care must emphasize both aspects, and that meant opening up an infirmary.
Hospital Benefits
Besides comforting and consoling people, viewing the church as a hospital for hurting persons has other benefits.
• People more readily admit their neediness. A few years ago, I would not have told the congregation that I sometimes fight with my wife and seriously struggle in my faith. My reasoning probably went something like this: “If they are to imitate me as I imitate Christ, then I had better be careful what they’re imitating.”
People, however, could not identify with me or my wife because we were thought to have a model marriage, a together family, and an ever victorious Christian life. The guy in the pew who was struggling with pornography could not brave coming to the pastor when he kept hearing about the call to holiness. He was sure that the leadership didn’t ever battle with such problems.
However, when I was finally willing to embrace the idea that the church is a hospital for sinners, including me, and talk honestly about my Christian walk in my preaching, teaching, and counseling, my people opened up themselves. As Lisa, a young mother who grew up in the congregation, put it: “We thought that you and the elders had it together. We were afraid to talk about our problems.” Now they’re talking, and they are getting the help they need.
One young mother said after a counseling session with my wife and me, “A few years ago, people were considered weirdoes if they were getting counseling. No more, thank goodness.”
• People more readily seek help. For some time we’ve announced that following each worship service, people can come to the prayer chapel to be prayed for by another. There was a time when no one would show, but that seldom happens anymore. People are realizing they can come for prayer and not be suspected of some serious perversion or problem.
We held a seminar on sexual abuse three years ago. The honesty of David, the speaker, who shared his battles with homosexuality, crime, drugs, sex, and abuse opened the door for others. Longstanding members of the church came forward for prayer, people who never before had told me about their histories in these areas. A support group was formed to help the sexually abused.
Other groups have since formed to address different needs. Some men who are new believers meet weekly to go through a twelve-step program. Some young mothers who get weary of the little ones knocking on their knees meet for mutual support.
• Preaching can address the tender side of humanity. How a pastor speaks to his people depends upon how he views them. Are they primarily haughty or hungry?
I used to love it when my father, also a pastor, would scold people on Sundays. I would say to myself. Give it to them, Dad. They deserve it. And in my army barracks mentality, I tended toward scolding or bold challenges: “If we take Jesus seriously, we will_______. So let’s put aside our excuses and go out and do it, as Christ commands!”
But I’ve discovered that many people respond more readily to a shepherd than a drill sergeant. Besides, I’ve listened to enough stories from my parishioners and endured sufficient personal trials to understand that sin is both rebellion and bondage. Formerly, I assumed the willful disobedience of people when I preached; now I remember that many people want to change but feel they can’t. Sometimes it’s better to say, “We take Jesus seriously, but still we find it hard to follow. Let Christ take your hand; he’ll help you through your struggles and enable you to do what he commands.”
Hospitals Can Make People Sick
As healthy as a hospital can be, if it becomes the sole image of the church, it can begin to make people spiritually sick.
• The war may get put on hold. I could become a full-time doctor of souls. Needs abound. As soon as I meet one crisis, three more surface on the other side of town.
We are grateful for our ministry to people recovering from chemical abuse. Yet these people, who sometimes remain unstable as they recover, can live from one crisis to the next. When they are evicted from their apartments, they need counseling and then help finding new apartments and moving. When family tensions erupt, as they inevitably will during recovery, people need intervention. I can easily put in three days dealing with a series of crises like this, and afterwards, I’m hardly ready to prepare a sermon or preach.
We’ve learned to link such people with caring members of the church. That helps, but the fact remains: the infirmary never empties. Pastors can become so taken up with running a clinic that they never get out to lead their people into new battles.
• Front-line fighters may feel ignored. People who reach out to the homeless or alcoholics or the lost, who are on the front lines of ministry, may lose their will to fight and sacrifice if they feel the church is primarily interested in those who show up in worship.
“The pastor now has more time for them than he does for us,” one front-line soldier in my congregation said to her friend one day. Naturally, people on the front also need the pastor’s oversight and the congregation’s affirmation to keep them going.
• A hospital can become a cozy place. It’s a lot easier to have three meals a day served to you in bed than to trudge through the jungle in army boots. Sick people get sympathy cards and candy. They are forgiven for being irresponsible. Some actually prefer the enema to the enemy.
A former navy officer told me the “purpose of the medical corps is to keep as many men at as many guns for as many days as possible.” After care is given, a soldier has stamped on his medical jacket ATC (all treatment complete) or AETC (all essential treatment complete). AETC means a soldier can be put back into action even if not fully recovered. Then, if there is a lull in the fighting, he can return for further treatment.
The ultimate purpose of Christian hospital care is to get people fit to fight again. As needy sinners, they’ll never be stamped ATC, at least until the parousia. But AETC is good enough to reenter the ranks for Christ in this life.
• Care can become faddish. With so many seeking counseling, some people actually wonder if something is wrong if they don’t have something to talk to a psychologist about. Yet most people don’t need constant hospital care. Sure they get discouraged or resentful or listless. But they probably don’t need therapy; they need simply to pray more fervently or forgive more readily or get out of their easy chairs more often.
How many wars would an army win if 50 percent of their troops were in the infirmary? We must bring our people the healing that comes from the Cross and then help them walk in health, so they can fight as soldiers of Jesus Christ.
Both the Barracks and the Bedside
So for our church it must be both—hospital and army barracks. If we aren’t making a difference beyond our walls, are we the church? But if we are making a difference, there will be battle fatigue. If we aren’t sensitive to both, soon we’ll be fighting each other instead of the enemy.
The good news is that it is not impossible to emphasize both. Some of our best soldiers, in fact, are those who are most recently out of the infirmary. And some soldiers find that visiting the hospital makes them better soldiers.
No one has brought more people to church in the last year than Kathy and Oli. These two women have plenty of friends in the AA group they attend, and one by one they bring them in. For example, Oli worked with a Native American woman who had attempted suicide, was desperately trying to survive, but who also had begun recovering from alcoholic abuse.
At the same time, Oli and Kathy know they are far from whole. They lose occasional battles and need encouragement to carry on. So they return to us regularly on an “outpatient” basis. They receive counseling and participate in support groups.
Oli and Kathy show me that it is not only desirable but possible to keep my pastoral care moving back and forth between the bedside and the battlefield.
Copyright © 1990 by Christianity Today
