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Three Anxieties

A look at pastoral care by a minister who spent six weeks flat on his back.

In this issue, we're publishing many articles on techniques and church strategy in counseling. But what of the counselor personally? What are the particular problems he or she faces?

Anxiety is one, and Ben Patterson explores in a personal way three sources of anxiety for those involved in pastoral care.

Last April 5, a Saturday, I got into my car and left home at six in the morning. I was scheduled to be the speaker at a Holy Week breakfast some eighty miles away in La Jolla, California, at the church where I had formerly been an assistant pastor. The breakfast was to begin at eight o'clock, and I wanted to give myself plenty of time to get there.

I thought the drive might take longer than usual because I expected I'd have to get out of my car periodically and stand up to relieve the pain in my leg. Lately I had developed a dull ache in my right leg whenever I sat for extended periods of time.

But this morning the ache lost its dullness. I had driven my car no more than ten minutes before ...

March
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