Crossway, 2021, 76pp
In this little work, David
Powlison underlines the uniqueness of pastoral counselling. All pastors are
counsellors, but their counselling ministry is distinct from others who offer a
‘talking cure’ to distressed individuals. Pastoral counselling is about soul
care, that ‘art of arts’ that aims at helping form people into mature and
fruitful followers of Jesus. Pastors are not to maintain a professional
distance from those they seek to counsel. Pastoral counselling is part and
parcel of the minister’s close relationship with members of the flock he is
called to serve.
The pastor’s counselling may
take place in snatched conversations at the fringes of church life, where he
asks people how they are doing and seeks to encourage them in the Lord. When
bereavement, family breakdown or other forms of suffering strike, the
counselling will be more intensive. Similarly, when a pastor gives support to a
believer who is engaged in a massive struggle with temptation and sin.
In all these things the pastor offers counsel
not as an expert with all the answers, but as a fellow-sufferer and
fellow-sinner. The work is to be carried out in God-dependent prayer, as the
minister endeavours to apply the teaching of Scripture to the troubled soul.
Personal counselling is not an alternative to public preaching. It is an
extension of the pastor’s calling as a minister of the word of God in the
service of the people of God.
*Reviewed for the Banner of Truth Magazine
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