Considering Grief and the Local Church

Sun, 13 Oct 2024 00:15:36 GMT

Who do we go to when life hurts?

Working as a Licensed Pastoral Counselor in Private Practice has been a very rewarding experience. Prior to starting Pine Coast Counseling I did the work of a Care Pastor at a local church. I would see hurting people, and I would see happy people. I got to see the joys, heartbreaks, losses, triumphs, and challenges of so many people. It was truly a blessing. However, I felt a lot of tension. Even as the dedicated Care Pastor, I had a lot of competing responsibilities, as is typical in pastoral ministry. I never felt that I was able to reserve or dedicate the time people needed for longer term Christian Counseling.

I certainly cannot minimize how absolutely appropriate it is for the pastor to speak into the lives of those they care for. If you are in a healthy church the pastor should be accessible to you. That being said, while your pastor may be the first person you think of to go to when life hurts, he may not always be the most appropriate immediate resource, or the resource that can devote the amount of time you may need, as I mentioned as my own experience. I’d like to take a walk with you exploring the paths upstream and downstream of the local pastor.

When death affects us and we have lost a loved one, we will (or should) find ourselves in the company of leaders of the church. Those leaders should stay involved as much as is reasonable through the immediacy of the death and through the funeral services. They will, or should, follow up with you to see how you are doing. However, more than likely they will not be able to continue to meet with you and surround you as they did in the immediate aftermath of the death. This is where the local church really becomes important. Our sadness, our tears, our cries, they can all be shouldered by our brothers and sisters in the church. This is the appropriate function of the church (Galatians 6:2), and about 90% of this kind of care can be supported by lay leaders and other members of the church. What does that other 10% look like though? Who is appropriate to handle that?

The grieving process can be complicated. On top of the death of a loved one there are many other losses that need to be recognized. Maybe it’s the loss of a companion, the loss of the plans for a future, the loss of seeing your kid grow up and graduate high school. Loss can be sudden or it can be very long and drawn out. It can be simple or complicated. You may find that months after the loss you still cannot sleep, or the feelings you get when you think of the loved one are nothing short of crippling. Maybe you’ve turned to alcohol or other destructive escapes. In these circumstances, you need to have your church family nearby, but you should also consider deeper more intentional interventions. I want to emphasize that many pastors are very capable of providing excellent care in situations like I just described. The problem comes with bandwidth. Your pastor may not be able to walk with you through your emotions week to week as he will have many competing responsibilities. If this is the case, you should ask your pastor if he has a recommendation for a trusted Christian Counselor. Pine Coast Counseling is trusted by many churches in the Southern Maine area. It may even be worth consulting with your pastor about working with me. The beauty of my work as a Licensed Pastoral Counselor is that I can provide care on a long term and regularly recurring basis. You determine how often we meet and for how long. Sometimes it can take years to move through losses, and other times it simply helpful to have a consistent and trusted voice for a shorter period of time.

Receiving competent Christ-centered Christian Counseling, whether it’s from your pastor or an independent therapist like myself, can be an incredibly valuable investment of your time, but do not neglect to seek the support of your church family. God gives His grace through all members of the body.

Thoughts on Getting Started

Sat, 28 Sep 2024 12:33:29 GMT

Getting started can often be the hardest part!

Getting started is often the most difficult part of anything worth doing. There are many reasons for this, and one could write pages and pages concerning exactly why getting started is so hard. Fear of change, fear of the future, all of the "what if?" scenarios. The list could go on and on. No matter what the fear is, however, it is important to recognize that change will occur whether we choose to be active in it or passive. “Getting started” implies actively pursuing something that will not occur otherwise. This is true. However, “getting started” also hides in various life events and seasons, and we must proactively recognize the opportunities to “get started.”

Take for instance the transition from a life of work into retirement. If you have been planning for retirement then you know the day is coming when you will no longer be working, and you will find yourself in a new season of life. What will that look like? Will you spend your time traveling? Will you become more involved at your local church, or will you spend your time volunteering in the community? Maybe you plan to be more involved with your grandchildren or other family. These are all exciting and positive things, however, retirement can be scary as well. Maybe you haven’t planned for retirement as well as you would have liked and you are worried how far your resources will take you. Maybe retiring means spending more time at home. Home isn’t the happiest place for everyone. Whether or not retirement is exciting or frightening, that change will happen and you can choose to be either an active or passive participant.

How will you get started in retirement? Will you take steps to ensure you are living the life you want to live? Do you understand your values well enough to create fulfilling goals? Or is your plan to simply hope to enjoy whatever life looks like once you are not working anymore? Retirement is a new chapter. Your story will be written one way or another, but you have to decide if you will truly have a part in it. So what? How do you “get started?”

Getting started is going to look different for everyone. For some it will be as simple as writing down their goals and taking meaningful steps toward them. Maybe you’ve always had a dream of getting your private pilot’s license (I’m definitely not speaking for myself here). You could dream about it and plan, and plan, and plan, but you’ll never get that license if you don’t make a phone call to a flight school and schedule your first lesson. Maybe your marriage has grown cold, and you’re hoping that things will change once you are done working. Maybe the will, and maybe they won’t. You could just wait and see how things pan out, or you could define your goal for marriage and take a first step of seeking out a professional Christian counselor that can help you reach that goal.

For others goals for retirement and aging might be a little more ambiguous. You might have no idea what you expect retirement to be like and have no concept of what goals you might define. You may have never even thought of retirement or aging as areas where you should set goals! How do you get started? Do you arbitrarily choose some goals? This might work out, but it might not. You may end up pursuing different things and finding that you are not fulfilled by any of them. A good first step in getting started might be to meet with someone to help you explore and identify your values. As a Christian Counselor, this is one of the most fulfilling things in my work—helping others define what is important to them, and where they find hope for the future.

All this is to say is its important to get started, and not allow retirement or aging to get started without you. Retirement can be one of the most joyful and rewarding seasons of your life, but if you don’t take ownership and control of writing this next chapter, it will be written for you. Get started today!

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Considering Grief and the Local Church

Who do we go to when life hurts?

Thoughts on Getting Started

Getting started can often be the hardest part!