The challenges of pastoral counseling in rural America : shaping a biblical response

2017·1.5 MB·English

by  Kipp, Adam

THE CHALLENGES OF PASTORAL COUNSELING IN RURAL AMERICA:
SHAPING A BIBLICAL RESPONSE

A THESIS-PROJECT
SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF
GORDON-CONWELL THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY

IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE
DOCTOR OF MINISTRY

BY
ADAM KIPP
MAY 2017
Copyright © 2017 by Adam Kipp. All Rights Reserved.
CONTENTS

LIST OF TABLES vi
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS vii
ABSTRACT viii
Chapter
1. THE PROBLEM IN ITS SETTING 1
The Call 1
Defining “Rural” 3
The Reality of Rural Ministry 8
Hypothesis 11
2. PROJECT DESIGN AND RESULTS, PART 1: GATHERING DATA 13
The Need for More Information 13
Connecting with Rural Pastors 14
Putting Together the Survey 15
Offering the Survey 18
Survey Results 18
Conclusion 26
3. THEOLOGICAL FOUNDATION 28
Pastoral Counseling and 1 Peter 5:1-4 28
Background 30
Be Shepherds 34
Not Because . . . But Because 43
iii
When the Chief Shepherd Appears 49
Pastors as Shepherds 52
4. LITERATURE REVIEW 54
Potential Resources 54
Counseling Books 55
Rural Ministry Books 62
Pastoral Care Books 68
Literature Review Summary 74
5. PROJECT OVERVIEW: A RURAL PASTOR’S GUIDE 75
An Unmet Need in Rural America 75
The Purpose of the Quick Reference Guide for Rural Pastors 76
Issues Faced by Rural Pastors 77
Balancing Information and Views 80
Designed with Rural Pastors in Mind 81
Rural Pastor’s Quick Reference Guide to Pastoral Counseling 83
Evaluation Process 83
6. OUTCOMES 85
Feedback on the Rural Pastor’s Guide 85
Areas for Further Study 90
Appendix
A PASTORAL SURVEY 93
B A QUICK REFERENCE GUIDE FOR RURAL PASTORS 97

iv
C REQUEST FOR FEEDBACK ON THE RURAL PASTOR’S GUIDE
TO PASTORAL COUNSELING 121
BIBLIOGRAPHY 124
VITA 129

v
TABLES

Table 1: Pastoral counseling issues encountered in the course of ministry 19
Table 2: Top five most common counseling issues 22
Table 3: Pastors’ perceptions about preparedness 23
Table 4: Hours spent counseling per week 24
Table 5: Pastoral counseling issues ranked by top responses 79

vi
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank my faithful advisor, Gordon Isaac, for making time for my
questions and guiding me along the way. Thanks too to my professors David Currie and
Kenneth Swetland for their help and inspiration over the past four years. Thanks to Dave
Dillon for helping me think through what questions to ask and how to ask them and to
Bryan Auday for helping find great information in the seas of data I gathered. A heartfelt
and sympathetic thanks goes out to my editor, Linda Triemstra Cook, for wrestling my
prose into something presentable. A great thanks to Grace Bible Church, as well as my
mom and dad, for supporting, encouraging, and praying for me throughout my continuing
education. A special thanks to my friend and mentor, Ron Klassen, for helping me catch a
vision for the small places in America. Last and most important of all, thank you to my
loving wife, Cara, for being with me every step of the way.

vii
ABSTRACT

The goal of this thesis-project is to provide a deeper understanding of the pastoral
counseling challenges faced by rural ministers and to create a resource to aid them in
addressing those challenges. This thesis begins by defining rural and painting a picture of
the current state of rural America. This is followed up by a survey of rural pastors
focusing on the issues and struggles they encounter in the course of their ministry, the
results of which show that rural pastors are faced with a large breadth of issues that they
do not feel prepared to address as pastoral counselors. This thesis then explores Peter’s
calling for pastors to serve as shepherds of God’s flock, including the need for pastoral
care, even if it is not easy. Next it explores the array of resources potentially available to
rural pastors to help them as pastoral counselors, although few works are available that
meet the specific needs of rural pastors. Finally a quick reference counseling guide was
put together with rural ministry specifically in mind. This guide addresses five of the
most common issues faced by rural pastors: depression, worry, conflict, anger, and abuse.
Critical reviews from five rural pastors show that the reference guide would be a
welcome help and encouragement to rural pastors.
viii
CHAPTER ONE
THE PROBLEM IN ITS SETTING

The Call
I can still remember where I was when the idyllic world of pastoral ministry in a
rural context came crumbling down around me. It was my day off, and I was outside in
the back yard raking leaves on a sunny fall afternoon. My wife called out to me that I
needed to come in, now. A young woman in our church had just attempted suicide by
overdose. Her husband had found her, and the paramedics were on their way. I was
shocked and at a loss for words when I talked to the husband. The best I could come up
with was, “I’ll come over and we can talk in a bit after the paramedics clear out.” But
what would we talk about? What was I supposed to do? What was I supposed to say? I
had no idea. I had never dealt with anything like this.
I was fresh out of seminary with barely a year of experience under my belt. I had
come out of school ready to change the world and was passionate to preach the word (2
Tim 4:2). Up until that point, my ministry had been preaching on Sunday, teaching in
Sunday school, and teaching in youth group. In seminary I had a large number of classes
focused on equipping me to do just that: five classes in Greek, four classes in Hebrew, six
classes on systematic theology, four classes on preaching, and classes covering every
book of the Bible. But in that moment all of those classes seemed to fall short of what I
needed.
In seminary I had only one class on counseling. It focused on driving home a
balanced approach to counseling by integrating psychological and biblical truths in a
1
theoretical way. There was never anything even close to a discussion on “when someone
in your congregation attempts suicide, this is what you should do.” To be fair, classes
addressing those issues were offered in seminary, but they were electives rather than
required courses. The difficult truth is that professors could have recommended those
classes on pastoral counseling all they wanted, but I was determined to fill up my
electives with classes focusing on things that seemed more important to me at the time:
preaching, leadership, and church planting. In seminary I did not have a concept of the
personal side of pastoral ministry, pastoral counseling. I did not understand its
importance or the challenges I would face in rural ministry.
My context of rural ministry made that call I received so shocking. I was
ministering at a small independent Bible church in rural Illinois. Many who pass through
Washington, Illinois, compare it with Mayberry from The Andy Griffith Show. We have a
town square with quaint antique shops. We have a nativity in the center of our town
square every year at Christmastime. My office looks out on a corn field.1 There was some
part of me that thought, “Those types of things don’t happen in a community like ours.
Those types of problems happen in the big cities and in the suburbs, but not in our little
town, not in my little church.” But when I received that call, those misconceptions about
what pastoral ministry is, and about the ways I would be called to minister in my rural,
small town, came crumbling down.

1. Or a soybean field, depending on the crop rotation.
2