Lay Ministry: Pastoral Counselling Case Study and Analysis

This report provides an overview of lay ministry, specifically focusing on pastoral counselling and mediation within a church setting. It begins with an introduction to lay ministry, defining its role and purpose, and then delves into the biblical basis for such ministry, referencing key scriptures. The report examines the counselling philosophy of lay ministers, emphasizing the importance of compassion and inclusivity, drawing parallels to the life of Christ. It outlines the scope of the ministry, target populations, and the practical aspects of service, including hours, locations, and accessibility. The report also details the procedures of the service, such as marriage counselling, and highlights the benefits of pastoral counselling, including the training of staff. It analyzes the need for improvements, such as integrating scientific insights with faith-based practices, particularly in addressing contemporary issues like homosexuality and transgenderism. The report concludes with a discussion of the challenges and opportunities in lay ministry, emphasizing the importance of a holistic approach that combines religious principles with modern understanding. The report also includes a case study and analysis of pastoral counselling practices and suggests areas for improvement.

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Mediation Ministry
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s Note

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Background
Christianity is supposed to be a service based faith which a faithful ought to practice by
means of observing the life as exemplified by Christ himself. Lay ministry can be termed as the
attribute same as the counselling ministry where the clearly serve as the same like the pastor but
for a minimal time and as a part time. Pastoral counselling is the method of providing specialized
standard counselling and mental therapeutic care to the ones in need of emotional support by
means of an incorporation of religious, spiritual and scientific principles (Pembroke, 2016). The
Holy Bible, and the life of Christ is replete with instances which shows that he was a true
counsellor and in the current world that legacy is still followed in the churches to give people the
healing touch by means of the words of the God, and also by means of employing scientific
methods of psychotherapy. Christ has throughout his life served the people irrespective of their
faith and social standing, not just through words, but by means of action as well. In the churches
of the contemporary times, there are special cells which deal with the issue of solving the mental
problems and the ethical dilemmas of the persons suffering from it as a matter of continuing with
the legacy of Christ to disseminate the healing touch (Magezi, 2016).
Name of your ministry
The name of the lay ministry is JOHN PAUL.
Purpose of your ministry
The purpose of this particular proposal is to provide a case study of pastoral counselling
and mediation as practiced at a chosen church and on the basis of it an inspection shall be

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provided citing the necessary changes to be brought about in order to enhance the noble service,
purely on the basis of personal judgement. This is a research based article aimed at forming a
case study on the basis of the interview with the concerned authorities of the church, dealing
with the issue of pastoral counselling. The following sections shall be consisting of several
sections dealing with topics related to pastoral counselling. There shall be sections dealing with
examples from the life of Christ when he had assumed the role of a counsellor, quotation of
verses from the bible which support pastoral counselling, the research findings about pastoral
counselling at the chosen church and finally the section on studying the research findings, stating
the necessary changes to be brought about in the way pastoral counselling is conducted
(Ogundipe & Ojo, 2015).
The counseling philosophy of Lay Ministry
Lay counsellors is the community of clergy who supports the service that compliments
the work provided by trained ministers or professions. According to the philosophy of church it u
related to modernization (Tan & Scalise, 2016). The role of a counsellor is to ensure that the
person who has been engulfed by the quagmire of miseries of life and the sense of guilt be
brought back to mainstream life and be instilled with a sense of confidence, positive energy and
the sense that they are capable of good. Jesus Christ had the reputation of being a friend
philosopher and guide to the marginalized sections of the society and who were considered as
socially deviants. Through the magic of his kind words, he made the persons who were so called
as sinners in the eyes of the society feel like that they were not unimportant and unwanted.
Adulterers, drunkards, thieves and others who were socially ostracized were not shunned away
by the Jesus Christ, even when the society at large was hostile towards them. The most important
quality of a counsellor is to be inclusive and that was something which was present in Jesus

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Christ, and he had demonstrated that by extending a helping hand to the ones who were in need
of help and the support to return back to mainstream life (Thorne, 2001).
Scope of the ministry
The scope of the ministry has a very significance in the life of the catholic community.
Jesus had very successfully instilled the sense of importance in the Samaritan woman who had
been ostracized by the society. One of the most important qualities of being a good counsellor is
to be a compassionate individual, and Jesus had shown that he had that quality in him, which was
very much evident in the biblical incident of Christ shedding tears at the loss of Mary and
Martha, who were aggrieved over the death of Lazarus, their brother. Christ had understood that
she thirsted for the feeling of inclusivity and for the feeling of being cared for. Jesus had
understood that and he had extended a helping hand to the Samaritan woman on his own
volition. Jesus had very successfully instilled the sense of importance in the samaritan woman
who had been ostracized by the society (Hughes, 2015).
Target population
The target population of the lay counseling is the young individual and the people who
have a faith in Crist can strive a commitment to the Lord and surrender their life to Christ.
Gender or age
It cannot be gender specific because when we surrender our lives to Christ no one can be
gender specific. The love of Christ is equal to both men and women so either of them has the
authority to join the lay ministry. In case of age there is no specified bar towards it. The age is
just a number when we come to know the love of Christ. The community of people can belong to
the age of sixteen and above (Gentry & Min, 2017).

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The people who can be excluded from the ministry are the individuals who commits a sin
and abolish the commands that mosses brought forth. The one who does not maintain the days of
obligation and does not follow the rules and regulation of the church are to leave the ministry as
they are not worthy of being in the community of lay ministry.
Hours and location/s of services
The hour of working in the ministry would vary from 4 to 5 hours of preaching in the
community twice a week. The place of the ministry would be XY Street.
Accessibility
The accessibility of the ministry would reflect in the following terms which is discussed
below:
The chosen church researched upon for the purpose of conducting the interview and
gathering the observation is a Catholic Church with the parish priest having a deep insight into
life and society at large. Breakdown of marriage, teenage delinquency, estrangement of children
from their parents, rise of criminal propensities, loss of mental peace et cetera are some of the
pressing issues which had been a matter of concern for the church. On the basis of the insights
gathered by means of having a conversation with him it has been found out that he is deeply
moved by the societal decadence and the way in which the people are drifting away from the
path of morality.
The counselors as per the priest of the church were highly qualified holding degrees in
counseling and are also trained in theology so that the synthesis of science and religion can be
made successful. The aim as per the priest is not to spread blind faith or to encourage it but to

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cherry pick those verses from the bible and discuss which are more in tandem with the needs of
the present times (Carkhuff & Truax, 1965).
Procedure of the service
The most widely dispensed service that the church provides is the pastoral counselling
that is the marriage counselling. The couples who approach the church for getting married are
not arbitrarily pronounced as husband and wife, as the church considers that it is the moral duty
of the church to ensure that they prepare the couples entering into matrimonial union as
matrimonial unions are disintegrating at a rapid rate in the nation. The basic problem is that the
couples who are entering the marital unions were not ready to take care of the responsibilities of
marriage, they were quite fascinated by the idea of a wedding rather than being in a marriage.
That marriage is a holy union is what the couples are taught and also modern scientific
innovations which deal with the physical problems are also discussed and the couples are made
aware of it (DeHaven et al., 2004).
Benefits
In Titus 1:5, it is written, “For this reason I left you in Crete, that you would set in order
what remains and appoint elders in every city as I directed you”, which is indicative of the fact
that the task of pastoral counselling had to be taken up as a responsibility by which the
experienced ones were supposed to show the correct path to the people (Neill, & Wright, 1988).
In the Acts 6:3, it is written, “Therefore, brethren, select from among you seven men of
good reputation, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we may put in charge of this task”,
which shows that the task of choosing the people to conduct the pastoral counselling should be of

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sound mind and possessing the necessary quality of being counsellors as the task is important
and must be conducted with expertise.
In 1 Corinthians 12:28, it is written that God has “appointed in the church, first apostles,
second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, administrations,
various kinds of tongues”, to conduct the purpose of pastoral counseling.
Over the years, the years there has been a decline in the number of followers and that is
also a reason why the church is unable to provide a holistic service in bringing about a change in
the society and also among the members of the church community. The kind of pastoral
counselling that is provided in the church includes marriage counselling aimed at preparing the
couples about to get married to lead a good married life by means of understanding the meaning
of marriage and the responsibilities that are needed to fulfill a happy marriage.
Training of the staff
Apart from that, the kind of pastoral counselling services also include assistances which
seek to solve the ethical dilemmas of the people faced as a result of discrepancy between the
world and the personal faith. In order to enhance the service, the church must thus be proactive
in implementing the true theoretical spirit of pastoral counselling without letting the element of
religious bias hijack the noble purpose. The training of the staff will be conducted session wise
where the ministers will conduct classes preaching from the bible and relating them to theology.
In the modernized world it is important for the growing minister to learn about the following
cases:

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 Theoretically, pastoral counselling is about religion, spirituality and science but in the
case study it has been found that the element of scriptures have taken dominance over
science which has made the service provided by the church as not holistic (Lynch, 2003).
 Modern science has clearly said that homosexuality and transgenderism are as normal as
being a cisgendered heterosexual, hence the church must inculcate the spirit of infusing
science with faith to enhance the pastoral counselling services (Kärkkäinen, 2014).
 The issue of women inclusion is something which has been necessitated by Karkkainen
(2014).
 sexuality and especially issues like homosexuality and transgenderism were not
considered legitimate in the eyes of the priest as that went strictly against the faith, and he
cited the Sodom and Gomorrah incident to oppose homosexuality.
Issues
One by one the people from the crowd came up and Christ had written all their sins on
the ground. This saved the woman and she was asked to lead a pious life ever since then. Thus a
counsellor should be non-judgmental had been demonstrated by Christ through the incident
(Lynch, 2003). The problem which as per the head priest of the church was that they did not lack
the logistical support to conduct the pastoral counselling but they are bound by the principle that
only the willing ones shall be helped, and therein lies the problem that very few people are
actually interested in availing of the services the Church is ready to provide.
There is an instance in the Bible which talks of a eunuch from Ethiopia being baptized
and the person was not at all ostracized. Hence treating gender non variant persons with

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contempt goes fundamentally against the spirit of the Bible. Thus from the perspective of
theoretical underpinnings it can be said that the postmodern understanding of religion is missing
from the way pastoral counseling is conducted in the chosen church for building up the case
study. Also, from the perspective of feminist and sexuality and gender related theories, the
pastoral counselling conducted in the chosen church has lacunae. The process is not very holistic
and inclusive and has an element of inherent theological bias in it. . There was no presence of
any female personnel in the pastoral counseling panel and that was a flaw. It is always not
possible for women help seekers to open up to a man and that could be a potential area where
improvements could be brought about and affected.
Christian resources
It is very much inspired by the reading of the book ‘Trinity and Revelation: A
Constructive Christian Theology for the Pluralistic World’ by Veli Matti Karkkainen (2014) in
providing the recommendations, as the postmodern approach had captured my fancy.
There are no other ministry in the community that offers the same type of resource on the
society. This lay ministry is one of the unique organization that preaches about the life of jesus
Christ, the miracles that are performed by Christ and the theology based studies.

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Reference
Carkhuff, R. R., & Truax, C. B. (1965). Lay mental health counseling: The effects of lay group
counseling. Journal of consulting psychology, 29(5), 426.
DeHaven, M. J., Hunter, I. B., Wilder, L., Walton, J. W., & Berry, J. (2004). Health programs in
faith-based organizations: are they effective?. American Journal of Public Health, 94(6),
1030-1036.
Gentry II, T. J., & Min, D. (2017). UNLEASHING FAITH BY BEARING ONE ANOTHER’S
BURDENS: AN EXPLORATION OF THE BIBLICAL RATIONALE FOR AND
PRACTICE OF CHRISTIANS HELPING CHRISTIANS THROUGH LAY
COUNSELING MINISTRIES. A RESEARCH AND MINISTRY JOURNAL OF
TEMPLE BAPTIST SEMINARY OF PIEDMONT INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY
WINSTON-SALEM, NORTH CAROLINA Spring 2017, 150.
Hughes, R. (2015). Shepherding the Flock: CARE-A Model for Pastoral Ministry.
Kärkkäinen, V. M. (2014). Trinity and revelation. William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.
Lynch, G. (2003). Clinical counselling in pastoral settings. Routledge.
Magezi, V. (2016). Pastoral care within globalisation care at the in-between: The dynamics of
pastoral care and counselling for meaning and Coping in a global context. Compassion
for one another in the Global village: Social and cultural approaches to care and
counselling, 65-78.

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Neill, S., & Wright, N. T. (1988). The interpretation of the New Testament, 1861-1986.
Ogundipe, S. O., & Ojo, F. Y. (2015). Adolescent sexuality education in contemporary Nigeria
and its implication for pastoral counselling. International Journal of Scientific and
Research Publications, 5(8), 1-8.
Pembroke, N. (2016). Renewing pastoral practice: Trinitarian perspectives on pastoral care and
counselling. Routledge.
Tan, S. Y., & Scalise, E. T. (2016). Lay Counseling, Revised and Updated: Equipping Christians
for a Helping Ministry. Zondervan.
Thorne, B. (2001). The prophetic nature of pastoral counselling. British Journal of Guidance and
Counselling, 29(4), 435-445.