Ron's Ramblings
October 6, 2005
I have a scar on the palm of my left hand as a constant reminder
of the uncertainty of living in this increasingly fragmented world.
The vivid memory of tripping over my own feet while attempting to
shuttle a very full Pyrex bowl from a kitchen counter to the dining
table, remains. Nine-year old boys are often awkward without the
complicating factors of a bowl of peaches!
The link between that unfortunate incident and the “fragmented
world” came much later as, while a pastor engaged in the ordinary
activities of pastoral care, I found so many persons, overwhelmed
my the pace and complexity of their lives. They were “tripping
over their own feet” and finding, like me, that life is not
a “bowl of cherries”, but more often a broken bowl of
peaches (or lost innocence, or broken dreams, or . . .). In the
first decade of my life in ministry, I saw myself as hurrying from
person to person, attempting to “catch the fragments”
of their lives before they fell into the abyss and were scarred
permanently by the incident.
For this young pastor, that frenetic activity, while occasionally
successful at helping persons to find a sense of equilibrium, led
more often to a sense of personal depletion and, I believe, was
a contributing factor to a “moderate” heart attack in
the 1980’s. While effective at times, the radical demands of
pastoral counseling resulted in what one author has labeled “The
Messiah Trap: When Helping You is Hurting Me”. (1.)
About that time, I discovered the lay pastoral care movement known
as Stephen Ministry. It had its beginnings with a Lutheran pastor,
Kenneth Hauck, in St. Louis, MO. Its focus was on active listening
and pastoral presence, provided to fragmented people by well-trained,
mutually accountable and carefully supervised, peer “care-givers”.
A small group of persons, committed to the mandatory 50 hours of
training by a team of specially trained Stephen Ministers, began
to receive referrals from me. Some persons were reluctant to be
referred to a fellow church member, no matter how much assurance
I offered. Yet for those who were willing to be “care receivers”,
the sense of cohesion and a renewed ability to cope with the ordinary
difficulties of life became evident. And I began to relax.
This month marks the fifth anniversary of the institution of Stephen
Ministry at the Kirk of Kildare. Many persons have been cared for
with a listening presence and gentle guidance that is the hallmark
of Stephen Ministry. In addition, the pastoral staff has gained
confidence in a group of Christian Caregivers who are competent,
patient, and rigorously maintain confidentiality.
There are times when the ordained pastor is one who can best assist
the parishioner who is over-stressed and unable to cope, and that
pastoral touch is needed. For those of us in the Kirk of Kildare,
Stephen Ministry has “earned its stripes” as an essential
and valuable resource for ministry, supporting persons caught up
in a culture that is suffering from the malaise of personal and
physical fragmentation.
May God bless the ministry of Stephen Ministers, in the Kirk, and
everywhere.
Ron McMenamin
(1.) Carmen Berry, 1988, San Francisco, Harper & Row.
|
