Pastoral Care

FROM RUMINATION TO GENERATION TO GRATITUDE

The impact of COVID 19 on an individual and community is sometimes described as weird and strange. While true and validating, I think it better described as stressful: for some normal and others abnormal. If yours was abnormal consider our Lord in the dessert after his baptism while tempted or the garden of Gethsemane before his crucifixion.

COVID 19’s is just stressful and not all stress is bad or unto death though our brains may be telling us that. Stress is defined as, “The body’s non-specific response to a demand for change.” A big change has imposed itself on us and at the same time has demanded change from us. That is no doubt stressful and demanding but difficult. As I look back I am grateful to the Lord because he has led us and particularly the ministry of pastoral care through change since Christ’s Spirit is the great change agent. This gratitude did not come easy. If I am honest I was stuck in a loop called rumination. However, this led to an arrow called generation which resulted in gratitude.

RUMINATION Rumination, not to be confused with meditation, is turning over a thought, idea or memory without an outcome, decision or action. A number of our pastoral care programs were stuck in this pattern before COVID 19, albeit not intentionally and with little awareness. We were running some important pastoral care programs, but they were at risk of becoming like a corpse – well organized but lacking life. As the pastoral care director I was inching closer to a need for spiritual defibulators in our pastoral ministry.

GENERATION Generation, not to be confused with people born around the same period of time, is to create something with vitality by a spiritual process or new life. The Lord has used COVID 19 in our congregation to generate pastoral care ministry with greater depth and breadth. We didn’t ask for that but the Lord in his wisdom and sovereignty loses and wastes no opportunity to grip our hearts with his grace in our time of need. St. John’s kept in step with Christ’s Spirit in delivering biblical care to our members and neighbors at such a time as this with generativity.

What did that look like? In March our Grief Group was halfway though the course, we paused and then resumed on zoom. “Not enough” petitioned the participants and so we generated a Grief Group 2.0. Mental illness and health lived underneath and behind closed doors in our congregation. It slipped out in some conversation and the occasional sermon but with the help of Sanctuary Ministry we ran the eight week course, COVID 19 night and a four week Grief & Faith. Not in six years has our congregation supported marriages but in September we ran a seven week Alpha Marriage Course for couples in the early, middle or late stages of their life together generating spiritual vitality to covenantal love. Since my arrival I’m sorry to confess our congregation has never had a congregation call but in May the staff and trustees completed a call through our whole membership list three times. The greatest pastoral care came by every member stirred by the gospel and generated by love at bible studies, morning prayer, compline and every day life to restore hope. Not only did the Lord use COVID 19 to generate pastoral care and restore life to our members but to our neighbors evangelistically through the ministry of Divorce Care like never before.

One participant emailed Margaret Wilson saying she felt like the ‘black sheep’ and wouldn’t be returning to DC. After meeting for coffee with Margaret Wilson she never missed another session. After completing the course the participant wrote, “I attended Divorce Care sessions at the lowest point in my life. I was struggling with depression and was stuck to the point that I could not work. Medications were not helping me to get better, but Divorce Care did. It helped me through prayers and Bible reading to heal and grow spiritually to trust God. I discovered that I was not alone and felt protected. I went through the course twice consecutively and got even more benefit the second time around.”

GRATITUDE Gratitude, not as an exercise or practice but from the heart and mind with soul and strength. Who would think of thanking the Lord during COVID 19 as hard as it was in 2020 and remains in 2021? The Lord uses adversity to move us from rumination to generation of stirring out lives to care for one another in our gospel driven life. And so, “For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers.”