In all my years of being involved in church, I’ve noticed that pastoral care has been an area which seems difficult to get right. As I’ve talked to other pastors I’ve realised that this isn’t a challenge unique to us, but in reality it is an area where every church struggles.

Its the aspect of church which causes most pastors to burn out, the aspect of church which most causes people to be offended and leave and the aspect of church which holds the strongest opinions.

So, why can this be so difficult? Let me walk you through 10 reasons I’ve come up with;

1 – We all have different personal expectations about what we should receive from the ‘church’ – what we might find an acceptable or amazing level of pastoral care is usually very different to the next person. One person recieving care might be delighted they got a meal, whilst another is gutted the whole church wasn’t informed, another offended the senior pastor didn’t visit. When someone is facing difficulty in their life it can behard to know what their expectation might be.

2 – We all have different expectations about what others should receive from ‘church’ – We don’t only have these expectations personally but we also hold them on behalf of other people. I think this is nearly more common than the first one. Often I’ve heard from a well meaning friend that person A is unhappy about the care they have received but when I end up chatting to Person A they don’t seem to have any issues that they want to discuss. Was Person A too polite to say or was the friends expectation different from person A? It can be pretty tricky to work out which.

3 – We often can’t define those expectations – if I have the opportunity, l often ask people who are unhappy with the level of pastoral care they feel they have received what would have met their expectations. I have found that few have an answer. I understand that. I’ve been there too. There have times where I expected more than I received but couldn’t have told you what I’d expected. I guess its something that we ‘feel’ in a given moment. That doesn’t mean it’s not real or it’s invalid but what I’ve come to realise is that we aren’t dealing with a hard fact when it comes to this area.

4 – Our expectations change depending on exactly what we are going through – this can be a really tricky one to navigate. Every situation will mean different things to different people even through the situation we are facing looks the same on paper. So we could have two people who have lost parents, but because of their personality, their relationship with said parent, how ill or well the parent was, how they died etc. will have very different reactions to that tragedy. Some people have close relationships with uncles, aunts, grandparents and others may not have any connection although they are related, so when those relations experience difficulty we will all react differently. The same goes with celebratory moments. In my family birthdays were marked with a card, a present, maybe a dinner but that was that. My wife has a birthday month!!! If she received what I was used to on my birthday she would be deeply offended.

5 – Our expectations change depending on exactly when we are going through them – I’ve been through difficult personal moments in my life. Like anyone who has experienced trials there were ups and downs. Some days were fine, and others weren’t, some hours were good and others weren’t! Some days I went through every emotion known to man. There were days when I wanted someone to call and others I didn’t want to hear from anyone, days wanted to talk about what happened and days I wanted to talk about anything but. That made it challenging for anyone who wanted to help me.

6 – Our expectations change depending on who is providing the care – this is another interesting thing that I have learned. Depending on the level of friendship, length of connection, the role that they hold in our life, we will all have different expectations around what each person ‘should’ do for us. For some a text is enough but it would feel insincere if it came from another. We want some to chat face to face to us but don’t want that from some other personalities. This works in personal relationships but also in work/church/professional relationships. What we expect from a boss or a pastor might be difficult from a colleague or someone we serve alongside.

7 – What we or others need is usually multifaceted – when we are going through stuff we need a range of things. There are practical things that we need help with, emotional support that is required, perhaps counselling or something similar, spiritual and prayer support and maybe theological help depending on the situation. Again, this will be different for everyone depending on their level of resilience, emotional stability, theological understanding etc. and we often are unaware of what we need in the moment.

8 – There is no time limit to the expectation care ‘contract’ – when is pastoral care over? We all know that grieving or dealing with loss in our life doesn’t end in a day, a week, a month or a year. In fact as we all now know it is a process, a process that in some way never comes to a total end but a process that should become less intense as time goes on. Of course, this all depends on the person, the challenge etc. Should I expect a level of care for years or not? Should I expect that on the anniversary of that moment everyone will remember or will it only be me? Is there a time limit that’s appropriate to release others from caring for me?

9 – Its personal – I’m writing each of these as a logic step, a hypothetical look at an imaginary situation. I hope that you, like me, look at this and understand the complexity and difficulty held here. Logically I think that there is no way every one could possibly care for me in a way that I would give them a 10/10 for their care. However, when I am in the midst of a situation where I am suffering logic is not how I look at the problem. I look at it through my personal pain, my feelings, my intuitions. I’m happy with this logical processing until I’m in pain – surely these steps don’t include me? In painful moments we are operating out of our rawest and most vulnerable places which makes it difficult to see anything beyond that.

10 – Therefore completion is hard to define – and so when we combine all of that we start to see why pastoral care in the church is a hard one to do in a way that will leave everyone feeling cared for.

It’s important that we care for people. It’s clear from the bible that we are created beings, made in the image of the father. That means that we are worthy of love and care, we are valuable, and therefore should be valued. When we care for one another we care for Christ. So, I’m not saying this is an area that we can be content in failing in, but as we think through our models and all take our place in this process we must understand and be patient as we try to do our best in loving one another.