A Response on Care of Souls by Benner

In this book care of souls, the main argument the author is making is that soul care is a biblical concept, and soul care is not just caring for a certain aspect of a person, but it is the care of the person as a whole because a person is made up of many aspects. Soul care is not a new concept but has been relevant historically. Plato, Socrates, Cicero etc. talked about this. In modern times with the emergence of science, one of the main problems with soul care is reductionism. Reductionism, for example, would mean providing soul care from a vantage point of Psychology, on the other extreme it can be providing soul care from only spiritual lenses. The author challenges both extremes and calls for a more united approach. Psychology can contribute genuinely valuable understanding of a person, but it becomes reductionistic when psychological explanation is treated as a complete explanation of the person. Similarly, spiritual language can become inadequate when every human difficulty is automatically treated as exclusively a spiritual problem. If a person is a unified whole, then treating a person's psychological, physical, relational, and spiritual struggles as completely isolated problems can give an incomplete picture of that person and incomplete picture would lead to incomplete care for that person.

Reviewing the Christian history the author points out four components of Christian soul care - healing, sustaining, reconciling and guiding. The gospel accounts of Jesus give us a picture on how to provide Soul care, Jesus often spent time in listening, asking introspective questions and showing grace to people who approached him. Jesus sets a prime example on how to provide soul care. Christian soul care is something that we do for each other and not for ourselves. It is provided through a medium of mutual dialogue within the context of relationship and does not focus on some narrow spiritual aspect alone but addresses the whole person.

Takeaway:

This book has challenged my understanding of soul care and my understanding of how to provide it to a person in need. Soul care cannot be merely scientific, and it cannot be completely spiritual either. As a caregiver, one might be tempted to look at the problem in a compartmentalized manner, but often psychological issues are interconnected to spiritual issues. For example, someone comes to me because of marital conflict. Do I only address the relationship? Or could there be spiritual, emotional, personal, relational, and even physical dimensions involved? Psychology shouldn't explain spirituality away, but spirituality shouldn't cause us to ignore legitimate psychological realities. The scripture talks about different aspects of a person; heart, mind, soul, spirit etc. Science has contributed towards understanding different difficulties that go through internally, but pastoral care must be given by viewing the person as a whole.

Another important takeaway for me is the importance of listening. Before reading this book, I might have understood counseling primarily in terms of providing answers or biblical direction to someone who is struggling. As talking to someone we are out to approach as problem solvers or to sound clever but to be a compassionate listener. In this aspect Benner’s discussion on dialogue challenged me. The idea of pastoral conversation is to understand the difference between dialogue and preaching. Dialogue is dependent on reciprocity and an opportunity to share and grow for the person. When a person approaches me for counselling and advice, my immediate temptation is to demonstrate that I know the answer, and I can quote the scripture. Advice and suggestion are a part of the process but a person giving care should approach with a sense of preparation to listen and observe. I was also challenged by Benner's emphasis on the caregiver's personal preparation. The caregiver needs to become internally quiet and set aside the desire to control the outcome of the conversation. Even the desire to "help" can become a distraction if it causes the caregiver to focus more on solving the person's problem than on loving and understanding the person. This made me reconsider what it means to be helpful. Sometimes being helpful may not mean immediately giving an answer but being sufficiently available and present to listen carefully and help the person understand what they are experiencing.

Finally, I came away from the book with a greater appreciation for the relational nature of Christian soul care. Soul care is not simply the application of psychological techniques or the communication of spiritual information. The caregiver is called to take the whole person seriously while also recognizing the distinctively Christian nature of care through relationship with God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit. For me, this changes the way I think about pastoral care: the goal is not simply to solve a person's problem, but to care for the person who is experiencing the problem.

Impact on future personal ministry:

As Christians we often come across people who want to talk about certain issue but at the same time are fearful in doing so because of stretched spiritualization of the issue and making the advice entirely scriptural. The problem isn't using Scripture; the problem is using Scripture as a substitute for active listening to and understanding the person. This has been the long-standing format for non-regulated Chistian dialogue. But this hardly ever works because the nature of a human’s problem is complex and the person in front of us may not fit into your compartmentalized view. When I come across a person in need, I am now inclined to see the person from different angles and to shun away my impulse to solve the problem. As a caregiver I don’t have to be the one with all the answers to all the questions. My primary goal should be to be available, present and be an active listener. Viewing the person as a unified whole would help me avoid the temptation to provide quick compartmentalized solutions. The struggle is not to hold either extreme i.e. Psychology or Spirituality or any other extremes.

Another important application for me is to look at the best model of soul shepherd constantly i.e. Jesus, for he has set the standards for us. As I read the gospel accounts and search for techniques on how Jesus provided soul care, I see that Jesus was patient, compassionate and asked questions that prompted the receiver to think through while being rooted in the scripture. Often time the temptation for me is to assume a position of preacher or mere adviser but as pointed out by Benner, soul care is not just something we do for others but for ourselves. When I assume a position of preacher or adviser there is a risk of the dialogue becoming one sided and compartmentalized. On the contrary, a good dialogue is dependent upon the reciprocity of both the parties and is an opportunity for growth for both parties. Several other advices stood out to me; his advice on preparing yourself before the dialogue, often I rush into these dialogues without considering my internal state. According to Benner, good practice would be to spend some time in preparation, this preparation would be for an internal quietness. In addition to that a major take way and a future application would be to not approach these opportunities from a desire to “Help”, according to Benner, even these could be distracting and could impede us from providing a good care. Thus, the best approach would be to go with a desire to love the person, and we see Jesus doing exactly this in the gospels.

Conclusion:

Reading Care of Souls has helped me rethink what it means to care for a person in a pastoral context. I began the book with a tendency to think of counseling in terms of identifying a problem and providing an appropriate answer, but Benner has challenged me to see soul care as something much deeper. It involves caring for the whole person and recognizing that psychological, spiritual, relational, and physical dimensions of a person's life cannot always be separated. More importantly, I have been challenged to become a better listener and to approach people not primarily with a desire to solve their problems, but with a desire to understand and love them. I recognize that this will require preparation, patience, humility, and a willingness to listen before speaking.