In Depth:  Steve Midgley

pastoral care

Steve Midgley

When caring for others, it’s important to know when we are out of our depth. In most lines of work, there will be limits to a person’s competence. On a day-to-day basis, I am happy finding my way around my laptop. But that doesn’t make me competent to open the Windows Registry and start making changes. (Actually, I wasn’t even sure I meant the Windows Registry. I had to ask someone if that illustration worked!)

So, what about pastoral care? In our efforts to support someone, might we might find our way into the pastoral equivalent of their Windows Registry and not even know it? Is that a real danger and, if so, how do we avoid it?

pastoral care

Steve Midgley

What would you identify as the most damaging and disturbing of all sins? Of all our failings and missteps, what has the deepest, darkest and most long-lasting negative impact?

There are, sadly, many contenders. Personally, I think a strong case can be made for the sin of lying – those times when we deliberately mislead others by communicating something false. It’s probably not the most obvious choice. It’s also a sin we trivialise – referring to “little white lies” and being “economical with the truth” – phrases which suggest there are lies that are necessary, perhaps even loving.

pastoral care

Steve Midgley

Some of the teaching of Jesus can be so familiar that it doesn’t land nearly as richly, and forcibly, as it should. Our familiarity can mean we distil Jesus’ words to an abbreviated version which, while seeming to capture the essence, is missing much of the point.

Jesus teaching about specks and planks (or logs if you prefer) is a case in point. When He first spoke these words, one might imagine the reaction was rather mixed. Some, envisioning the ludicrous picture Jesus was conjuring up, may well have enjoyed the humour of the imagery. But this imagery had an uncomfortable punchline. Thoughtful hearers would soon have been wrestling with the deeper meaning.

pastoral care

Steve Midgley

I remember (though I cannot now find the reference) a comment that the American pastor Tim Keller made about the connection between preaching and conversational ministry.

His message was this. If preachers spend too much of their time engaged in conversational ministry, then their preaching will suffer – because they won’t have time to prepare properly. However, if they give too little time to conversational ministry their preaching will also suffer – because they won’t truly understand the people to whom they are preaching.

pastoral care

Steve Midgley

“Don’t worry. It’ll be fine.” Some phrases trip off the tongue very easily, yet so often fail to deliver the reassurance we intend.

“Don’t worry, God’s in charge” is a closely related Christian alternative. God is, of course, in charge. But how often those words fail to speak to anxious ears.

pastoral care

Steve Midgley

Of the many qualities worthy of note in the Christian life, surely one of the most underrated must be perseverance.

Perseverance isn’t showy. It’s not a quality to raise the temperature or quicken the pulse. Perseverance is one of those things that just presses on in the background. New things get noticed. Exciting fresh initiatives draw praise. But perseverance? It’s a quality that only seems to get noticed when it disappears.

pastoral care

Steve Midgley

Every now and again in pastoral ministry we come across something unfamiliar. And in such circumstances our response, sometimes, is simply to retreat.

Partly that might be driven by a godly concern that, out of ignorance, we will say or do something that proves unhelpful. There may also be elements of a concern that is rather less godly – that of appearing ignorant or looking foolish.

pastoral care

Steve Midgley

Leadership is having a hard time.

Appalling abuses of power in Christian circles sit within a broader suspicion of power and authority. Some speak of a crisis in recruitment to pastoral ministry. Seeing the demands of leadership, and those who fail, perhaps it is no surprise that people aren’t clamouring to join up.

pastoral care

Steve Midgley

Jesus famously declared: ‘It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners’ (Mark 2:17).

It raises an interesting question about our churches – perhaps you have come across it before – ‘Which do our churches most resemble: a group of people waiting for a job interview or those waiting in a doctor’s surgery?’

pastoral care

Steve Midgley

In recent years transparency has become a value of increasing importance. In relation to safeguarding, transparency guards against abuse. Where abuse in church settings has come to light, a lack of transparency in leadership is often one of the factors that allows the abuse to persist. Making transparency a key value in church life guards against this.

Moreover, there are good theological reasons for transparency. The apostle Paul urges the Ephesian Christians to ‘have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them’ (Eph.5:11). This echoes a comment in John’s Gospel that ‘whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God’ (John 3:21).

pastoral care

Steve Midgley

Preaching and talking are different. But although we know that, sometimes we seem to forget.

Most of us listen to sermons on a regular basis, and if we’ve been a Christian for any length of time, our sermon count will be in the hundreds, if not thousands. Maybe it is unsurprising then that, perhaps without quite realising it, preaching mode can begin to feature in our conversations about Jesus. And that can be deeply unhelpful.

pastoral care

Steve Midgley

The concept, and the seriousness, of neglect is well known. Neglected children suffer huge harm.

But there are other forms of neglect. Ones that we may have done less thinking about. Spiritual neglect would be one example – and this is a neglect that can also do damage, both to us and to others.

pastoral care

Steve Midgley

There are many forms of loss. Some happen abruptly – a sudden death, an acute illness. Other loss is more gradual – the progressive disability of a chronic disease, the deepening alienation of a loveless marriage. Some losses have no blame associated with them – they just happen – but sometimes we carry the pain of knowing that we are responsible for a loss.

We describe this as regret and it can be one of the bitterest experiences. Hebrews recalls the agonies of Esau, ‘who for a single meal sold his inheritance rights’, but later ‘even though he sought the blessing with tears, he could not change what he had done’ (Heb.12:16-17).

pastoral care

Steve Midgley

September, it seems, often brings even more of a ‘fresh start’ feel than the beginning of a new calendar year.

We love the sense of new possibilities, new resolutions and new challenges. Aware of things not accomplished in the year that is past, it’s exciting to consider how we might tackle those challenges in new ways. We love anticipating the new things God will lead us into and the new opportunities God will provide.

pastoral care

Steve Midgley

There’s a lot of deceit in the Bible. Not, of course, from God. He never deceives but only ever speaks the truth. It’s we who are vulnerable to, or guilty of, deceit.

Sometimes we are deceived by others. Jesus warned us saying: ‘Watch out that you are not deceived. For many will come in my name, claiming, “I am he”, and, “The time is near”. Do not follow them (Luke 21:8).

pastoral care

Steve Midgley

Over the past nine years, more than 1,200 people have taken one or more of the training courses offered by Biblical Counselling UK (BCUK).

People’s motives for taking these courses vary. Those involved in church leadership, or with a pastoral care role in their church, often take the courses to develop their ability to care for others. Many others have no formal role in the local church, but frequently find themselves walking alongside a brother or sister in Christ. They take these courses simply to be better friends. Still others come from a background in the caring professions (therapists, doctors, mental health workers, etc.) and are looking for a Biblical perspective to set alongside their professional training.

pastoral care

Steve Midgley

Some things are unthinkable. We just can’t conceive of them happening. And sometimes that’s a problem.

As, for instance, in situations too awful for us to bear. This is what happens in trauma when someone experiences something unspeakably terrible. And because they have no words for it, it isn’t integrated into their lives. Unlike a normal memory that is processed and understood, a traumatic experience remains unprocessed – raw and disturbing. I recently heard it vividly described as being like ‘a foreign body in the psyche’.

pastoral care

Steve Midgley

We like things to be clear. When we ask questions, we want definite answers.

When faced with puzzles – pastoral or personal – we crave unambiguous solutions. It is an understandable desire. Uncertainty is uncomfortable – it unbalances us, and we don’t like that. Clear, definite answers restore our sense of order and calm.

pastoral care

Steve Midgley

Doubt, generally, doesn’t have a good reputation.

It’s seen as the enemy of faith; the underminer of faith; even, finally, the destroyer of faith. And it is, at times, all those things.

pastoral care

Steve Midgley

All those who seek to engage with the struggles and sufferings of others know the importance of emotional connection. And while feeling compassion or sympathy or empathy for another person certainly doesn’t mean we jettison Biblical standards, what it does mean is that we seek to enter into the emotional experience of another person.

We know that it matters. It is such a blessing when others feel our pain. But we also know that it costs. It is one thing to recognise and acknowledge the pain of others, quite another to enter into it so that we feel it with the other person. That asks much more of us. So why do it? Here are four quick reasons.

pastoral care

Steve Midgley

The greater part of wisdom, I was once told, consists in the ability to hold complementary truths together.

It’s an observation worthy of reflection: that wisdom is not so much a matter simply of becoming increasingly more familiar with truth or even more adept at applying it, but that wisdom concerns a growing ability to hold together those truths that stand in some kind of tension with one another.

Steve Midgley

Many will be familiar with the phrase: love covers over a multitude of sins (1 Peter 4:8), but what exactly does it mean?

Surely in the unfolding story of the Bible, sin is the problem. How can it be right to overlook it? Good counselling and good ministry must mean helping people identify their sin, combat their sin, repent of their sin and put on godliness instead. If sin is the problem and finding grace the solution, then won’t covering sin over simply bury the problem and leave it unresolved?

pastoral care

Steve Midgley

When Christians fall out, you’d hope they would be good at putting things back together. Reconciliation ought to be one of our strong suits.

Our God not only ‘reconciled us to Himself through Christ’, He also ‘gave us the ministry of reconciliation’ (2 Cor. 5:18). As ambassadors for Christ, we are to implore others: ‘be reconciled to God’ (2 Cor. 5:20). Our interpersonal relationships ought to reflect that.

pastoral care

Steve Midgley

Restriction is a key part of our new vocabulary. We are restricted in our activities, in our social gatherings, restricted in our travel, and even restricted in church.

There is so much that we cannot do, and the experience is tiring, irritating and not a little disorientating. We know there is ministry to be done, but we just can’t get to do it. We know there are friends to encourage, but we have such limited access to them. We know there is a Lord to be worshipped, but we can’t even sing His praises. It is all so frustrating. When good things are out of reach, frustration is appropriate.

pastoral care

Steve Midgley

Sorry, so the song tells us, seems to be the hardest word. But is it really? At one level, ‘sorry’ is not at all hard to say. Turn a corner and bump into someone and the word ‘sorry’ is out of our mouths in an instant. But there is so much more to sorry than that.

You might think we Christians would be good at sorry. We have lots of practice. Saying sorry in the words of a confession is a regular feature of Sunday worship. The Anglican Book of Common Prayer is really big on it – having worshippers declare that they are ‘heartily sorry’. But, despite all that, sorry really is a hard word to say. Because we struggle to say it from the heart.

pastoral care

Steve Midgley

We’ve been doing a lot of waiting recently.

Waiting for lockdown to end. Waiting for schools to restart. Waiting for government announcements. Waiting for church to meet in person. Waiting for the next parcel to be delivered.