Pastors Are Counselors Too—Wherever They Serve

The Foundation of Christian Counseling

We all have challenges in life. These challenges are often common and complex enough that many would benefit from seeing a counselor. While there is undoubtedly a place for professional counseling when tragedy strikes or an emergency situation brings us to our knees, Christians should also be able to turn to the church.

By God’s grace, the Lord has created the people of God, through the context of the church, to care for one another at the lay level (Heb. 3:12-14). But he has also given us pastors to receive hurting people asking life’s big questions. But if most pastors were honest, they would confess that they weren’t trained to be counselors. They were trained to be pastors, but they’ve found that the needs of their people require counseling skills they may not have.

Ray Caguin is serving in his eighth year as Lead Pastor for Preaching and Teaching at Community Bible Church in Marikina, Philippines, alongside his father. Though he stepped into this pastoral role intending to be the teaching pastor for the church, the Lord has brought him many hurting people experiencing challenging life situations. Immediately he recognized that not only did this congregation need a pastor to lead them through preaching but also to shepherd them through counseling. But where could he start learning how to do this?

Donors to Crossway and through partnership with ELI Asia provided a connection for Ray to receive a Global Pastors Book Set—a series of Crossway books handpicked to address the situations and issues facing pastors around the world. Counseling has been and continues to be an area Ray wants to grow in. The Pastor and Counseling has served as a specific answer to prayer, both as a guide for Ray to grow in his role in caring for his flock and to train up others to join him in this effort to care for the needs of others.

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The Pastor Is His People’s God-Appointed Shepherd

Ray began his journey in pastoral ministry eight years ago. After growing up learning from his father, who dedicated his life to pastoral ministry, he aspired to follow in his footsteps. But though he knew his father played many roles as a pastor, Ray would have to learn for himself that counseling is an important part of a pastor’s ministry. Even after eight years of experience, Ray confesses that, “I’m still so young in this ministry. But over the past several years the Lord has allowed more of these counseling experiences, especially in managing relationships as people deal with specific life situations. It requires a lot of humility.”

Ray’s eyes have been opened to the need for humility in a whole new way after reading The Pastor and Counseling. He resonates with authors Jeremy Pierre and Deepak Reju’s insights that as a pastor,

God has called you to shepherd his sheep, and often those sheep are hurting, confused, or stubborn. But it’s not always clear how to care for them, especially in the more complex situations that weigh them down. You may or may not think of yourself as a counseling pastor, but the bottom line is that you are called to labor for your people in these unsettling problems.¹

Through reading a few books on counseling and then especially after reading The Pastor and Counseling, Ray had come to recognize early on that he wouldn’t just be his people’s teaching pastor who led from the front of the church on Sunday mornings. He would need to be there throughout the week for these hurting sheep, caring for them even when it was hard.

For Ray, this is made more challenging by the continued need to work in the corporate world in order to provide for his family. That’s what has made The Pastor and Counseling especially effective and important. With limited time and resources to take courses specific to counseling, he needed a resource he would be able to learn from and apply to caring for the life situations facing his congregation. He explains that reading this book has been comforting in knowing that

These authors and pastors know and understand the kinds of scenarios I’m facing—they’ve been through it many times, and they’re still remaining faithful by serving the Lord day after day. And yet they confessed to being weak and broken men in need of strength and wisdom from the Holy Spirit. The way they presented various types of challenges in counseling is very helpful in my own ministry and care.

By God’s grace this book has served Ray in growing as a young pastor in caring for a flock who he loves but who faces life situations bigger than they can handle alone. And yet even as Ray cares and counsels, he is also not alone. Through the reading of this book, he has learned to call on others to join him in this effort.

The Church Serves Together to Care for Others

Even though the role of care and counseling often at first falls to the pastor, no pastor is called to be the only one in the congregation caring for needs. Rather, as the authors of The Pastor and Counseling argue,

If you labor as though the spiritual well-being of every member directly depends on you, you will eventually fold under such an impossible burden. God in his wisdom assigned the task of [care] not to a single man, nor even to a team of men, but to the entire church.²

God has called each of us, not just pastors, to “love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:31b). Learning that he doesn’t have to manage alone, Ray began to share tips and encouragement from this book with his elders. This group of seven men leading alongside him has been an additional gift, because the church has recently learned the importance of a plurality of elders in the church. But it’s not just his elders who receive the call and responsibility to care for one another. He’s surrounded by a congregation called to care for one another.

As a pastor, Ray feels better equipped to call on others to support one another in times of need. “Now I can move from just having head knowledge about counseling and care to heart knowledge. Now that I’ve answered the question ‘How do I do this?’ I can apply it when walking with people and encouraging others to do the same.”

This is a command not only for Ray and his congregation on the outskirts of Manila. It’s also a command for each of us as readers. How are you caring for those around you? Who is hurting, or who may need a listening ear? The church isn’t just the pastor. It’s made up of people like you, me, and Ray, people who need one another. And by God’s grace, The Pastor and Counseling provides examples of the fact that none of us is asked to care for others or counsel alone: “The source of Paul’s energy [in Colossians 1] is Christ, and his supply of it is powerful. This is the ground of our confidence and the only reason we would dare to wade into the dark waters of human trouble.”³

We invite you to join us in caring for others throughout the global church. Even from afar, access to resources like The Pastor and Counseling can serve to better equip pastors and ministry leaders who can then equip their congregations. This is how the body of Christ cares for one another, from one local church to another.

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Pray for the Lord’s wisdom in Ray’s balance of time as a bi-vocational pastor. Pray that he would be equipped to lead his church well both from the pulpit and in counseling care, and that he and his congregation would remain faithful to God’s Word regardless of what they face.

Pray for guidance from the Spirit as Ray and his church consider planting a new church. Pray that the Lord would open the right doors if this is his will.

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