A Pastor’s Self Image

Recently, I got a book for two pounds from book sale.  It is about pastoral care or pastor’s self psychological health.  This is a topic which has an affine interest with my thesis but of different discipline.  Nevertheless, due to personal growth and research of character formation of a pastor, I grasped the book on my first sight of it.  Here is a case study which tells a person by the name of Samson.  I find the following paragraphs particularly interesting and may also reflect some of our pastors in churches.  It certainly reflects some of my past or maybe even present status.

“He probably can be very charming and ingratiating in his superficial contacts with others, when he so desires, and in face, attempted to handle the sessions as if it were a social rather than a test situation.”

“His approach to the Rorschach plates however, revealed that his eagerness to prove how cooperative he was, was a facade, for in actuality, delaying tactics as he attempted to control and suppress his spontaneous ideas, were very obvious. There was much talk (which at times was rather pedantic) and intellectualizing which reflected ont only obsessive character traits and deeply embedded feelings of insecurity and insufficiency, but his feelings about the task-like character of the situation.
At present the man’s interests are rather restricted to himself and the predicament he is in and he is depressed and disappointed in himself. His inability to cope with his difficulties in a masterful way seems to have revealed to him just how weak and inadequate he actually is as a man; feelings which he has probably always tried to escape from and which he compensated fro through his drive for prestige and recognition and through his manipulation of others. He probably does not quite believe or accept the self-derogatory statements he makes about himself at present, for they are too unacceptable to the self-image he has always striven to maintain.”

Margaretta Bowers, Conflicts of the clergy : a psychodynamic study with case histories (Edinburgh ;New York: T. Nelson, 1963), 142-43

Pastors, do you feel the same?

“In my former life as a pastor, I was a dispenser of comfortable
Christianity. I took on the job of creating a “conducive
environment” for worship. What this really meant was making a
worship event cushy enough that people would want to come and
then come back: comfortable seats, coffee, pleasing worship music,
and a sermon that holds attention. Unfortunately, regularly
attending a comfortable worship event has become the primary
marker of what it means to be a Christian today.”
(Roger Thoman, Simple/House Church Revolution)

印尼家庭助理與傳道人

幾年前還在馬來西亞某神學院任教時，某宗派神學生畢業後，獲神學學士者起薪為馬幣八百令吉（元），生活鞎難。後來幾年聽說有調了薪。無獨有偶，今年網上讀到星洲日報印尼女工基薪要求八百令吉。我不知道該給神學畢業的傳道人定下多少的獻金（不要薪金，免得像是雇工了），但看到星報的一個薪金表，覺得也有些參考價值。

The Motivation of the Pastor

“This brings us to the pastor’s motivation.  Lippitt, Watson, and Westley, on the basis of their analysis of processes of planned change, conclude that ‘an important function of the change agent is an honest self-examination.  He needs to think through for himself the reason why he wants to help others.’  (The Dynamics of Planned Change, New York-Burlingame, 1958).  The personal problems of a change agent are diverse.  But one generalization can be made, namely, ‘that the change agent’s problems of motivation cannot be safely ignored.  No change agent can afford to take himself for granted.”

“A. van Kaam is of the opinion that a counsellor should examine his motivation after every session.  He needs to confront himself and his actions with questions like these: ‘Does he need to sound like an oracle? Is he in love with his sonorous voice or clever verbalizations? Does he feel that he ‘knows’ people through and through? Is he authoritarian, domineering? Des he need to be popular? to be liked or exalted as a ‘nice chap’ by his counselee? Is he afraid of depth in himself and others? Does he repress his own feelings and paralyze his spontaneity? Is he afraid to verbalize or to hear the verbalization of certain experiences?” (“Counseling from the Viewpoint of Existential Psychology,” in R. L. Mosher, R. F. Carle, and C. D. Kehas, Guidance, New York-Chicago-Burlingame, 1965)

Firet, Jacob, Dynamics in Pastoring. (Grand Rapids, Mich: Eerdmans,  1986), 240.

“One could say that for the choice and all pastoral behaviour which followed, there is but one legitimate motive, namely, the one Paul mentions in II Corinthians 5:14: ‘… the love of Christ constrains us. …’ This is not a motive in a psychological sense, however.  What Paul says here is that the power which moves him in his apostolic work is the love of Christ, i.e., the love which moved Christ to die for all (cf. v.15).  it is that love which took possession of Paul; it grips him–synechei–and activates HIM.

Perhaps one could say: apart from the strictly personal motivation which is dependent on the psyhosomatic disposition, the personal history and situation of a man or woman, there is something which transcends a person and grips his or her life with new power and direction.  To distinguish this from motivation one could call it synechia.  This synechia did not arise from within the person; it cannot be explained in terms of the person’s history or disposition.  It is another power, or the power of the Other who has come over him.  As Paul says: ‘It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me’ (Gal. 2:20).  This synechia as such is not psychologically ascertainable; it cannot be inferred from a person’s behaviour.”

Firet, Jacob, Dynamics in Pastoring. (Grand Rapids, Mich: Eerdmans,  1986), 242.