Spirituality And Pastoral Care

Genuine pastoral sensitivity arises out of the pastor's own spiritual life and the pastor's experience of God's presence. Whether pastoral care is demonstrated through counseling or liturgical leadership, it must be grounded in faith and permeated with prayer. Working as a pastoral psychotherapist, I am increasingly captured by questions of pastoral identity. Who am I as I sit in this room with struggling and suffering persons? Why am I here? How do I envision and embody my role here? The explicitly pastoral dimension of these questions also includes how all this connected to my experience of prayer and faith? In responding to these questions, I have found it helpful to return to those basic experiences which are foundational in my life-personal experiences of healing and salvation. In this article, I would like to invite others into a conversation about such personal experiences. The invitation involves dialogue about the relationship of spirituality to our pastoral work. The cont…