JUNE 24, 1917 - OCTOBER 21, 1999

"I hope and pray that pastoral counseling in the 21st century will be part of the normal outreach of the church to people whose wounds draw no blood but nevertheless can be literally the cause of death and figuaratively the cause of the death of a marriage and the destruction of hope in children." Dr. Wayne E. Oates "The future of pastoral care calls for more visitation to patient's convalesing at home. Some churches are employing parish nurses to visit convalesing and shut-in patients. The future calls for closer collaboration between chaplains and parish pastors." Copyright and Bibliographical Information

The Present and Future of Pastoral Care Excerpts from Dr. Wayne E. Oates presentation at the "Wayne E. Oates Homecoming" on June 28, 1997 Four days ago I became eighty years old. Psalm 90:10-12 says, "The years of our life are threescore and ten or even by reason of strength fourscore, yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone and fly away......So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom." I am rededicating my life to getting a heart of wisdom. Erik Erikson says that this is the developmental task of later maturity. Thus avoiding the fate of cynicism and despair. Therefore as I discuss the present and future of pastoral care, pray with me that I will do so with a heart of wisdom. It is no great secret that massive technological and financial changes in medical care have made the practice of pastoral care by chaplains a whole new terrain. Because of downsizing and smaller budgets, Georgia has discontinued all its state chaplains and the Birmingham Baptist Hospitals have downsized a large chaplaincy network. While some new pastoral care programs are being initiated, the truth is chaplains are an endangered species. Up to 50% of surgery is now done on an outpatient basis and at some hospitals that figure is 75%. Such drastic changes not only affect the work of chaplains, but are beginning to impact the role of churches. The stereotype of the pastor visiting people in the hospital is being shattered by increasing outpatient care. The future of pastoral care calls for more visitation to patients convalescing at home. Some churches are employing parish nurses to visit convalesing and shut-in patients. The future calls for closer collaboration between chaplains and parish pastors. Pastoral counseling also has undergone an unusual number of changes to be as it is in the present. In the thirties through the earliest sixties, pastoral counseling was a function of pastors of churches. Pastoral Counseling was not a full time profession but an auxiliary function of pastors and college and seminary professors. With the establishment of the American Association of Pastoral Counseling, it became a sub-profession of the ministry. As an increasing number of men and women went into private practice, state licensure was necessary to facilitate third party payments. This moved pastoral counseling another step toward secularization. However, it is my firm belief that the most acceptable way of sustaining pastoral counseling is in a church. Ideally, the church should employ the pastoral counselor and any fees for service should be paid into a separate church budget. When pastoral counseling is church-centered, then as Dr. Leigh Conver expresses it, "The church itself should be the source of third party payments." Church-centered pastoral counseling focuses the identity of the counselor so that he or she is a pastor; a disciplined servant of Jesus Christ and a working part of the church, the Body of Christ. I hope and pray that pastoral counseling of the 21st century will be a part of the normal outreach of the church to people whose wounds draw no blood but nevertheless can be literally the cause of death and figuratively the cause of the death of a marriage and the destruction of hope in children. These wounds can be healed or prevented by a pastoral counselor who is disciplined in the truths of scripture, the lessons of church history, the substance of Christian ethics and the wisdom of dedicated psychotherapists and supervisors. The future of pastoral counseling is secure if the word pastoral is expressed clearly in the very content of the counseling and the increasing ownership by the churches, not leaving pastoral counselors to fend for themselves with third party payments. In Proverbs 20:5 it tells us, "Counsel in the heart of a person is like deep waters, but a person of understanding can draw it out." That is what the past, present, and future of pastoral care is all about -- being pastors of understanding who draw out the purposes in human hearts of people and gently restore them to the intentions of the Lord Jesus Christ for their lives.

Copyright © 1998, Wayne E. Oates Institute. All rights reserved.

Copyright and Bibliographical Information
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When using quotes from this article the bibliographic information should be cited as follows:

Oates, Wayne E. "The Present and Future of Pastoral Care." Oates Journal v. 1 (1998): September 1998 <http://www.oates.org/journal/pub/vol-01-98/articles/future_of_pastoral_care-s.htm>