OVER THE past two decades counseling has grown into a mam moth multi-million-dollar industry. Increasing numbers of men and women are assuming the role of counselors to the untold multitudes who are suffering from one kind of mental problem or an other.
The Christian church has quickly taken up the role, especially as it has observed more and more people seeking counsel from psychologists and psychiatrists and moving away from the clergy, who traditionally played the role of counselor in the past. Consequently many church pastors are seeking more in-depth training in counseling, for they naturally wish to develop techniques that will be effective in their pastoral work.
Counseling is not a new art. There are many examples in the Old and New Testaments where counsel has been given. For ex ample, in the ministry of Christ men such as Nicodemus and the rich young ruler sought Him out for direct counsel to guide their personal lives. There is no doubt that there is a value in men and women counseling together to strengthen one another and to guide in pathways of righteousness. However, there are also serious dangers in counseling, especially today when so many ministers tend to place the strength of their work in this kind of ministry. Therefore, it is important to look at some of the perils, or dangers, that are related to this work.
Danger of Depending Upon Man
One essential role of every minister is to lead his congregation to complete dependence upon Christ, and not upon man. "Every church member should under stand that God is the one to whom to look for an understanding of individual duty. It is right that brethren counsel together; but when men arrange just what their brethren should do, let them answer that they have chosen the Lord as their counselor." —Testimonies, vol. 9, p. 280.
Ellen White points out the danger of depending upon men. "There is danger that men will receive the counsel of men, when by so doing they will discard the counsel of God." —Ibid., vol. 8, p. 146.
This is the first peril of counseling. Unwittingly the minister may encourage his parishioner to lean upon him rather than upon God. Even the most dedicated minister can never take the place of God, and there is an increasing tend ency today for men to look to men rather than to look to God. In many cases such dependence has become debilitating to the spiritual and emotional stability of the church member. He feels such a strong dependence upon the counsel of the minister that frequently, when that minister is transferred from the district, he feels a loss, an emptiness, and a fear that has come as a result of his total dependence upon a certain man.
This danger can be avoided if the minister will constantly re mind those members who seek his counsel that, while he has an in ability to solve any of the issues that are raised, he can direct that member to the true Counselor and to His written Word. Above every thing else, the aim of the pastor in his counseling should be to turn his members away from man to God. Any indication that such a member is developing a human dependence must be quickly but lovingly met by the counselor in a way that will help the member to draw closer to God as his sure strength and trust.
The second peril confronted by the counselor is the peril of egotism. It is so easy to develop this egotism as more and more members turn to the minister for his counsel and guidance in their lives. This represents a deep-seated threat to the soul of the counselor, for such egotism born of unconquered self imperils his own Christian development. Any man taking to himself a role that God has never entrusted to him will surely have to face such con sequences in the judgment. "But God is greatly dishonored when men are placed in the position where God should be. He alone can give unerring counsel." —Testimonies to Ministers, p. 326.
Such egotism tends to lead the minister to foster a dependent relationship in his members, and the more those members emphasize how much he is able to help them, the greater will be the risk that such flattery will lead the minister into dangerous, unproductive pathways.
The counselor is confronted by a further dilemma. The more time he spends in this type of work, the less time he has for the active presentation of the gospel com mission. The minister cannot turn aside from Christ's direct command "Go . . . into all the world, and preach the gospel."
Primary Work
It is true that today there has been a broadening of the terms of the gospel and what is represented by it. Some of the popular concepts are valid and some are not. It is important that the true meaning of the gospel commission be emphasized. Many ministers are so involved in the work of administration and of counseling that very little time is given to the direct proclamation of the gospel and the pushing forward of the frontiers of truth.
It is essential that every man called to the gospel ministry recognize his primary work to be the work of telling men and women of Jesus and His soon coming. Too often a pastor is so inundated that his time is taken up with counseling, making it impossible for him to do the work for which he has been primarily ordained.
Tragically, some gospel ministers have become convinced that counseling is their primary work and have left the work of the ministry for full-time counseling. Is it possible that in many instances the motivation for this change is avarice, since it is realized that in comes well above that of the minister are available to the popular counselor? We cannot be judgmental. There can be many other reasons for such a change. But it is extremely important for the pastoral-counselor to investigate fully his motives in making such a switch.
The fourth concern for the minister involved in counseling relates to his own soul needs. While we sometimes fail to recognize it, the minister himself needs to safe guard just as carefully the avenues of the soul as any of his members; maybe more so. In the type of counseling that so often is involved today, the counselor very frequently is confronted with counselees who will pour out the most vivid details of their immorality and of their lives of sin and debauchery. It is in itself debilitating to the spiritual growth of the minister to listen day after day to such spiritually eroding talk, and his own eternal destiny can be in peril as a result of such concentration .
It is easy to become a confessor to our congregations. God has never given this responsibility to the minister. At all costs this must be avoided as we sincerely point our membership to the Source of true forgiveness.
Fifth, the desire for so much counseling among God's people may be symptomatic of the faithlessness of the age. Men and women, torn by the exigencies of life, lacking that peace of Christ that alone can bring contentment, seek man's aid and man's direction in their lives. The Bible has the surest remedy for lack of faith, and this is a remedy that, unfortunately, is decreasingly a part of the life of Christian believers. "Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing' by the word of God" (Rom. 10:17).
The greatest efforts need to be made by the ministry to bring congregations to a consistent study of the Word of God, by which alone the true foundation of Christian life and Christian development can be laid. If there is one lack in our midst it is the lack of faith, which in turn leads to spiritual declension, to disillusionment, and to a life-style independent of Christ.
The role of counseling often conflicts with the essential need to present the straight testimony of God's Word. The pastoral counselor is confronted with the dilemma of a training that, on the one hand, has led him to seek to love the sinner but point out the sin while, on the other hand, to accept both the counselee and his behavior. Usually the conflict is resolved on the side of the latter. This too frequently leads to a loss of one of the most essential minis tries, the ministry of reproof. The membership suffers from a minis try that fails to define clearly be tween "life and good, and death and evil" (Deut. 30:15).
The Real Answer
The real answer to social, emotional, and spiritual problems can not be found within man himself, nor within his fellow man, but in Christ. So frequently in counseling attempts are made to find answers within the individual him self. Many pastors use some form of modified Rogerian counseling technique in which, as it were, the counselor becomes a sounding board hoping to help the distressed individual to find his own solution to the problem that he brings to the counselor. Such an approach is born of the philosophy of Greek paganism, for it is based on the belief that truth is within the mind of every individual and that man can find his own answers to his needs.
Others use the more dynamic program of behavior modification, but this leans heavily upon the value judgments of the counselor himself. The counselor takes on the task of defining the type of behavior that is desirable. Thus the counselor is in danger of taking the place of God to the individual and of leading him away from the real Source of the help that he needs.
There is a desperate need to re-evaluate the role of the pastor as a counselor, its effectiveness, and its limitations, so that the work of God might not be turned aside from its real and fundamental purpose the finishing of the gospel commission, the preaching of the Word to the world, and the proclamation that Jesus is coming soon.
