'Don't promise more than God does,' counselor cautions health professionals

 

The Rev. Jared Rardin addresses a packed Amphitheater audience for the "Tools of the Trade" event.

PHILADELPHIA - Health professionals with a faith perspective can do much to positively influence the people they care for. But some theological perspectives should come with a "surgeon general's warning," a pastoral counselor told more than 100 individuals attending a health ministry seminar March 24 at The Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. The event, called "Health Ministry: Tools of the Trade," was co-sponsored by the Seminary, the Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and the Social Ministry Committee of the ELCA.

In working with people it's helpful to take into account "the life experiences in which a condemning approach to theology has proved to be a destructive experience for people," Pastoral Counselor Jared Rardin said. Rardin, who holds a Master of Divinity degree from Union Seminary in New York City and who has served as a pastoral counselor for 20 years, traced a number of "healthy vital signs" to be employed in administering care. He observed that health care professionals of faith are often in the position to be "translators" between the fields of science and religion.

Rardin, on the staff of the Samaritan Counseling Center in Blue Bell, PA, noted that five critical vital signs frequently come into play. One fosters the ability to establish a clear boundary that links and limits a relationship with God. A second allows people to both confess and be accountable to their faith. A third enables recipients of care to enhance their creativity in the way they live out their faith and their lives. A fourth takes into account the role of community. A final vital sign involves helping others to achieve a mature spirituality.

Appropriate boundaries involving God mean helping people "get comfortable with not knowing everything….The church may have promised people more in the past than God promises," Rardin said. Life has inevitable costs associated with it. God has promised to be with people throughout it all, but there are limits to what people and health care professionals can control, he said. The dual challenge is to help individuals in care gain control of what's possible and understand in religious terms what the limits of control are. In the catastrophes of life, "it is the quality of coming through the experience that matters, and that is where a faith perspective can be most helpful," he said.

 

Leaders for the "Tools of the Trade" event at the Seminary include, from left, the Rev. Jared Rardin, keynoter for the day; Ann Farley, event coordinator, and the Rev. George Keck, Director of Lay Theological Education at the Seminary. More than 100 health care professionals attended the event March 24.

Second, Rardin said that helping people understand their accountability to God and knowing how to express contrition is key. The approach requires humility on the part of people but also coming to terms with mistakes taught by traditions, or misperceptions of theology. Such misperceptions include that if people will only do the right thing they won't suffer consequences to their health, or if people become ill they must be living the wrong lifestyle, or, if people just have enough faith everything will be OK. "People may wait a long time for God to make everything OK, and when they don't get the response they hope for they may blame themselves or God or some scapegoat," he said. "Or others may shun them believing they don't have enough faith." He gave examples from his experience. "Racism is often a factor in the issues that tend to divide African American married couples," he said. And some faith perspectives are more focused on having a victim forgive spousal or sexual abuse than they are on the matter of safety and accountability first to the victim.

Rardin said helping people to express creativity in dealing with life challenges is also critical. "Our wholeness depends on having imagination," he said. Creativity may defy certain traditions. He urged caregivers to understand that part of a healthy theology is urging others and themselves to "think creatively about what they were put here for."

Living in community is a special benefit churches and communities of faith have to offer, Rardin indicated. "In this way churches are best suited to dispense preventative health care. I depend on six to eight people in my life to keep me spiritually afloat," Rardin said. He added that health ministry may be administered in a congregation by a corps of lay people, and noted that for a faith community to enable healing to happen for individuals it must first be healed itself.

Finally, having a mature spirituality involves coming to terms with suffering. "Pain is at the root of the calling health professionals have," Rardin said. "Pain is not God's will, and we cannot always fix it. Sometimes the call is to just care and not cure."

Rardin said both religion and culture have certain roots in violence. "It helps to remember that God suffers violence. God does not sponsor violence," he said. In Christ, the way of the Cross is to prevent further violence, which is a focus for pastoral counseling, and to call for an end to retribution and promoting the notion of absolution instead. "Sometimes there is not much God can do," he noted. But it can be important to help those being cared for to preserve "a dwelling place for God inside until the very last."

The event featured a variety of workshops discussing topics such as spirituality and aging, ministry with children, healing worship and forming a health ministry team in a faith community.