In Chapter One, Collins discusses the church's attitude toward counseling. Pastors who first begin their ministry are often dismayed at the diverse emotional needs of their congregations. And tackling the wide array of books and articles on counseling methods is equally daunting. Church leaders must, however, help their congregations because counseling is a necessary part of any ministry.
Distinctions can be made between three types of care and counseling. Pastoral care is a broad term which refers to the preaching, teaching, and nurturing that forms the most basic part of a pastor's duties to his or her church: "The Christian counselor seeks to bring people into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and to help them find forgivenessness and relief from the crippling effects of sin and guilt" (Collins 16). Pastoral counseling is specialized pastoral care, the work of an ordained pastor, the goal of which is to help counselees achieve healing, learning, and growth consistent with biblical teaching. Pastoral psychotherapy involves long-term, in-depth healing that is the purview of the trained specialist.
Christian counseling is unique from secular counseling because of four distinctions. The Christian counselor works from unique assumptions about the nature of God, human suffering, and healing that are based on biblical teachings. The ultimate goal of Christian counseling is to help the counselee to become a disciple of Jesus Christ. Granted, the counselor never tries to force his or her beliefs on the counselee, but the Christian counselor does not compartmentalize life into secular and religious segments: "honest and authentic people-helpers do not stifle their beliefs and pretend to be something they are not" (Collins 18). The unique methods of the Christian counselor preclude the use of techniques that would not be in keeping with biblical teachings. In addition, Christian counseling techniques include suc...