When Should a Pastor Refer?

When Should a Pastor Refer?

In pastoral ministry the line between the work you do with your people and when to bring in extra help can be a difficult one to discern. For some seasoned wisdom on the topic I turn to Mike Emlet, a counselor and faculty member at CCEF. In the space below I’ve summarized some of the key points from a talk he gave at the 2015 CCEF National Conference titled “When Should Pastors Refer: When should the help you provide as a pastor extend beyond yourself and the resources of your congregation?”. Click here to purchase the complete talk from the CCEF website.

When Should a Pastor Refer?

Assuming you’re meeting regularly with people, assuming you believe that the biblical story is always relevant to the issues at hand, assuming you are already helping your counselee take full advantage of the resources in the church, here are some things to consider as you ask yourself whether or not to refer:

Things about yourself to take into consideration:

  1. Gifting – Romans 12:3-8. Not all pastors in ministry are equally gifted as ministers in counsel. As a pastor you have the call to be walking alongside of the people you shepherd but your own gifting as a counselor will be a factor in determining which cases you ought to take on yourself.
  2. Training and Experience – Even with a baseline gifting you need training and experience to stir up that gift. Much of our learning happens reactively –  as we’re faced with situations that we encounter, we dig in and learn how to handle them. If you don’t have much experience it doesn’t necessarily mean you must refer. Ask yourself these questions: Am I willing and able to study and learn? If you lack experience you don’t want to learn and grow in isolation. Find someone who can help you with hands on questions. Is the person you’re counseling comfortable with that arrangement? Are they on board with you as you learn and grow? Are they comfortable with you seeking outside help? A note from us at Impact: We’d love to be an outside resource to you. Please contact us if you have questions about what that might look like. 
  3. Time – Do I have time for a regular and recurring meeting with this person? Although the answer to that question never feels like a resounding “yes”, there are several things to help mitigate the time factor. 1) Meet every couple of weeks. Space out the appointments. 2) Counsel the person with a friend or small group leader to have a built in way for someone else to carry the load of walking with them. It also opens the possibility of transitioning care for the long haul. “If you find that you never have time to meet with a person more than once it’s something you should reassess.”

Things in a counselee that would cause you refer to outside help:

  1. Medical problems. Do you see physical symptoms?
  2. Marked personality changes
  3. Heavy substance abuse
  4. Eating disorders, or other struggles that require a multi-disciplinary team approach
  5. Psychiatric symptoms. Do you have concerns about their connection to reality?
  6. Seriously considering suicide
  7. No change. Are they putting in the time and effort and change isn’t happening?
  8. A problem requiring intensive and extensive counseling.

The question of referral is about how to best love the people the Lord has called you to walk with.

Proverbs 11:14 “Where there is no guidance, a people falls, but in abundance of counselors there is safety”

 

 

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