Benefits of training Church Members to provide Spiritual Support

As a minister, chaplain or clergy, you’ve been providing care and offering hope your entire career. In fact, you are wired to care. You are wired to be kind, gracious and empathetic. You’ve taken class after class learning how to be “present” with people. You know how to care for people in pain!

But, do your church members? And, even if they know how, do they feel comfortable responding on your behalf?

Here’s why your church / faith community should invest in training members to provide spiritual support to people in pain:

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1. Get selected church members out of the pew and into the pain

Let’s face it, there are members in your church that are bored. They see church as inauthentic and disconnected. They believe that church is for the sick and hurting; but, no one seems comfortable expressing their “illness” and pain.

There are members in your church that want to use “Christian” as a verb – not a noun. Instead of sitting on the pew, they want to be in the “trenches”. They don’t know who needs help, but they look around and imagine people struggling with addiction, shame, grief, worry, anger, loneliness, abuse and more. 

They want to help. They want to be “hands and feet”, extending comfort and care to people on their worst day. But, they don’t know who…and they don’t know how. They need training and oversight to provide effective and relevant service. We can teach you how to help those members fulfill their mission and ministry by providing compassionate presence to people in pain.

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2. Divide the “load” and multiply the results

As mentioned above, there are members in your church wanting, craving even, the opportunity to minister. While members are hungry to help, paid ministers are often overwhelmed with phone calls, meetings, staffing issues, hospital visits, counseling sessions, worship planning, sermon writing and more.

It’s safe to say that pastoral staff could use the extra help. But, often times, building a volunteer team takes more time and energy than staff have available to them. Having a volunteer team is like having an intern. You love the idea of additional help, but loathe the idea of taking time (you don’t have) to train and get volunteers up-to-speed. It’s just easier to do the work yourself. 

Instead of persisting in this pattern, let us train your team to hit the ground running. This way, they will strengthen your ministry, instead of draining your resources.

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3. You can’t help what you don’t know

How many times have you been held accountable for something you didn’t know? There is a latin phrase often used in the legal setting: “Ignorance of the law excuses not”. 

Ignorance of Millie’s hospital stay does not excuse your missed visit. Ignorance of Peter’s car accident does not excuse your failure to call. How often do you want to say: “It’s God who’s all-knowing, not me!”

A fair defense, but it doesn’t help hurting people feel better. What does help is a compassionate presence that communicates “you matter” and “we care”. What does help is feeling loved and not alone. In order to communicate and be present with people in pain, you must first know about it.

Training helps establish a deliberate line of communication between team members and pastoral staff. 

Gone are the days of sharing critical information with the pastor minutes before (or after) the worship service. Gone are the days of assuming that the pastor knows all and can be in multiple places at once (again – not God, or Santa for that matter). Gone are the days of unrealistic expectations and not knowing when people are in pain. 

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We provide tools, templates and training that teach team members how to listen, assess, address – then communicate to clergy additional needs for next-level care.

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4. Church leaders need “actionable intelligence”

One concern for empowering lay ministers is that, through referrals, they can generate more “work” for the pastoral staff. Not so, with proper training.

We teach team members to listen, assess and address those experiencing emotional and spiritual distress. We don’t teach volunteers how to “problem-point” then “hand-off” to paid staff. We teach members how to apply solution-based techniques that meets needs, reduces suffering, strengthens connections and offers hope.

Instead of getting more work, trained team members perform the initial ministry, then refer to the next level of care when needed. Trained members are also able to inform and recommend effective action to pastoral staff.

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We teach members how to provide an organized and strategic response to people in crisis.

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At CSS, our mission is to help people help each other. 

We are passionate about training and empowering church members to “get out of the pew and into the pain” by providing stabilizing support ministry to those experiencing emotional and spiritual distress.

Contact us to learn more about training and discover benefits for your congregation and community as a whole.