Often in pastoral care, the question of confidentiality will come up. This is important because when you are counselling someone, they are placing themselves in a vulnerable situation and may be telling you things that they’ve never told anyone before. They may be nervous about how making that known will affect them and their relationships.… Continue reading Confidentiality and pastoral care
Tag: safe guarding
Abuse, safeguarding and church discipline
One of my main concerns is to see healthy churches planted into urban contexts. We often talk about the church planting bit but I also try to talk as much as possible about the healthy bit. When we talk about healthy churches we are thinking both about health in terms of right doctrine/teaching and good… Continue reading Abuse, safeguarding and church discipline
Pastoral care – guidelines
Yesterday I shared some training notes on giving pastoral care in the church. Here are some guideline notes based on guidelines and policies from a previous church Safe-guarding Your church should have a children’s and at risk adults’ safeguarding policy. It is important that we recognise that those policies respond to specific legal and medical… Continue reading Pastoral care – guidelines
Developing Robust Safeguarding policies
In a recent article, I wrote in defence of safeguarding policies and officers. Here I want to put forward some suggestions for how to have good, robust policies in place. First of all, I believe it is important to start from a Biblical basis. Elders have a responsibility to provide good spiritual food for the… Continue reading Developing Robust Safeguarding policies