Pastoral Care Training Day

On Saturday I had the great pleasure of spending the day with some great folk from ARC. You can find out more about the church from their website. I met Peter, the senior pastor, at a one-day seminar last March. We began to talk and from there we developed a relationship that led to me leading a training day for them. We talked about pastoral care.

The day broke down into four sessions: An overview; the health-check; how we listen; and developing good practice. The health-check is a simple questionnaire used to identify areas of personal spiritual growth and ministry. We covered a lot of ground, but it was a lot of fun. The group was wonderfully responsive and made me feel wonderfully welcome. And the food was brilliant!

I ended the day shattered but having been inspired and challenged. Surely that's not a bad outcome, to be challenged by your own seminar!

Having not done anything quite like this before, it was a opportunity for me to explore how to plan and deliver something that would stimulate and keep people engaged through a whole day. We did some group activities, but we probably needed more process time. To do that would mean either cutting down the content or lengthening the day. I think we probably got the balance about right.