Encouragement for Pastors About Counseling—from a Veteran Counselor

David Powlison, The Pastor as Counselor: The Call for Soul Care. Crossway, 2021. 80 pages.

Some books on pastoring make you feel like a failure (ahem, The Christianity Ministry by Charles Bridges or Dallimore’s biography on Spurgeon).

Why is that? Sometimes it’s because we are failures. Or we have such an exalted view of the ministry that adequacy is unobtainable.

Counseling also suffers from such pitfalls. Pastors can be bad counselors. But pastors can also perceive counseling to be so outside of their skill set—so exalted of a discipline—that the professionals should do it.

We are counseled out of our feelings of inadequacy by David Powlison in his book The Pastor as Counselor. The late, great, counselor-theologian penned this mercifully short and powerfully encouraging book to say, “Pastor, you are a counselor” (1).

Summary

In a brief introduction, Powlison asks probing questions around why we might be poor counselors and then gives a sketch of a good counselor, one who is “growing into the likeness of Jesus Christ” (15). The pastor not only counsels but he “teaches, equips, supervises, and counsels other counselors” (15). A glorious encouragement for a congregationalist counseling pastor!

Chapter 1 defines what counseling is by looking at the “talking-cure professions” (19) and comparing them to pastoral counseling. For Powlison, pastoral counseling is a “relational and pastoral enterprise engaging in care and cure of souls” (19). Biblical counseling, unlike secular counseling, imposes values on the recipient. Not the pastor’s values, but God’s values (18).

In chapter 2, Powlison lays out “five unique aspects of the pastor as counselor: [the] responsibility, opportunity, method, message, and context” of this type of counseling. Each section is full of wisdom and encouragement from Scripture, Powlison’s experience, and church history.

Review

This book has several strengths, but I will highlight three.

First, It’s Short

Pastors are busy with counseling, sermon prep, prayer, listening to problems, and so on. Excluding the foreword, the book is only 48 pages in length with no wasted words.

Second, the Book Highlights the Accessibility of Counseling

Our age of expertise deceives us and our people into thinking we need professionals for everything, but Powlison encourages the pastor that he can counsel. He quotes Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who says, “The most experienced psychologist or observer of human nature knows infinitely less of the human heart than the simplest Christian who lives beneath the Cross of Jesus. The greatest psychological insight, ability, and experience cannot grasp this one thing: what sin is.”^{11 .} Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together and Prayerbook of the Bible, vol. 5, Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works (Mineapplois: Fortress Press, 1996), 115 quoted on pg. 35.

Pastor, you know what sin is and you know the cross of Christ. Therefore, you can do your people more spiritual good than you think.

Third, the Book Puts the Local Church in Its Proper Place

Though Powlison spent his life working for a parachurch ministry, he is committed to the principle that the local church is the primary context for biblical counseling. Because this context is God-ordained, a great promise is attached to it—Christ will build his church, and the body will grow into full maturity (57; cf. Matt. 16:18, Eph. 4:16).

Conclusion

The Pastor as Counselor left me stirred up and inspired to roll up my sleeves and do the work of the ministry, laboring and toiling with all of his energy that every member of my church may be presented mature in Christ (Col. 1:28–29). Sometimes pastors need correction. Other times we need encouragement that we can do the work in front of us. Powlison provides such encouragement.