{"id":518,"date":"2010-08-12T04:00:54","date_gmt":"2010-08-12T10:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/?p=518"},"modified":"2010-08-12T04:00:54","modified_gmt":"2010-08-12T10:00:54","slug":"the-ministry-of-presence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/?p=518","title":{"rendered":"Being There: The Ministry Of Presence"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>“The most important ministry you can offer a family in the midst of difficulties is your presence.”\u00a0 Perhaps one of the most\u00a0helpful lessons that I learned while a student at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.\u00a0 Spoken from decades of pastoral experience, Dr. Bill Cubine, retired\u00a0Professor and Seminary Chaplain at Southern, taught his students that the “ministry of presence” would be\u00a0valuable and indispensable, especially during times of grief and tragedy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I have been reminded\u00a0once again\u00a0of the importance of the ministry of presence with the sudden and unexpected death earlier this week\u00a0of a beloved member of the church I am privileged to pastor.\u00a0 During the course of my fourteen years in pastoral ministry, I have walked with hundreds of\u00a0families through various\u00a0trials and tribulations including divorce, financial turmoil, problems with wayward children, terminal illnesses, and the death of family members.\u00a0 And while my experience helps make it easier to minister in these situations, it is never easy.<\/p>\n

As pastors, and sometimes as laypeople, we want to fix all the problems and provide all the answers to the WHY questions that inevitably arise in times of crisis.\u00a0 As a young pastor, I would try to come up with neat and tidy theological answers to some of life’s most challenging problems, only to realize that my answers, at least at the time, were\u00a0neither encouraging nor comforting to the family.\u00a0 It was usually at that point that I would remember Dr. Cubine’s words and simply begin to minister to a hurting family by my presence, even if I didn’t say two words apart from a prayer.<\/p>\n

How can you, as a pastor or a friend,\u00a0comfort someone in the midst of difficult circumstances?\u00a0 Understand that you don’t have to understand it all.\u00a0 You will not have all the answers to why someone is going through a particular trial.\u00a0 Don’t try to answer questions that only God knows the answers to.\u00a0 After all, Job never did get any “satisfactory” answers to why he endured all that he did, even though his “friends” tried to help him understand why bad things were happening to him.\u00a0 At the end of the day, Job realized that God is God and he was not.<\/p>\n

Then, just be there for the person\u00a0or family in crisis.\u00a0 Stop by and let them know you are praying for them.\u00a0 Bring food by (this is not just a Baptist doctrine) or offer to run to the grocery store for them.\u00a0 Use cards, letters, phone calls, text messages, Facebook, and other means of communication to stay in touch with folks as they journey down difficult and painful roads.\u00a0 And, even after they have “come through” their crisis, remember to reach out to them in meaningful and practical ways.<\/p>\n

I have learned a lot during the course of my pastoral ministry.\u00a0 God has allowed me to minister to families during trying times in the past and He will continue to give me opportunities to minister to families in crisis in the future.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Whether or not we call ourselves “pastor,” each of us will have those\u00a0opportunities, maybe even this week.\u00a0 Make the most\u00a0of it by ministering through your presence.\u00a0 Thanks, Dr. Cubine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“The most important ministry you can offer a family in the midst of difficulties is your presence.”\u00a0 Perhaps one of the most\u00a0helpful lessons that I learned while a student at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.\u00a0 Spoken from decades of pastoral experience, Dr. Bill Cubine, retired\u00a0Professor and Seminary Chaplain at Southern, taught his students that the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[31],"tags":[153,269,460,3390,660,3392,921],"class_list":["post-518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ministry","tag-bill-cubine","tag-crisis","tag-grief","tag-ministry","tag-ministry-of-presence","tag-religion","tag-southern-seminary"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1LP7G-8m","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=518"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}