You Visited Me

Encouraging Spiritual Practice in a Secular World

Sang Taek Lee, Alan Galt, Sang Taek Lee, Alan Galt

• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781725298132, 9781725298149
• eBook ISBN: 9781725298156
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Ministry

You Visited Me explores current work practices in pastoral care, supervision, and spirituality, and how one can experience a new type of ministry with the theory of CPE and its methods in a secular world. This book is divided into three sections: history, framework, and theology of clinical pastoral education; clinical pastoral education and spiritual practice in a secular world; and Anton Theophilus Boisen and clinical pastoral education from an apocalyptic aspect.

Part I

History, Framework, and Theology of Clinical Pastoral Education

1

CPE in New South Wales—Adapting to the Local Need

Alan Galt

Early Days: Filling a Gap in Education for Pastoral Ministry

In 1960, lecturers at NSW theological colleges were looking for ways to offer effective training in pastoral care for their students.1 On the basis of their experience of clinical pastoral education in the United States, they were supported by the Australian Council of Churches to form the NSW Council for Clinical Pastoral Education in 1963, to provide education and supervision for representatives of the churches who were offering pastoral and spiritual care with people who are experiencing health and similar crises.

Over the next thirty years, the Council for CPE expanded its activities and areas of interest to involve ministry in hospitals, psychiatric units, aged care facilities, and prisons, as well as in the community. In 2004, it changed its name to the New South Wales College of Clinical Pastoral Education and became a member institute of the Sydney College of Divinity, to be able to offer students the opportunity to gain a higher education degree in the fields of chaplaincy and pastoral supervision.2 After fifty-seven years, clinical pastoral education programs are still the standard by which other activities offering supervision in pastoral ministry are measured.3

Accepting the Challenge

As hospital staff and administrators became more aware of the value of pastoral care in the therapeutic team,4 they encouraged the appointment of chaplains and pastoral visitors, and in 1972 arranged for funding for a specific educational activity, clinical pastoral education, at the Royal North Shore Hospital, directed by chaplain Russell Fowler, that would prepare theological students and clergy for ministry with people in hospital.

At the same time, psychiatric hospital chaplains were experimenting with running training programs in mental health ministry at Goulburn and Gladesville Psychiatric Hospitals.5 Mental health chaplains were also part of the move toward community-based treatment and rehabilitation aimed at reducing the increasingly expensive long-stay psychiatric hospitalization.6

It soon became evident that rather than spending all their time with the thousands of residents in the large state psychiatric hospitals, the chaplains’ main role would be to equip the hundreds of local clergy and designated lay people from all churches who could lead their congregations into welcoming the residents leaving the long-stay wards for boarding houses, hostels, and sheltered accommodation in the community.7

At this point, the NSW Council for Clinical Pastoral Education began to offer formal programs of supervised training for church personnel, and started the process of educating and accrediting “supervisors” qualified to teach and support these people in the new and complex area of pastoral education in general hospital ministry8 and in mental health ministry.9

Widening the Focus

From the beginnings in the early 1970s at Royal North Shore Hospital, the number of venues offering clinical pastoral education courses expanded under the guidance of Keith Little: at St Vincent’s in Darlinghurst, John Hunter in Newcastle and Westmead, and eventually Lottie Stewart, Carlingford, Gosford on the Central Coast, the Adventist Hospital, Wahroongah, and at Canberra in the ACT. Other CPE programs started at Goulburn and Gladesville Psychiatric Hospitals, at St George and Sutherland Hospitals, and with satellite programs for chaplains in Illawarra and South Coast Hospitals. Education in pastoral ministry remained focused on students coming from the NSW churches and theological colleges, and there was an impressive emphasis on interdenominational cooperation, with a common goal of helping people in hospital draw on their spiritual resources in times of medical and mental health crisis.

One CPE center opted to move out of supervision in hospital ministry to concentrate on preparing people for ministry with alienated and distressed people in the inner city.10

With the proliferation of church-run aged care facilities, a number of aged care chaplains were appointed, and church administrators as well as the chaplains themselves, began to look for opportunities for education in aged care ministry.11

The churches were also becoming aware of the huge population of alienated people in the state’s prisons and juvenile justice facilities, and with the encouragement of the Department of Corrective Services, they began to place full-time chaplains in the large prisons and youth detention centers. Because in NSW we did not have any prison chaplains who were accredited as CPE supervisors, Corrective Services chaplains undertook their professional supervision with CPE supervisors who did not work in the prisons. This had limited success, as a credible CPE program assumes that a student will receive supervision from a teacher who is familiar with their workplace and can help them improve their effectiveness there, by being aware of the daily challenges they face. We are hoping to recruit experienced prison chaplains to train as CPE supervisors to meet this demand, as happens in some other states.

One very effective contribution to professional pastoral education for prison chaplains has been their participation in Mental Health CPE Units, which equip them for relevant ministry with the high percentage of their inmates who have diagnosed mental illnesses.12

Ministry with People from Other Faiths

The population of NSW, especially in Sydney, is one of the most multicultural in the world, and with that comes a high percentage of our residents whose religious affiliation is other than Christian.13 They have as great a need, and as much right, for appropriate pastoral care when they are in hospital, psychiatric units, prison, or aged care facilities, as do members of the Christian faith. The NSW CPE College accepts this, and has arranged for our supervisors to provide supervised pastoral education for people of all faiths (and none). This reflects the reality that the government supports ministry with people of other faiths.14 Helping people from other faiths to have appropriate pastoral care in hospital and other crisis situations reflects the NSW CPE College’s conviction that Jesus wants us to be available, as he was, to meet the spiritual needs of people who are not Christian.15 Most NSW CPE supervisors welcome people of other faiths into their CPE programs,16 but there have been CPE supervisors who have ceased their connection with the NSW CPE College because of their own denomination’s opposition to our inclusiveness.

At this time, some CPE supervisors accept only people of the Christian faith into their programs. Others offer CPE that is specifically designed for people from one of the non-Christian traditions, as well as running inclusive CPE...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Part I: History, Framework, and Theology of Clinical Pastoral Education
• Part II: Clinical Pastoral Education and Spiritual Practice in a Secular World
• Part III: Anton Theophilus Boisen and Clinical Pastoral Education from an Apocalyptic Aspect
• Notes on the Contributors