The Pastor and Counseling: The Basics of Shepherding Members in Need

by Jeremy Pierre, Deepak Reju

Pastors spend much of their time counseling people in crisis--a delicate task that requires one to carefully evaluate each situation, share relevant principles from God's Word, and offer practical suggestions for moving forward. Too often, however, pastors feel unprepared to effectively shepherd their people through difficult circumstances such as depression, adultery, eating disorders, and suicidal thinking. Written to help pastors and church leaders understand the basics of biblical counseling, this book provides an overview of the counseling process from the initial meeting to the final session. It also includes suggestions for cultivating a culture of discipleship within a church and four appendixes featuring a quick checklist, tips for taking notes, and more.

Genres: Counselling, Christian, Theology, Christian Living, Nonfiction, Church, Discipleship

160 pages, Paperback

First published April 30, 2015

About the author

Jeremy Pierre, PhD, is Associate Professor of Biblical Counseling and Dean of Students at Southern Seminary. He is also a pastor at Clifton Baptist Church. He is coauthor of The Pastor and Counseling. He and his wife Sarah raise their five children in Louisville, Kentucky.

Reviews

[Brenden Wentworth]

A quick book that can read in one sitting, which is to be welcomed in the busyness of ministry

Definite crash course in the method and process of biblical counseling that I’m sure I’ll return to in the future as well as recommend to others!

[John]

Trustworthy, crisp, and practical, Jeremy Pierre and Deepak Reju have given every pastor a gift in their "The Pastor and Counseling." Broken into three sections with an appendix that shouldn't be skipped, Pierre and Reju consider the basic concept, process, and context of pastoral counseling.

The pastor can find deeper insight in any of the three sections elsewhere, but I don't know of a more trustworthy concise guide. I found their middle section on process particularly helpful and practical. At the end of the book they include a checklist for the counseling process that is worth the price of the book alone as well as an excellent background form and notetaking guide.

Outside of wishing the book was at least twice as long, I wish that Pierre and Reju would have been more clear about what distinguishes their biblical counseling model from pastoral or Christian counseling models that take their cues from therapeutic counseling. I think defining what aspects of therapeutic models are wrong and why would have been helpful for the pastor in a novel like this. To that end, I would encourage the pastor to pick up Powlison's "Seeing with New Eyes" and "How People Change" by Lane and Tripp.

For more reviews see www.thebeehive.live.

[Scott Meadows]

This is an excellent introduction to the counseling chair for anyone in ministry training or currently amidst the battleground.

Systematically walking through the heart, process, and outcomes of a counseling session(s), the authors do well in visualizing the ways that God calls His pastors and church members to join together for the health of their congregation.

If you’ve already read a 9Marks book then you know what you’re in for through stylistic writing. You can also skip chapter 7 as it’s just a summary of 9Marks ecclesiology.

The appendix is valuable and will more than likely be a list of resources that I return to in the future.

[Chase Coleman]

Quick read, very practical help for pastoral ministry, but this book is useful for any member of a local church. I found the later chapters particularly more helpful and their discussion on building a culture of discipleship in the local church. The job of counseling does not fall on the pastors shoulders alone. All members of the local church can help promote a culture counseling, but it is also the pastors job to help equip members. A great dynamic that I think Deepak and Dr. Pierre talk about in the book.

[Allison Wise]

This was okay. Nothing bad or wrong just felt very basic. Would not recommend.

[Mark Donald]

Second reading: Re-read for the pastoral internship 2020-21. Great resource, highly recommend. Great stuff on culture of discipleship, and helped by rethinking about idolatry (p.73-77)

First reading:
A great introduction to the topic of counseling. Particularly aimed towards pastors, helping them to think through their role in counseling the members of their flock.

"Counseling in its simplest form is one person seeking to walk alongside another person who has lost his or her way." (p. 18)

"Your confidence is not in some super-developed counseling technique, or even in yourself, but in God's power to change people." (p. 17)

Pierre and Reju helpfully walk through the concept, process, and context of counseling with helpful and practical insights all along the way. As men with pastoral experience they encourage the reader to be faithful but not bear the burden of counseling alone by seeking the Lord in prayer, developing a culture of discipleship in the church, and carefully utilizing resources in your city.

[Mike Collins]

A book that is a written as a crash-course in counseling for the underprepared or nervous pastor. I think the book accomplishes its stated goals well: to give the pastor a framework for counseling any problem, to offer practical advice for counseling meetings and logistics, and to infuse them with a godly confidence.

My only gripe is that a central component of the book is that is too brief in explaining a core concept: the pastor’s responsibility to listen to the counselee’s response to God, others, self, and circumstances. The authors have written another book that explores that in more detail, but could have borrowed space from other sections to elaborate a little more on that concept.

[Joseph Henry Kester]

Short, practical, and biblical. A useful introduction to the work of pastoral counseling. There is much more to be said, but Pierre and Reju keep it brief.

"Our goal is not to enable you to handle anything that comes your way. The goal, rather, is to give you confidence that in the gospel you have the categories you need to navigate the troubles of your people. Your confidence is not in some super-developed counseling technique, or even in yourself, but in God’s power to change people."

[Levi Patterson]

Not going to lie, I almost gave this book 3 stars. While I thought the book was solid and good, I found it to be pretty basic and nothing revolutionary. However, I realize that the reason is likely due to the fact that I am on the tail end of a Biblical Counseling Class with the author of the book and I just read 3 other books that were similar. Therefore, at this point, the content just seems repetitive. I do believe that the topic is crucial though. Every pastor needs to realize that he is also a counselor. He MUST counsel his people and care for them rather than simply preach at them every sunday.
I also appreciated how immensely practical the book is. I am sure that I will return to this if I ever have the honor of being a pastor one day myself.

[Kaitlyn Pindak]

While I am never going to be a pastor, I am taking a class called Introduction to Biblical counseling with Dr. Robert D. Jones and this was one of 7 required texts- and it is one of the best books on biblical counseling!!!
5/5 🌟

[Jacob Wright]

This is a super helpful introduction and guide for anyone looking to understand how to counsel in the local church.

[Wagner Floriani]

Really a must read for all church-based lay counselors. Insightful, strategic, balanced. Couldn’t put it down.

[Craig]

Such a helpful book for pastors! It provides a great overview of biblical counseling, written for the pastor who is (and should!) be engaged in this activity regularly. I am sure I will be pulling this off my shelf often in order to reference it!

[Holland Johnson]

Great book! This is one of those books that I think every pastor should read to get some kind of introduction in how to include counseling in their role as a pastor. I would only recommend this to very new pastors who have no idea what they are doing and are being introduced to the idea of counseling as a part of shepherding the flock for the first time.

[Andrew Gates]

Great book! Method was simple and helpful (Listen, Consider, Speak) as well as things to listen for (Circumstances, Others, Self, God). Best parts were so many practical tips on how-tos from the placement of tissues and clocks to note-taking. Great stuff on the role of small talk, questions, summarizing, hope, and homework as well as suggestions for pathways to counsel people. This work gave some great tools to help on-the-ground counseling work.

[Tracey]

Even though its intended audience is pastors, this book gives great insight to laypersons interested in biblical counseling. It provides an overview of the method and process of counseling and describes how a culture of discipleship might be encouraged within the church.

[Tim Michiemo]

4.0 Stars

In "The Pastor and Counseling" Jeremy Pierre and Deepak Reju skillfully hit on all the essentials of pastoral counseling in a helpfully brief manner. A great book to read and extremely informative!

[Jim Savastio]

I really appreciated this book on the practicalities of pastoral counseling. The authors write with both confidence in the power of the Word and the gospel as well as seasoned pastoral experience.

[Lumuli Mwakasungula]

This is a simple, helpful book that is rooted in biblical counseling. It reminded me that counseling is part of a pastor’s calling, not a side task. Pierre and Reju are honest. A pastor will not always counsel perfectly. Still, faithful shepherding comes from relying on God’s Word. It looks like staying close to people, holding their hand through seasons of need/struggle, and helping them learn how to live for Christ.

One point that stood out is their focus on church culture. They stress that pastors must teach the church how to love one another as Christ has loved us. When that teaching is clear and intentional, members can learn to walk with each other, not only call the pastor when there is a crisis.
Many struggles in a local church are not new. God has already helped some believers through what others are facing now. This book calls pastors to keep building a culture where members support each other in faith, with steady pastoral guidance.

[Daniel Calle]

Jeremy Pierre y Deepak Reju han escrito un muy útil librito de consejería para pastores. La idea del libro es un dar "marco básico" para la consejería. La meta, entonces, no sería solucionar todos los problemas de los miembros, sino dar la confianza a los consejeros que en el evangelio tenemos la respuesta para cada pensamiento, afecto o decisión erróneas. Somos pecadores y Jesucristo es el único que puede transformarnos para agradar a Dios y conformarnos a su imagen. El libro provee un método y también describe el proceso de la consejería, detallando los objetivos y las actividades para las reuniones con el aconsejado. Los autores exponen una consejería cristocéntrica, que usa fielmente la Palabra de Dios, para llevar a los aconsejados a una respuesta de fe frente a sus problemas.

[Simon]

True to its name, this book is very much an introduction to the 'basics' of pastoral counselling, but it covers a huge amount of content in very few pages. It also goes much further simply the 'how-to's of counselling - these guys left me a bunch of helpful insights into church leadership and discipleship as whole.

Some fave quotes:

'Every member of your church is a culture maker.'
'We should strive to make church a place where being anonymous or nominal is difficult to pull off.'
'[How do we bring glory to God?] Eloquent sermons? Growing public influence? A stable and expanding congregation? These can be acceptable means, but the are insufficient values. The way to glorify God is to make disciples.'

[John Pawlik]

Superbly helpful book! Coming into the subject I felt like I really didn’t know anything about the subject, and they really jump right in and speak clearly about goals, procedure, etc.

It lacked pastoral sensitivity at times, which may be because they understood the pastors to be the audience, but still it felt a little unnecessarily abrasive. Not in like an overly sensitive therapeutic age kinda way, but in a way that comes across as harsh when it didn’t need to be.

Nonetheless, every tradition needs the insight of others, and 9marks instead excluded from that! Their issues are my issues, so I benefited from reading other books alongside this one.

[Jonathan Kiewiet]

This is short but helpful book filled with a lot of good and practical advice concerning Biblical counseling. The Pastor must listen to those whom he is counseling, thoughtfully consider what is said and speak truth in love in a way that calls people to faith in a way specifically adhering to there heart responses. A Pastor may not be able to solve all the problems that one may come to him with, but he does have, in the Scriptures, everything he needs to to build the counselees faith so that he would respond to his/her problems in a Christlike manner.
The book also covers an overview of the process from the first to the last meeting. This book provides various aids in the appendix’s and does very well to explain the pastors roles and responsibilities in the relm of counseling.

[Richard Cobb]

I have read many books on Biblical Counseling that are excellent resources for trying to grow in helping and disciplining people. Where this book meets a need is this is, as the title implies, written specifically to pastors who are looking to be faithful in their personal counseling ministry, not just in their preaching. It was very practical, but it was also very insightful. I would highly recommend this book.

[Ainsley Hartman]

For a book that talks about complex and nuance, this book is terrible at it. Not every issue that brings people to counseling is a sin issue. Not everything can be solved by prayer and a verse. Pastors are not the highest authority for someone’s mental health. Both genders can struggle with the same issues, sin is not specific to a gender no matter what is statistically a greater issue for men or women.

I hated this book with a passion.

[Simeon Brazzell]

A very helpful introduction to counseling for a new pastor like myself. Nothing too deep or shocking here, just simple truth and advise for dealing with people as well as a quick study of the theology and reasoning behind counseling. I would have liked it to be more in depth, but to it's credit, the author said at the beginning that it was meant to be a short surface discussion of counseling, not a subject specific study.

[Evan Smith]

The Pastor and Counseling accomplishes the task of outlining practical helps a pastor should rely upon in the effort to counsel his sheep, through the actual counseling room, by relying upon a culture o discipleship in his church, and by utilizing outside professionals.

[Daniel Tanner]

Really good and practical. This book does a great job of laying out the real feet-on-the-ground actions for initiating, continuing, and finishing counseling sessions. I will be returning to this book over time for sure.

[Graham Gaines]

There's a lot of good wisdom in this book, but the authors come off as being insensitive to some serious issues. They talk about wanting to be approachable, but also implicitly equate suicidal thoughts with foolishness. That's the only reason I gave this book 4 stars, though.

[Derrick Kenyon]

Excellent resource on pastoral counseling. Reju and Pierre present a helpful method of counseling and include many insightful questions to have or keep in mind throughout the counseling process. Highly recommend!