Servant-hood is the model Christ gave us of how to love both our selves and others. But being a leader in the Church today can be mission impossible (see for example our book, Church as a Safe Place).
For instance, being spiritually responsible for others can make us vulnerable. Some folk can be very high maintenance if they are demanding or damaged. As pastors and leaders we often seem to have few tools to help us, and those that we do have often seem to be outside the Church, not in it.
The failure of discipleship models is also matched by the failure of pastoral care in the lives of many Christians. This is evidenced in the way many churchgoers end up using psychologists and therapists outside the Church, instead of finding help within faith community.
This failure is so serious that pastoral care has in some ways become the poor stepchild of the more successful field of psychology and its therapies. Today, when people need answers they cannot always find them in the Church, so they go elsewhere. As a result churches are sometimes not seen as safe places where one can find authentic help.
What we have been seeking to develop are models of faith community that can help meet human need, whatever form it might take. We would like the privilege of helping you achieve this for your own local situation and calling. (Seminars & Workshops)