Care and Prayer

Loneliness is a serious contemporary social problem and also the reason why modern people can feel lost and undergo hardships. Some brothers and sisters in the church who have fallen victim to loneliness and hardships crave attention from church pastors, hoping to receive care and counsel.

In the recent decade, pastoral care, which is often regarded as a profession, has shifted its focus to psychotherapy, guiding Christian believers how to manage their family, marriage, and interpersonal problems. Through this kind of work, pastors try to help brothers and sisters, however, when they try hard to help, they may inadvertently forget the inherent meaning of care in a spiritual community.

Care Is Spiritual Fellowship

When viewed from the Christian faith, care is “spiritual fellowship.”

Let us first understand the meaning of fellowship. In Greek, fellowship is koinonia, referring to people of the same faith who live together in fellowship. The literal meaning of fellowship is “union” or “partners.” Fellowship can refer to participation in physical terms, for example, Christians in Macedonia and Achaia raise funds for the poor in the churches of Jerusalem. It can also refer to spiritual benefits. For example, Paul talks about “sharing in the gospel’s blessings” in 1 Corinthians 9.23 and “sharing the fellowship of the Holy Spirit” in 2 Corinthians 13.13.

The Greek word for fellowship, koinonia, appears twice in I John1.2-4: “The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. We write this to make our joy complete.”

In a passage, John the apostle encourages the church to continue on in “fellowship.” Christians ought to be in “fellowship” with one another. When men “have seen” the life of Christ and testify to the eternal life which has always been with God the Father and then appears to them, they will naturally live their fellowship lives in Christ. Conversely, if man “cannot see” the life of Christ, and does not testify to the one who has always been with God the Father and the eternal life which appears to them, naturally he will not live a life of fellowship in Christ. This comes naturally.

This fellowship must be related to Jesus Christ. 1 John 5:20: “. . . And we are in him who is true─even in his Son Jesus Christ.” This is a kind of faith in Christ Jesus. Christian Fellowship is not an arbitrary coming together of a few people, nor it is only an interpersonal emotional attachment, but an in-depth fellowship in Christ. In this relationship, we belong to one another (cf. 1 John 3.23-24), capable of experiencing “making our joy complete.”

Looking from another angle, fellowship (koinonia) is the linkage of man and God and man and man. Fellowship extends vertically as well as horizontally. As these two dimensions converge, they enable men to live a communal life in Christ.

Having understood the meaning of fellowship, we can analyze why care embraces the meaning of spiritual fellowship.

What is care? Care refers to a kind of spiritual fellowship that we enjoy in Christ Jesus. This goes beyond a one-to-one method of care or a one-to-one psychotherapy. This kind of spiritual fellowship in Christ is the kind of caring work that every Christian has to participate in ─ a vocation for every Christian. When we are baptized and emerge out of water, God has called us each to become a priest ─ to function as a priest and exercise the rights of a priest. That means: All Christian believers can be in touch with God and can directly offer sacrifice to God, without the need of a mediator (for instance, a Catholic priest or a pastor). Every Christian has to testify to the word of God, to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ, to lead people to Christ; every Christian is called to pray for other people, to keep watch for those people in need with his/her prayer as they share burdens and hardships, and to comfort and support them as they go through the spiritual trial with the word of God.

Briefly speaking, care is the vocation of all Christians. Care is not the specific duty of pastors. Care is also the task that all brothers and sisters in the church should do together, a job for you and for us. In caring for others, we believe that only God is the way out ─ the contentment of our hearts.

Prayer Is the Most Crucial Part of Care

As mentioned above, we are priests, called by God to help those in need with our prayers. We often think that only those who have been trained in counseling and psychotherapy are qualified to care for others. A preacher once told me that he did a good job in coordination but had had no training in caring. I encouraged him by saying that he could care for others with his prayer. Although most of us have had no professional training in care and counseling, we can still engage in caring. We can invite and lead other people to pray to God together, like children telling their needs to the heavenly father, asking for mercy and help.

Prayer does not have to use beautiful language or sound like preaching. Neither do we need to use eye-catching words or phrases, or words that result from rigorous logical thinking. We only need to lead those people in need to speak earnestly and sincerely to God and to be in fellowship with God. In prayer, we can ask God: How should we face this predicament? What is the meaning we can appreciate from this illness? Can I recover from this illness? We also need to consider carefully: What is the relationship between God and this suffering? What does God want to tell us through this incident? We lead those people in need to pray to God earnestly and wait for God’s will. This is the mystery of prayer.

A female pastor and theologian, once attended a lecture in which the speaker talked about the relationship between prayer and healing. The speaker emphasized that prayer could initiate the healing process but it does not necessarily bring about a dramatic outcome. Later in the lecture, attendees even learned to pray for different patients by the laying on of hands. There came a time when the female pastor sat in the center while others encircled her and laid their hands upon her in prayer. Because space was limited, some people could not directly lay hands on her, they could only lay hands on those who could. This prayer which involved the laying on of hands gave her a very profound experience. There was an intimate feeling in her heart which was very excited. It seemed the darkness within her heart had been pulled out. She could not help crying for as long as ten minutes. Her whole person had been relaxed.

Although this female pastor has had doubts about this particular healing approach, this time she truly experienced being in fellowship with God and with fellow believers. After that, she took ill and sought treatment from a medical doctor and took medicine. However, she allowed other people to pray for her and she in turn would pray for others. She considers that prayer, which is not a tool or a means, need not use repetitive words, assuming that God favors hearing many words. Prayer is something real. Through prayer and being with God, we come into the presence of God like a child begging for his help, for enough food and drink every day, for healing, for God to allow our lives to continue. This kind of prayer can enable us to deeply appreciate that prayer is not a means or a tool, nor do we control God through prayer but that God himself provides us physical, psychological, and spiritual health according to his time table. Knowing God and being in fellowship with God, this is eternal life. Although we do not necessarily know how to give counsel to others, when caring for others, we can still do our part as a priest by leading them to bow down to pray before God, entrusting our problems and needs to God. God will comfort and heal in prayer.

I often think of a wonderful prayer experience of my own. In April, 2008, I went through a period of my life when I once again thought about the direction of my ministry. Throughout this period, a friend who was a seminary president prayed silently for me for forty days without my knowing. In these days of ups and downs, God led me step–by-step to go through indeterminate incidents where I found it difficult to make a decision. God was holding me and leading me to make the right choices. As if I had once again experienced God’s wondrous salvation, I would speak to my friends and students in church or in prayer meetings saying, “Now, I have that same real feeling, just like when I was born again. I seem to have gone back to the time when I first came to Christ.” In October that year, I joined a theological conference in Taipei where many presidents and academic deans of Chinese theological seminaries in South East Asia were also in attendance. One evening, when I took a stroll with the seminary president who had prayed for me, he told me in a shy way that he had prayed for me for forty days. I asked him around what date had he prayed for me. He replied that it was April, that was when I went through a time of mental struggle in reevaluating my ministry direction. I was deeply touched because of his genuine friendship and God’s mercy. A brother who is not physically by my side “can even” support my life with his prayer, what a mystery prayer is! This is spiritual fellowship, the power experienced by the prayer warriors.

Prayer is the practice of community care. Pray that God will help us to experience this kind of care and bear this in mind: Care is not only the specific duty of pastors, but also the vocation of brothers and sisters in the church, their vocations as priests. When we care and pray in this way, we are in fellowship with God and with one another. In such a relationship, we belong to one another, as such we can experience “making our joy complete.”

I hope that the ministers trained in HKBTS understand such a mystery. I pray that God will help each of our students and each of our alumni, reminding them to be constantly mindful of prayer in the ministry journey and lead our churches to experience this kind of mystery.

May 2015