{"id":3906,"date":"2010-05-12T23:55:31","date_gmt":"2010-05-12T12:55:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/?p=3906"},"modified":"2010-05-12T23:55:31","modified_gmt":"2010-05-12T12:55:31","slug":"helping-ministers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/2010\/05\/12\/helping-ministers\/","title":{"rendered":"Helping Ministers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: left\">Recently I was sent an article,\u00a0<em>Helping Ministers,\u00a0<\/em>by Dr Tony Robinson of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.vitalitypsych.com.au\/index.php?option=com_content&amp;view=frontpage&amp;Itemid=1\">Vitality Psychology &amp; Consulting Services Pty Ltd <\/a>\u00a0(Strathfield, NSW). Dr Robinson co-wrote this article with Andrew Peden, Brendan Geary and Geraldine Taylor Robinson.<\/p>\n<p>In this article the authors,<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>describe the main psychological issues that ministers encounter and how ministers can seek help if they find themselves faced with a psychological challenge. <\/em><em>\u00a0\u201cWhen we are psychologically healthy, our ways of acting, thinking and feeling are adaptive (successful) in nature.\u201d <\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Being aware of potential challenges can help us recognise the \u201cwarning flags\u201d in our own life; and in turn we are able to support fellow ministers who need help.<\/p>\n<p>I believe the potential challenges for us as ministers is when\u00a0parishes (and sadly also ourselves) forget that we are human. But\u00a0we are just like &#8216;the bloke next door&#8217;: we get tired, we face depression, we get sick, we need time out,\u00a0we make mistakes, we get angry, we are no different to the average person; and we are trying to live life in a fulfilling and\u00a0happy way. We can be a <em>good spiritual example of how to live a life faithful to Christ<\/em>, but we are not perfect. Why? &#8211; because we are not God!<\/p>\n<p>How can we help ministers?<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>by realising that they (like\u00a0us)\u00a0are human,<\/li>\n<li>by realising that they (like us) make mistakes (To err is human),<\/li>\n<li>by being there to support them when they trip up, and<\/li>\n<li>by ensuring that they take time out to be alone and\u00a0re-charge their batteries. I recall that Jesus Christ did that often. We need to follow His example &#8211; bishops included! \ud83d\ude42<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: left\">If you would like a copy of this article, please email Dr Tony Robinson of Vitality Psychology &amp; Consulting Services &#8211; <a href=\"mailto:trobinson@vitalitypsych.com.au\">trobinson@vitalitypsych.com.au<\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left\">See also <a href=\"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/2010\/03\/17\/ministry-burnout-syndrome\/\">Ministry Burnout Syndrome<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Recently I was sent an article,\u00a0Helping Ministers,\u00a0by Dr Tony Robinson of Vitality Psychology &amp; Consulting Services Pty Ltd \u00a0(Strathfield, NSW). Dr Robinson co-wrote this article with Andrew Peden, Brendan Geary and Geraldine Taylor Robinson. In this article the authors, describe &hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/2010\/05\/12\/helping-ministers\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3906"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3906"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3906\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3933,"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3906\/revisions\/3933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}