Christian Counseling Connection
13
PASTORAL
PASTORS AND
COUNSELORS
MADE WHOLE THROUGH CHRIST AND THERAPY:
A MODEL FOR
COLLABORATIVE WORK
BETWEEN PASTORS AND COUNSELORS
Mark D. Barrentine, MSW
A
s a bright-eyed graduate stu-
dent at Tulane University, I was
excited about future plans to
integrate my clinical training
into pastoral ministry. I shared this with
a favorite professor who remarked, “I’ve
always admired those willing to take
on bi-vocational work.” How quickly
she sliced my one vocation into two.
Despite my youthful ideals, I soon
learned that professional boundaries,
ethics, confidentiality, limits of dual
relationships, and other guidelines keep
the need for the clinical and pastoral to
be appropriately set apart. At that time,
I was an aspiring Christian counselor,
and the way to bring therapy and pasto-
ral ministry together in a collaborative
manner had not been clearly charted
yet in my mind.
