The Compassionate Congregation | Karen Mulder & Ginger Jurries

Karen Mulder & Ginger Jurries. The Compassionate Congregation: A Handbook for People Who Care. Faith Alive, 2002. 275 pp.

This handbook is intended to help ordinary pewsitters–as well as pastors and officebearers–be caring and compassionate friends to persons going through a crisis. Section 1 of The Compassionate Congregationconsists of first-person accounts of crises faced by individuals whom the authors interviewed. Here you will find stories on nearly two dozen topics, including abortion, abuse, AIDS, aging, cancer, death, depression, illness, substance abuse, unemployment, and much more.

After each story, you’ll find a section entitled “Wisdom for the Caregiver;” this section offers down-to-earth advice for caregivers from those who have gone through a particular crisis situation. A section called “Helplines” provides lists of agencies and organizations that might be helpful for caregivers. And for most of the topics, books and other resources are listed as well.

Section 2 takes a more general look at the process of caregiving, dealing with the topics of prayer, listening, and the grief process. Section 3 offers 109+ ways to say, “I Care.”

A four-session, self-guided workshop for small groups is found at the back of this handbook (see page 263). The sessions cover–and provide practice in–the basics of caregiving described in section 2. Each session requires at least an hour to complete. While small groups will need a leader to direct the discussion and activities, the sessions are written to the entire small group rather than only to the leader. This tends to give the sessions more of a “seminar” feel, and lessens the need for intensive preparation by group leaders. Some comments intended for use by leaders only are written in the margins.

Karen’s Note: The Confession of a Procrastinator

Like Moses resisting God’s directive at the burning bush, I avoid, put off, and excuse myself from potentially unpleasant encounters with people in need. So I really don’t know why I agreed to become a member of my church’s pastoral care team. Sometimes I think God eases us into some situations without our full logical approval. Nevertheless, my first assignment as a member of the care team was to make contact with Joan. Joan had cancer.

Contacting Joan became a personal struggle. My archenemy, procrastination, successfully reigned for days. Finally “The Day” arrived, and I knew that I must do it–I had to phone Joan! So I set the timer on the microwave and promised myself that when the buzzer sounded I would make the call. I did, but not before offering what had to be the most urgent prayer of the month, if not the year. “O God,” I prayed, “I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know what to say. What will I say if she starts crying, or if she is angry, or Please, God, help me!” (Actually, I hoped that Joan was away at the grocery store, far from her phone.)

So with my heart beating aerobically, I dialed Joan’s number and, as her phone started ringing, started counting–one ring, two, three. I had told myself that if Joan didn’t answer in six rings I could hang up and try again another day, but she answered! I don’t remember what I said, but I do remember what she said. She told me how much it hurt, not the cancer so much as the way her friends seemed to avoid her and disappear. “My friends don’t call much anymore,” she said, “and in the grocery store even acquaintances avoid me. That hurts a lot!”

Forty-five minutes later, I hung up the phone and whispered a heartfelt thanks to our faithful God. (The Lord says to each of us, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness”–2 Corinthians 12:9.) Joan had been very receptive to my call, and with only an occasional question or comment from me, she had shared her thoughts and her feelings. She had actually appreciated the phone call.

During the following twelve months I contacted Joan five times. At the most, I offered five small and quick gestures of caring: maybe two phone calls, one plant, one visit to her home, and one visit to the hospital. That’s it.

On September 5, 1988, Joan died. As I was pouring coffee at the reception following the funeral service, Joan’s handsome sons gave me a big hug and thanked me for being such a good friend to their mom. I was speechless. I was tempted to say, “Oops, there’s been a mistake here. I only offered your mom a few quick tokens of caring.”

Today, years later, the promise running through this book and our caregiving workshops is this: little becomes BIG. Learning from experiences such as the one with Joan, we realize that our caregiving doesn’t have to be polished and perfect and profound. God takes each sincere, small, and clumsy gesture of compassion and turns it into something big, bright, and beautiful.

Ginger’s Note: Just Being There

People like Joan constantly confront us in this world. Our parents get old, our children give us headaches, our friends get cancer, and our neighbors lose their jobs. So many people we know are in need of our comfort and thoughtful care. The problem is that too often our hearts say go but our heads say no. We may have a tendency to avoid these situations because we don’t know what to say or do, or we may blunder through a situation, hoping that we say and do the right thing.

Karen and I realize the importance of being there for our friends, acquaintances, and relatives in times of crisis, and we understand the importance of sensitivity. We have approached the topic of caregiving by consulting the experts–those who have endured crises and been helped or hurt by caregivers. This handbook is a compilation of some of our interviewees’ true stories and their most helpful suggestions.

The Compassionate Congregation can be read straight through, in its entirety. However, The The Compassionate Congregation is also intended to be used as a handbook, for quick reference when you encounter a particular kind of need. Suppose, for example, you are unsure about caregiving protocol for visiting a hospitalized friend, or what to say to someone who has just learned he or she has cancer, or how to respond to a colleague who has just suffered a miscarriage. By using the table of contents, you can locate an insider’s account (in section 1) of what he or she found helpful in a similar situation.

Although the persons we interviewed have much to teach us about caregiving, our model of the perfect caregiver is Jesus Christ. Following Jesus’ teaching involves meeting people where they are-feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, welcoming the stranger, clothing the naked, comforting the sick, and visiting the imprisoned. And whatever we do for one of these, we have done for Christ himself (Matthew 25:35-38).

We all seem to have a desire to rescue our friends from their debilitating situations. However, the experts we interviewed, as well as our supreme model, Jesus Christ, invite us simply to be there, to hold a hand, shed a tear, listen to a story, and give a hug. It seems so little but it means so much to the “Joans” of our world .

Still thinking that caregiving is not “your thing” and should be left to someone else? Then take a few minutes to read some of the first person accounts in section 1. The crises of life leave us “beached” and in need of a friend to give us “oxygen,” that life-giving force that enables us to go on and to find hope in a desperately painful situation. Your simple, caring gestures could be the life-giving “oxygen” your hurting friend needs so urgently.

Karen and I hope and pray that this handbook will help you to be a caring and compassionate friend to those in crisis situations who need you so much.

Section 1: Wisdom of the Wounded: Their Stories and Advice 13
Abortion 15
Abuse 20
Aging 25
AIDS 38
Alzheimer’s Disease 44
Burnout (Of Pastors, Other Leaders, and Their Spouses) 52
Cancer 57
Caregivers Taking Care of Caregivers 65
Caring for Someone in a Nursing Home 71
Criminal Offense 77
Death of a Parent, Relative, or Friend 80
Death of a Spouse 84
Death of a Child by Miscarriage or Stillbirth 91
Death of an Infant Child 95
Death by Suicide 98
Depression and Mental Illness 105
Disability (Of an Infant) 114
Disability (General) 118
Grieving (Helping Children Cope) 125
Grieving (Loss of a Pet) 131
Homelessness 135
Illness (Of an Adult Child) 140
Illness (Of a Young Child) 142
Illness (Chronic) 146
Illness (Terminal) 152
Illness (General Suggestions and Advice) 161
Moving 165
Parenting Struggles 170
Relationships: Troubled and Broken (Infidelity) 175
Relationships: Troubled and Broken (Divorce) 179
Relationships: Troubled and Broken (Friends and Relatives) 185
Relationships: Troubled and Broken (Romantic) 188
Single Parenting 191
Substance Abuse 195
Trauma (Helping Children Cope) 203
Traumatic Memories 212
Unemployment 219
Violation of Privacy and Freedom 227

Section 2: Caregiving Basics 231
Pray 233
Listen Well 236
Respect the Grief Process 240

Section 3: 109+ Ways to Say, “I Care” 251

Section 4: Four Self-guiding Sessions for Small Groups 263

Taken from pp. 3-4, 7-11 of The Compassionate Congregation: A Handbook for People Who Care, by Karen Mulder and Ginger Jurries, copyright © 2002, 2006 by Faith Alive Christian Resources. Used by permission of Faith Alive Christian Resources, a ministry of CRC Publications, 2850 Kalamazoo Ave. SE, Grand Rapids, MI 49560.

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