Debrief

Debrief is an interesting word that seems to be in fashion. Let's take a look at how that seems to work in ministry. There is an incident, say with a minor injury. The minister debriefs people so that the carry no unhealthy guilt or shame about the incident. The incident report is done. Then the minister does not get to debrief for 4 - 6 weeks when they meet with their professional supervisor. I realize that the minister probably does have a network of minister friends to call on and pour out to. But it seems the minister sort of gets the raw deal.

Is this because in the past, there was perception that ministers were sort of better than everyone else. Once ordained does a person became some sort of super human that can handle anything?

I agree ministers have a great deal of training and gifting to debrief but they are still human. I am happy that ministers have professional supervisors to debrief with at all. This is a positive change.

So the underlying issue really is, how do the ordained keep the being set apart and the being human in a balance tension? My answer, they need to be true to themselves. Once you try to be something else, whosh the balance is tipped.