The Three C's of Minister Support



Small Peer learning Group in Action
(2010 Emotional Intelligence Seminar)

I keep trying to remember the three "C's" of clergy support needs.  This morning I spotted the old  book on my shelf and looked it up:  Barbara Gilbert, Who Ministers to Ministers? (Alban, 1987).  Here's a quote from the pertinent paragraph. 

"One study...proposed the 'Three C's' as basics:  Comfort, Clarification, Confrontation.  We need people whom we can trust with our pain and uncertainty and who will comfort us, often by just being good listeners.  We need people who help us clarify by asking the right questions and pointing us to significant resources. We need people who care about us enough to lovingly confront us with that which we don't see or have been avoiding."

As we keep working to find ways to build peer learning groups for ministers throughout their working lives, these keep cropping up for me as helpful in identifying what we need and what works.