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“It’s Kind of a Dichotomy”: Thoughts Related to Calling and Purpose from Pastors Working and Counseling in Urban Resource-Poor Communities

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Abstract

Pastors serving low-income urban areas are first-responders to emotional issues by default, since fewer mental health resources are available. Thus, it is important to understand how pastors serving urban resource-poor areas reflect on their counseling role. Forty-eight Black, Hispanic, and White pastors with urban congregations in Los Angeles or Chicago reflect on their pastoral calling and its relation to their counseling role. Through phenomenology, the pastors’ lived experiences as they counseled in an urban context were explored. Analysis revealed complex feelings about their counseling role in light of their resource-poor environments. Recommendations are provided based on the findings.

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Notes

  1. This will be discussed in detail in a future manuscript.

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Acknowledgements

We wish to thank all of the pastors and church leaders serving in the trenches in urban areas who willingly made time from their busy and often hectic schedules to be a part of this study.

Funding

This study was funded by the John Templeton Foundation (Grant #36074 and #57974).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Social Work, School of Behavioral and Applied Sciences, Azusa Pacific University, PO Box 7000, Azusa, CA, 91702-7000, USA

    Jennifer Shepard Payne

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  1. Jennifer Shepard Payne
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Correspondence to Jennifer Shepard Payne.

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The author declares that she has no conflict of interest.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Payne, J.S. “It’s Kind of a Dichotomy”: Thoughts Related to Calling and Purpose from Pastors Working and Counseling in Urban Resource-Poor Communities. J Relig Health 56, 1419–1435 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-017-0363-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-017-0363-7

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