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Citation: Vlainic, John. “How a Theology of Experience Shows Up in Pastoral Care.” 
Paper presented at the Annual Wesley Symposium, Tyndale University College & Seminary, 
Toronto, Ontario, March 22, 2016. (MPEG-3, 38:05 min.)

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Okay. Welcome.

Thank you for being here. And this is John Blannick, who is well known to many of you. If you're in the Wesleyan circles or premeditate circles, he's a tireless student of theology and history, and he's always sending out notices about the latest books that have come out. It's very helpful for those of us who are on the listservs. And he is a chaplain at the Hamilton General Hospital.

Is that correct?

Is that your title?

Yes, chaplain. Also a registered psychotherapist, but my job title is chaplain.

Great. So I thought John would be a great person to come and talk about theology and experience, given those interests and given his experience.

Thank you, John. I'm glad to be here. I tweaked this last night, but I don't have Donald Dayton's capacity to do wonderful things on the spur of the moment like that. I remember him from 40 years ago at Asbury when I was there. I'd like to frame what I share this morning by alluding to two things emphasized in a book that James has told us about. I think it's been in the registration materials. Maybe Timothy Krecher's book the Crucible of Life the Role of Experience in John Wesley's theological Method. Have any of you seen that book yet? Also, I can see it says anything and nobody's going to contradict me. No, I'll tell you the truth. The first is definitional, and I was hoping Don Dayton wouldn't undo me this morning having to do with the word experience. I suspect that Kritcher is right in urging us to move away from thinking that Wesley had in mind what might be called experiences. When we're thinking of discrete psychological events, as if I came to a feeling of my own unworthiness or my own sinfulness, or I was overwhelmed by my guilt or remorse or God's love for me, there was what we would call experiences.

Crutcher carefully tries to say that's not really what Wesley had in mind when he talks about experience and its usefulness. So instead, I follow Crutcher in the view that for Wesley, experience is what is gained throughout our years in the rough and tumble of life. Here we might talk about a lived experience and associated with maturity or wisdom. And again, you who know Wesley better than me can help us. There that's Crutcher's argument. So today I will not be narrating what has happened to me psychologically, the inner spiritual experiences I've had. Although I'm going to tell you two powerful stories, rather, I want to talk to you about what I've learned, what's become clear to me, clearer to me as a result of reflecting, I guess, using reason on what I have seen God doing around me. The second matter from Krutcher is his emphasis on the fact that for Wesley experiential theology is relational theology. It cannot be done in isolation. It can only be done relationally and in community. So I come today wanting to know if the things I share from my walk prove true in anybody else's life, in your lived Christian experience, if the kind of pastoral care I describe today is something I alone see, then I probably need to see it as misguided at best.

And stop telling others that's how you should do pastoral care. So let's get going. Scripture, tradition, and reason all lead me to believe that in good pastoral care, the work of the Holy Spirit is crucial. But in terms of actually learning that deeply, it's been the realm of my observation and reflection on how I've seen God at work around me that's been the most effective. I remember being pleased 17 years ago to read in a writer on clinical supervision in pastoral care, whom I've come to respect and who's a good friend. Now that a Methodist, I would say. Wesley perspective on pastoral care emphasizes what he calls the Catholicity of grace. I, and I hope it's true for you, do pastoral care. Very sure that when I go to see a patient, jesus is already there by his spirit and at work, whether that person gives two hoots about Jesus or not. That's how I operate, and that's how Tom O'Connor says a Methodist does spiritual care, pastoral care. So here are two narratives. One is about the man in bed four and the other one's about Sally. These things have both happened in my last 17 years as a hospital chaplain.

I'd been away from the hospital for a week, and when I got back, the Jewish social worker we had a great relationship in the palliative unit told me that the patient had been four of that room over there. It was room nine was nearing the end while I had been away, and she was kind of excited about this. The daughter and son in law of this patient had asked to see the chaplain. My colleague described them as fundamentalists, and she had told them I'd be back on Monday and they could come and see me on Monday. So she wanted to let me know they're coming. Well, later that morning, a middle aged couple came to the open door of my office while I was there. They told me they were Presbyterians and that they actually wanted dad, the man in bed four, to hear the Gospel before he died. For various reasons, he had resisted Christian faith and they wanted him to hear the Gospel. And who else do you ask but a chaplain? They thought I was glad they thought that. A lot of people don't think that about chaplains in hospitals. I explained how I resonated with their desire, along with the fact that Dad's autonomy was important to me too.

I made it clear that I did not see it as my right to impose on him information. He did not. Standing there, a big hulk with a badge on and so on, I told them that I do have it in me to be a bull in a china shop. Just ask anybody who knows me. But I believe that God wants to use me where he opens the door by his spirit. They seem to accept that response as coming from a real believer. And so I asked them to pray for me and for dad in the chapel while I went up to his room. Well, I went praying all the way. I had to keep my eyes open so I didn't walk into walls, but I was praying intensely. First, I spoke to the person in bed one and arranged to see him later in the day. The patient in bed two was asleep. I was standing between three and four, and Dad's over here, and I could tell he's watching me. He's reading me, listening to my counters. The fellow in bed three I had developed a relationship with somewhat. He was a bit idiosyncratic, to say the least.

He suddenly said in a Northern European accent, words I will never, ever forget. He said, Pastor John, tell me, why did Jesus have to die? Well, I had to tell him in plain, non churchy words. I shared with Him god's love and our human need for forgiveness and transformation. You see, I was westland. It's not just forgiveness. Then I explored with Him how this related to him, and he seemed helped by our interaction. I will never forget that the odds of that happening are one in Zillions, right? Then I turned to dad in bed four. I knelt down beside him so I wouldn't be towering over him. I don't exactly remember what opening I used with him, but I think it may have been the one I sometimes use where I say, I'm a chaplain here. Do you know what chaplains do? And most people look at you with a blank stare and say, you tell them. And I think I told him that one of my reasons for being there was to embody not perfectly, of course, how our Creator God feels about people, especially people who are ill or nearing the end. I told him I knew he was in a very weak state, and I wanted him to know by the way I interacted with him that God loves Him and cares deeply for him and thinks he's still worth everything.

Again, I don't know exactly what I said. That was 15 years ago. He reached over, had my finger at my hand on the rail of his bed. He reached over and said grabbed my finger. Well, I told him that I was sure that even if he felt he did not have what it takes to lay hold of God and God's love, or to hold on at a time like this, god would hold on to him just as he was holding onto my finger. And I felt him start to release his grip, and, oh, boy, I blew it. But then he gripped my finger even more firmly. The story does not end with an actual conversion experience, as far as I know. Who knows? I don't know what God and the Holy Spirit the Holy Spirit did with him, for when I told him I would be praying for him and then offered to pray there or some other time, I like to give people an out so that they don't just use prayer to get the chaplain out of the room. He declined. We talked a bit more, and I said words of blessing. And then he responded with a reciprocal word of blessing.

Well, I went down to the chapel and told his daughter and son in law what had happened while they'd been praying. We did not know the fullness at all of what had gone on between God, the Holy Spirit and dead, but we knew that he had heard the Gospel in clear, non religious ways. He had made a warm conversation, hanging on to someone who said they were there to embody the presence of God, and he had responded with reciprocal words of blessing. At the end. We didn't know what that meant, but that looked like God had answered that prayer rather well. They were grateful for what God had obviously done. I too felt gratitude, plus a clear sense that God, the Holy Spirit, had done all the hard work. Good grief. What happened from bed three was not of humans. No, you can't convince me of that. I don't have much mystical born in me, as everyone who knows me knows that's number one. That's the man in bed four. Now, Sally. I was taking a student from the divinity college, Megan, whom Janet Clark remembers. I just talked about her to her to Janet this morning on some initial visits.

I was kind of nervous. I got to show this student that at least know what I'm doing around here, not look too stupid. As we came onto one of the floors, the nurse there told us that we had a new patient with a progressive neuromuscular disease. I forget which one. Sally, we'll call her seemed to suffer a great deal. Not physical pain, but spiritual suffering. The nurse also said that the family had told her that faith was very important to Sally, but now she can only barely communicate. The best you could do was one syllable gasps. You can imagine how anxious I felt here. I'm going to show Megan what I'm doing. What am I going to do? Well, student Megan and I went in, explained who we were, and tried to make Jesus real to her. Communication was hard. Eventually, I asked Sally if I could read a psalm of comfort with her and pray. I told her that I knew that her family, from her family, that she valued faith. So after I closed my Bible from reading a psalm, I was about to pray. Sally, with great intensity, said something like that I hesitate to imitate her much, but something like that sound, like Phi.

I said, I'm not getting it. Can you help me? And she said that sound again. Megan and I tried every possibility. Five was all we got. We didn't have a clue. But you know what? Eventually I heard myself asking her, sally, do you mean James Five? Why on earth was I saying those words? There was an ecstatic. Are you wanting us to anoint you in the name of Jesus with oil and pray over you as described in James Five? Yes. So I told her we'd be glad to do that, excuse myself to go and ask a nurse for some oil of some sort. Megan stayed with Sally. You can imagine. All the while I was doing biblical theology, I had no idea where she's coming from on healing. When I came back with some oil, I took time to assure Sally that I did believe that the Lord Jesus wants to heal her. And I did. I said I was confident that God is greater than we are and so too are his healing ways. Then I shared with her this. And I had never sat down and thought this through before. This is instant theologizing in the nursing room.

I said, God heals in the New Testament, at least in three ways. I'm sure more. Some are James Five type healings where God does a clear physical reversal of the sickness. And I agreed with her that was the kind I would want if I was in her situation, and that we joined her in wanting that kind of healing for her. So I read from James Five and I won't take time to read it all, but it ends, part of it. It says, Are any sick among you? Then the prayer of faith will save the sick and the Lord will raise them up. We let those words soak in. And then I shared there's another way I see God healing in the New Testament, I call it. I had never done that before, the second Corinthians Twelve way. And I read the thorn in the flesh passage which ends, which has my grace is sufficient for you in the middle. You know the passage, I'll save us time, but whenever I'm weak, then I'm strong. Then I explained how we tend not to prefer this way of being healed. However, we know that suffering, even deprivation, has long been an important tool for building Christ like character, for healing our inner lives, and for finding deep joy of the sort most people can't even imagine.

And many scriptures speak of this. We let that soak in. Then I mentioned a third kind of healing, what I called the Revelation 21 kind. Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth. You know the passage no more mourning, death will be no more mourning and crying and pain will be no more, et cetera. I told Sally that she could stake her whole life on that being for her. Then we prayed and anointed her with oil in Jesus name, and sure that he would heal her in one or more of those ways or another that flows from his great love for her. Before we left, I did scaling with her to give us some kind of a baseline for next week, next time we saw her. I said, if zero represents, I feel totally abandoned by God right now. I'm in utter despair. And I sometimes have patients who answer zero and ten represents. I feel God's presence with me so much, it's almost heaven. Where was she? We heard and verified that it was Six. I was rather shocked, delighted. And we assured her we would keep her in our prayers. I took Megan back to my office and made sure we prayed that God would help what we did, not to be of damage to her because we didn't know where she was coming from.

Some people would think that the approach I took was really pretty, manby, pamby and watered down. Others might think, Why do you do that? So we didn't know whether we had hurt her or helped her. We were flying blind, and we knew it well. A few days later, we returned. Sally was clearly as ill as before. If anything, she seemed weaker. We talked with her about our confidence in God's love for her, and also about the humbling fact that we know neither the full details of God's ways nor God's timings. And we shared a psalm of trust. Before we left, I did scaling again, hoping that Six would not have become negative six. We were a bit afraid of what we might learn, but Sally blurted out something that sounded like, I don't want to imitate her a 1010. She saw our surprise and said it again. Stunned, I asked, are you telling me that you so sense the presence of Jesus with you, that you're having such peace in Him that sex is nowhere nearly good enough to describe it? How he's touched you. And there was this loud yes, ten. So we prayed with her again, thanking God for his faithfulness in already healing her in a profound way and looking forward to the day of final healing and any other kinds of healings he'd like to do in the meantime.

I saw Sally in her room many more times. And there's more, almost unbelievable aspects to this story that involve her daughter and few other things. But I can well, I'm going to throw this in anyway. I was away when she died. Her daughter, who was struggling with faith issues. This I learned a year later, came down to see her. And when her daughter, or her daughter did tell me a year later that her faith remained vibrant and her peace and joy, her daughter came down to her room the day, the afternoon she was dying because her daughter works there and was in another unit. And she came in and she walked over to Sally, and Sally said, I won't use the name Jane. I love you, in a voice that clear. Anyway, there's other stuff in the story. I saw Sally in her room many more times. Her body wasn't fixed in this world, but what amazing good health she had for the last part of her life. So what have I learned from what I have seen God doing around me? So what I'm doing here, I think, is I'm interacting with my experience using reason.

Right. Crutcher talks about their relationship as something of what he calls a hermeneutical circle. That phrase is not. You'll usually use that way. But he says that you see God doing things around you and you use reason on it and there's a hermeneutical circle. I can read the book. It's a great book. James says, I liked it. I wish Victor had read it. He could tell us about it. Yes, good training helps us not to mess things up and to be better vessels the Spirit can use in opening doors in people's lives. But pastoral care and I know I'm preaching to the pointer here pastoral care is nowhere, nearly first and foremost what I do at all. It's what God, the Holy Spirit does. Our skills, our techniques, even our personhood which we bring, which is so important, are not the bottom line or anywhere near the bottom line. There is good evidence. And I smile as I say that, because in Hamilton, in healthcare, you bow toward McMaster and you say evidence based. But evidence based medicine is so big in Hamilton, there is good evidence. I want you to know the God, the Holy Spirit is at work through us and around us and sometimes in spite of us as we share the love of God with people through our caring ministries.

And that's all I wanted to say. Now, to your feedback. Does what I have shared prove true in your lived Christian lives? And do you sense any other key learnings from this? I'm done. I've left a lot of things out, but I told James I would go short and he's going to hold the flag up at four or two.

Anyway, it's almost there.

Yeah.

So, questions? Comments, responses?

John? I think that we fail people often by not having a theology of illness as well as a theology of healing.

Say more.

I base that on Romans 821 where Paul says, we're all subject to the bondage to decay. And that has helped me as a.

Person.

In my own life and as a pastor, in not discouraging people, but helping them accept the fact that death is the doorway to heaven.

And even though they don't want to hear something.

We give a woman who happens to be 90 today a ride to church, and she's diminishing. And I say jerk from time to time. Well, the Lord is undressing you from this life, getting you ready for graduation. That's part of my theology of illness, of aging and of death.

Yeah, but you don't do well with that. I think I could footnote that. And decline, decay, breakage of sorts is a part of life in this world and no indicator of one's worth or whether they please God or not.

But our culture denies that.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. That's a big battle we're fighting.

I think that theology goes hand in hand with Second Corinthians 416 talks about our body wasted away day by day, but our spirits are being renewed. So that, as you said, her body hallelujah. Body never got better here on this earth. But her spirit, her soul, we need to realize her soul care. That's even more important, or just as important as.

Unfortunately, you Ontario taxpayers, through the government, still fund chaplains over here.

So you comment about, it's not the work we do, it's the Holy Spirit brings up that bigger issue of the divine human cooperation. And I tend to think and your response is, the more tools the Holy Spirit has to work with, the more practical so the more that, for instance, the more Bible verses we have memorized and God can bring them to mind, the more practical counseling skills we have.

I suspect that's true, yeah. The more we know ourselves and what our presence actually brings, all kinds of things. Yeah, I think so. Again. It's that Bow fan. Okay, let's see down there.

I agree with you that they're still funding chaplains, but they're less and less than they used to be.

The same in our place.

The physical illness is often the easiest one to address. Can you address, from chaplain perspective, your perspective and experience with mental illness and.

Ongoing.

Repeated cycles of mental illness and healing and non healing?

The smart alec in me wants to say, we give those people to St. Joe's, the mountain site where they have the mental hospital. But I do work closely with psychiatry. I happen to have a wonderful relationship with psychiatry. They are so poorly funded, really. They're only funded to give meds. And when someone needs psychotherapy, they call. They call us. Again, I'm careful to not do things I'm not trained to do or don't know enough to do. But in many ways, it's loving, authentic presence, unconditional love, connection. Human connection is just so important. And you never know how God's going to open the doors. Again. We work with psychiatry and other disciplines to make sure we're not working in areas where we do more harm than good. There's a whole ethics of professional ethics. I'm not really answering your no, I'm a chaplain. I try to build relationship, try to find out what the diet there are some basic spiritual needs that people have, whether they have a mental illness or not. Try to work on those basic things. Am I on the track? You were on I'll talk to you afterwards.

I just felt that amongst Christians, it's really easy for us to talk about physical illness and accept that into the church.

Oh, I see where you're going. Yeah.

But mental illness is often shunted to the word aside. And when we have congregation members that have reoccurring mental illness, we have a very difficult time dealing with it and accepting that that is an illness.

Yes. Okay, thank you. Yes. And you free Methodists who don't instantly delete the stuff I send know there have been several articles I've sent out in the last couple of years that have been in the literature about that for a church. Yeah, you're right. Because our churches are really cagey and afraid and nervous and almost blind to mental illness. Yeah.

And we often think it has to be some healing now, and it may never be until the Revelation 21.

Okay. Yeah, thank you for I think you're highlighting a problem with North American Christianity. We're pretty feeble there and we just want to leave those people alone and withdraw from them. But healthy churches are doing something about that these days. Okay. And then, Keith, we don't have time.

But something related to this is with our theological base, how we handle grief. As you know, John, we lost a seven year old granddaughter to brain cancer. And some of the greatest support I got was, I can be pranked, not from my own church, but from a Catholic mission. And then there was a neighbor who said to my wife, PewDie just had more fate. She which puts a knife in and I think teaching our people how to support people, how to be genuinely empathetic and supportive, then there was wonderful people who just said, we're praying for you.

We feel your grief also.

But part of the healing goes out to those who mourn, those who grieve to bring closure and.

Use therapy language. We should be validating their grief, their sense of deep loss, and not correcting them and saying, oh, no, I remember this. If I named him, some of you here would know him. After Ruth's mother died, he was trying to be compassionate. I remember what seat we were standing by. He comes over to Ruth that says, well, at least you still have John. He was trying to just invalidate her deep sense of loss and we're pretty good. And so I often with families, when there's a death coming or happening, I warn them, look, people are going to say some really, really stupid things, hurtful things. It probably won't mean it. You need to remember that, but be prepared for it.

We still got a few minutes.

A couple more questions.

Singing in relating to grief. Grief is not just in the loss.

Of a loved one.

It could be divorced or other situations that need you feeling that great goal, that loss in your life that you don't even know how to deal with anything as a Christian, you should just snap out of it and be filled with the joy of the spirit all the time.

I remember a Dear Christian in one of my churches, single lady taught the Bible. She probably taught it one of our schools. She had this dog, and when the dog died, what a profound loss. But I think they call it disenfranchised Greek because we don't have funerals and this will take you know but she had lost a huge part of her life and people didn't take that seriously. Peter had a question. I'm worried about that. But.

The catastrophic spirit and the fact.

That.

You get there and I'd like.

To see.

The fact that you entered into that room wanting I'm wondering how.

Often.

Situation God presence and we are on me self conscious.

Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, so it's just yeah, I'm confessing that.

Yeah. One of the books I'm going to tell the Free Methodist about soon is a good book on vain glory. All right, there's some of that at work. Yes, we're afraid of how we'll look and all that stuff.

Is it ethical to turn Pastor Locate into evangelistic opportunity?

You all heard the question. He says stalling for time. No one yes and no. The Ontario Multifaith Council, and I can't even get it memorized, says it is perfectly permissible if the patient wants you to share out of your own faith. It's impermissible to do that when they don't want it. And I remember I had a young man who went around the room where his mother was trying to evangelize everybody else, and I had to stop him. I said, A, you can't do that, there's clear laws against it. B, you wouldn't want that Muslim woman's son coming around getting after your mother and saying, look, he did stop. And he actually came back to thank me for my care of his mother after she died. But the Ontario Multifaith Council does not say you can't share what the patient wants. And so what I do is I make it clear in case there's somebody on the other side of the curtain. Okay, so you're asking me what how I would respond to this as a Christian pastor, I just make it clear what I'm doing, and I've never had any problems with it again because I believe in the Holy Spirit and I see him opening the door.

I have done that kind of thing. But because they've asked for it and if they're not asking for it and they don't want it, I don't want to harden their hearts by just trying to go through doors I shouldn't. So yeah, it's not legal in terms of Ontario law for the members of any faith to take a person who is vulnerable in an institution and try to get them to change faiths or adopt a new faith. I agree with that. I noticed in your story, you said that the gentleman didn't. Want to pray with him. Am I right on that? He didn't want me to pray for him there. Okay, but you did continue to talk with him. You felt, to continue? Yeah. He didn't have any body language that seemed to be saying, look, get out of here. And the fact that he spoke reciprocal words of blessing to me at the end confirmed that. But, yeah, you have to watch that, because that would have been my question is, when someone says no and their body language backs up, I don't want you to pray. What happens at that moment? Two weeks ago, but before I left the room, she asked me if I would bring her a cup of water, and then she asked me to do something else for her.

And so we're starting to build a relationship and told what she wants and doesn't want. And I remember the first day 17 years ago when I was on one of the locked behavioral floors. I walked in and the patient said, Yellow, yellow, I don't know what. So I got up. Yeah. Did I answer your question? Okay? Yeah. And again, I believe in the Holy Spirit, the whole point of what I was saying. I don't have to go barging through doors that aren't open, and he keeps opening doors.

Thanks very much, John, for sharing.

From your time for lunch, back up.

To this hall and down to the stairs or elevator at the end of the hall, and you'll find the buffet there.

Just sit wherever you want. Thank you.


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