The Art of Pastoral Competence
By George Hull
Editor, Pastoral Report - The Newsletter of the College of Pastoral Supervision & Psychotherapy
The mark of pastoral competence is discernment. It is, above all, an art, a living practice, and a presence that takes shape in the dynamic interplay between patient and chaplain. It calls us to listen beyond words, to attend to the unspoken currents of fear, hope, grief, and despair, and to respond with courage, curiosity, humility, and thoughtful judgment rather than according to predetermined outcomes. Competence is revealed in the intentional choices we make in the moment, in how we respond to another’s suffering, and in the courage to be fully present in the pastoral encounter.
Anton Boisen, the progenitor of the Clinical Pastoral Training Movement, understood that the capacity to care begins with a deep awareness of the self. His experiences with mental illness shaped a vision in which ministers attend to their interior life, recognize how personal histories influence their pastoral presence, and embrace self-knowledge as foundational to ethical and effective pastoral care. Helen Flanders Dunbar extended this insight, emphasizing the inseparability of body, mind, and spirit, and insisting that attentiveness to one’s own emotions and inner processes is essential for responsive, holistic care.
Competence is evident in the ability to pause, to truly notice, and to be in the moment fully, aware of one’s own inner responses while remaining attuned to the other. It is the quiet discernment that fosters judgment, the integration of self-awareness, ethical reflection, and relational sensitivity. It is the steadiness to remain grounded under intensity, and the humility to acknowledge one’s limits in order to offer authentic care.
Clinical Pastoral Training, at its best, cultivates this art of intentional presence. It invites the trainee to bring their whole self to the work, attending to both the person before them and to the inner dynamics that shape their own responses. Competence is not merely doing; it is being. It is measured not by technical mastery, but by the depth of presence, ethical reflection, and relational sensitivity a chaplain brings to their provision of pastoral care.
To approach pastoral care with competence is to enter a dialogue with life itself: to meet suffering, doubt, hope, despair, and joy with presence and humanity, and to allow oneself to be shaped by the very people one seeks to serve. It is a work of formation, a cultivation of self and one’s pastoral presence, an art in which who we are becoming is inseparable from the care we offer.
