27 February 2012 Module 7

27 February 2012 Module 7

Module 7 Maintaining Boundaries in Caregiving

I.                Burdens and Loads

Galatians 6:2) Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.

Galatians 6:5) For each will have to bear his own load.

These two verses are quite close to each other in the sixth chapter of Galatians, but they seem to be contradictory.  We are to bear one another’s burdens, but each is to carry his or her own load.  Resolving this apparent contradiction will help us better understand our responsibilities: for ourselves and also to our care receivers and others.

          The Greek word for burden means something that is exceedingly heavy and troublesome.  It is the kind of burden people carry in times of crisis when their troubles seem ready to overwhelm them.

          On the other hand, the Greek word translated as load means the cargo or normal daily weight that a person carries.  If you look at grade school children crowding into the school in the morning, you’ll see many of them carrying backpacks.  All the children are able to manage their own backpacks; they don’t need others to share that weight.

          So you can see that the Scriptures call us to share the crushing weight of the burdens that come into others’ lives, but to take responsibility for our own daily load.  From your pre-class reading you probably also have some ideas about what happens when people get burdens and loads mixed up.

          Sometimes care receivers act as if their burdens are just loads.  They struggle under the teribble weight of tragedies and crises and refuse to allow others to share their burdens.  Other times care receivers exaggerate the weight of their daily load, refuse to take responsibility for carrying it, and try to find others who will take over their responsibilities

          Unfortunately sometimes caregivers go right along with the care receiver’s misinterpretation.  Some so-called caregivers are so wrapped up in their own desires or problems that they are unable to reach out to others with real care.  They would just as soon allow care receivers to carry crushing loads alone.  Other so-called caregivers – Amy in the story at the beginning of your Pre-class reading is an example – seem to want to take over responsibility for other people’s lives.

          All these examples of mixing up burdens and loads are the result of boundary problems.  Sometimes people turn their boundaries into high, thick walls in order to keep others out.  Other times people seem to have no boundaries at all and want to merge their lives and problems with another person’s.  God wants us to distinguish between burdens and loads, to take appropriate responsibility for ourselves but also to be able to give and receive care as necessary.

But that isn’t where God’s interests stops.  Jesus also offers to share our burdens.  Listen to what he says: “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." (Matthew 11:28-30).  Jesus wants to share our burdens.  The image he uses is a yoke – the frame that linked two oxen together and helped them share their work.  We put on the yoke and find that Jesus is right there beside us, pulling with us, sharing the wearying work, helping to carry our burdens.

We all have daily loads – sometimes they are heavier than other times, but God graciously enables us to carry them.  There comes times in everyone’s life, however, when they are weighted down with burdens.  During those crushing times, Christians embody Christ, who helps bear our burdens.  We find ourselves in the yoke, and we see the face of Jesus in the sister or brother who is yoked with us.

II.              Boundaries for Stephen Ministers and Care Receivers

As you have been learning about boundaries, you may have been thinking about how these insights will apply to your caregiving.  That is where we will turn our attention now.

A.    The Stephen Minister’s Boundaries

In order to care effectively for others, Stephen Ministers need to maintain healthy boundaries in their caring relationships.  Here are some ways you can maintain appropriate boundaries as a caregiver.

1.     Not Trying to Take Over the Care Receiver’s Life

You can maintain boundaries by not trying to take over the care receiver’s life.  This may seem pretty obvious, but it does need to be said.  At times caring people can try to take over their care receiver’s life, all the while believing they are making life easier and better for the ones needing care.  In the first part of your pre-class reading Amy did that to Rhonda.

Some people need to care for others so much that instead of helping a care receiver change, they keep the care receiver in a dependent state.  This is because as long as the care receiver’s problems continue, his or her need for a caregiver continues, and this suits these caregiver’s because above all they need to be needed.  Such behavior is called enabling.  Relating like that is not caring; it is self-centered and destructive.

The classic of such relating carried to an extreme is the spouse of an alcoholic who buys the booze for the addict and makes excuses to the addict’s employer, covering up the problems.  There’s a name for this behavior; it’s called codependency.  For codependent caregivers, boundaries have gone out the window.  They are unable to distinguish between what is their responsibility and what is someone else’s responsibility.

Stephen Ministers must guard against such codependency.  One Stephen Minister felt so sorry for her care receiver that she visited four times a week and did the care receiver’s grocery shopping, while neglecting her own family. Another Stephen Minister tried to solve relationship problems that the care receiver wasn’t even willing to work on.  When the care receiver wouldn’t cooperate, the Stephen Minister tried to bully him and make him feel guilty.  Even though these Stephen Ministers thought they were caring, they were meeting their own needs, not the care receiver’s

Maintaining healthy boundaries will help you take responsibility for your own feelings, needs, and actions, but not for others’ – not even for your care receiver’s.  You are responsible to provide process-oriented care, but you are not able to change or cure your care receiver or to make him or her happy.

2.     Avoiding Manipulation

Some care receivers may be very needy individuals who have trouble maintaining their own boundaries.  They may be manipulative controllers who try to talk their Stephen Minister into taking responsibility for them so they don’t have to take responsibility for themselves

But you cannot be responsible for your care receiver.  He or she must be responsible for him- or herself.  Your responsibility is to fulfill your Stephen Minister duties and care for your care receiver within reasonable limits.  Through the study of assertiveness, you know that you have a perfect right to say no to unreasonable requests

3.     Knowing Your Limits

In order to maintain your boundaries you need to know your limits.  What if, after you were assigned to your care receiver, you found out that he or she was suicidal, deeply depressed, suffering from severe mental illness, or abusing his or her children?  How would you stay within your boundaries as a Stephen Minister?

Maintaining reasonable boundaries includes knowing what kinds of care you are and are not capable of giving, and limiting yourself only to providing the care you are qualified to give.  In module 11, “Using Mental Health Professionals and Other Community Resources,” you will learn more about referring care receivers to others when they need more care than you are qualified to give.

At times you may be tempted to go beyond your caring capabilities.  This would undoubtedly be out of concern for your care receiver.  You may care so much for him or her that you don’t want to admit that you are in over your head.  You may believe your care receiver will be angry if you bring up the possibility of his or her working with another care receiver.  If you find yourself thinking that way, remember that even though care and concern motivate you, trying to go beyond your capacity to care is a boundary trap.  Your clear responsibility is to refer your care receiver to another caregiver when his or her needs surpass your ability to meet them.

B.    Respecting Your Care Receiver’s Boundaries

1.      How to Know If You Are Trespassing Your Care Receiver’s Boundaries

A crucial part of maintaining boundaries is to respect others’ boundaries.  This applies especially to your relationship with your care receiver.

One way to know if you may be trespassing your care receiver’s boundaries is to pay attention to his or her feelings and to your own.  If you notice yourself or your care receiver becoming increasingly uncomfortable you may be getting uncomfortably close to a boundary.

For example, if you’re talking with your care receiver about feelings and he or she stops talking, changes the subject, or becomes upset, you are probably trespassing his or her space.  Also, if you start feeling distracted, frustrated, or anxious during a discussion, you may want to consider whether you are trespassing your care receiver’s boundaries.

2.     Helping Care Receivers Establish and Strengthen Boundaries

Some care receivers may need help establishing and strengthening boundaries.  Take another look at the Reference boxes G, H and I on pages 131-133 in your pre-class reading. Look for these signs in your care receiver in order to see whether he or she is having boundary problems.

One important way you will help is by your caring commitment to your care receiver.  People need to feel cared for and confident in order to maintain healthy boundaries.  Your listening, your prayers, and your unconditional positive regard will help your care receiver build up his or her internal resources to allow him or her to build and maintain healthy boundaries. 

Another way you will help is by modeling healthy boundaries.  If your care receiver asks you to talk about something you don’t feel comfortable sharing,  you can gently and firmly say that you would rather not talk about that and you hope he or she understands.  By exercising your boundaries you will show your care receiver that it is okay for him or her to have and exercise his or her boundaries.

You will, of course, respect your care receiver’s boundaries and not try to break through them.  Your respect shows that your care receiver is allowed to set boundaries in order to feel safe in your caring relationship.  Your care receiver will practice establishing and maintaining boundaries with you, and then he or she will be able to carry that skill into his or her daily life and maintain his or her boundaries with others.

You may gently point out ways in which your care receiver’s boundaries are not healthy and not serving your care receiver well.  Focus Note 2 on page 140 contains some examples of how you might do this. 

The final example in Focus Note 2, the one about canceling visits, points out another way you might be able to help care receivers’ build strong boundaries.  Some care receivers may have difficulty remaining aware of their feelings.  They may turn their feelings off at times and then suffer later when those feelings come flooding back.  By reflecting feelings, talking about them, and encouraging your care receiver to remain aware of his or her feelings, you can help the individual know when he or she is becoming uncomfortable.  Then he or she can use those feelings as a signal that it is time to exercise his or her boundaries.

V. Looking Ahead

Boundaries are a way to feel safe.  With healthy boundaries people don’t worry about others taking advantage of them or hurting them.  By respecting your care receivers’ boundaries and maintaining your own, you can help create a place where your care receivers will feel safe enough to recognize, accept and express their painful feelings.  You will help them make a safe place where they can face the crises that challenge them and find new ways to meet those challenges.

20 February 2012 Module 6 Part B

Under Construction

13 February 2012 Module 6 Part A

Module 6 Part 1

I.                 The Power of speaking the Truth in Love

The Gospel of Mark tells a story of Jesus that goes like this.  Right after the transfiguration, Jesus and the disciples come down to find the other disciples engaged in an argument.  A man explains that he has brought his son to be rid of his demon, and the disciples were not able to do it.  The father of the boy indicates his fear and uncertainty when he says to Jesus, “If you can do anything, take pity on us and help us.”

“If you can?” Jesus says. “Everything is possible for him who believes.”

Immediately the boy’s father exclaims, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief.”

Both Jesus and the boy’s father are speaking the truth in love in this story. They are commending by example to us the power of assertive relating.  The father could have covered up his blunder of voicing his fear and doubt by backtracking, “Oh, sir, of course I believe you can cure my boy. I just misspoke. I’m sorry,” Caught in the pull of this lie, he might never have received Jesus’ power to tap into his well of faith.  But the father’s love for his son delivered him to the truth, the same truth that troubles us:  I believe; help my unbelief.

The power of uttering truths like this in caring relationships is without parallel.  It is the secret to opening hearts and minds to one another.

The passage from Ephesians at the top of the first page of your outline and focus notes says that by speaking the truth in love – that is, behaving and communicating assertively – we will grow up in Christ.  In other words, we will grow closer to Jesus and grow to be more like him.  Jesus was the perfect example of assertiveness.  He invites us to follow his example and promises to equip us to become more like him in all ways, including relating with other people more assertively.

II.            Definition of Assertiveness

There are as many ways to be assertive as there are people on the planet because each person is unique.  Assertiveness is not a cookie-cutter approach to relating.  Instead, it calls for the highest creativity you can find within yourself.  It calls on you to be you – genuine, thoughtful and full of care.

A.       Assertiveness is positive and Constructive

First of all, assertiveness is positive and constructive.  It builds people up rather than tearing down.  The respect and care inherent in this way of relating will build up both people who relate assertively and those to whom they relate assertively.  They will see themselves and others as valuable people, loved by God and worthy of respect.

          B.       Assertiveness is a Way of Relating

                    Assertiveness has to do with relating – to other people and to yourself.  It has to do with the way you communicate, the way you treat others and yourself, and what you expect of others and of yourself.  Assertiveness encompasses many different aspects of relating.  It may involve standing up for your own rights or for others’ rights.  It can encompass making requests of others and responding to requests people make of you.  Assertive behavior may include genuinely expressing your feeling of love or affection and receiving such expressions from others.  It can be assertive to say yes, and also to say no.

        C.      Assertiveness Respects Others’ Needs, Wants, and Rights

                    Jesus thinks every person was worth dying for – That’s how valuable he considers each of us.  When you relate assertively, you treat others as people of worth, just as God does.  Other people have feelings, ideas, opinions, and rights worthy of your respect.  When you believe this, you treat people assertively without resorting to threats, violence, manipulation, hostility, or other passive or aggressive means of getting your way.

          D.      Assertiveness Respects Your Own Needs, Wants, and Rights

                    Assertiveness respects your own rights and needs just as much as those of others.  Jesus said to love others as you love yourself, and assertiveness values both love for others as well as love for self.  God created you as a valuable and beloved child, just as he did others.  Believing this, you will not resort to threats, violence, and manipulation when you relate to others, neither will you allow yourself to be threatened, abused, or manipulated.

          There are three ways of relating that are directly opposed to assertiveness:  aggressiveness, passivity, and passive-aggressiveness.  Consider each of these nonassertive ways of relating.

          E. Assertiveness Is Not Aggressive

          Aggressive behavior does not respect the rights and needs of others.  Examples of aggressiveness behavior abound.  It can range from cutting in front of someone in line to cutting off someone on the highway.  Some ways of acting aggressive as a Stephen Minister include

          Revealing confidential information in order to damage the care receiver’s reputation;

          Demanding that a care receiver change his or her behavior;

          Threatening to withdraw support if the care receiver doesn’t change;

          Insulting the care receiver in order to try to force him or her to change; and

          Belittling people for past mistakes.

          Certainly no Stephen Minister is likely to act that way toward his or her care receiver, but it is important to identify those behaviors as aggressive so you can recognize them and commit yourselves to avoiding them.

F.       Assertiveness Is Not Passive

          Passive behavior is no better than aggressive behavior, it’s just different.  Perhaps you have seen examples of passive behavior in your family, work, or neighborhood.  You may have seen passive behavior in a person who regularly apologized for thing that were not his or her fault or in a person who never took charge of his or her life, but let others run it.  Some ways of acting passively as a Stephen Minister include

          allowing the care receiver to bully him or her into providing services that are not part of Stephen Ministry:

          Putting up with manipulative behaviors, such as unnecessary middle-of-the-night phone calls;

          Giving in and meeting extra times with a care receiver who threatens to end the caring relationship: or

Never challenging a care receiver to change self-destructive behaviors.

Again, this is not the way any Stephen Minister is likely to act toward his or her care receiver.  By identifying those behaviors as passive and undesirable, however, you can be on the lookout for similar behaviors in yourselves and in your fellow Stephen Ministers.

G.      Assertiveness Is Not Passive-Aggressive

          There is a third kind of nonassertive behavior that is even more difficult to deal with than aggressive or passive behavior.  It is called passive-aggressive behavior, and it combines the worst of both. 

          Passive-aggressive people try to get their own way and bully others without being held accountable for it.  For example, they may call in sick instead of working on a project to which they didn’t want to be assigned; or they may tell lies about you to others while pretending to be your friend.  Some ways of acting passive-aggressively as a Stephen Minister include:

          Agreeing to attend Small Group Peer Supervision sessions, but always showing up late and unprepared;

          Spreading lies and gossip about Stephen Leaders or Stephen Ministers throughout the congregation while continuing to serve as a Stephen Minister;

          Deliberately going so far overboard in insisting on the letter of the law in supervision that the spirit and benefit of supervision are lost; or

          Agreeing to meet with care receiver but never following through and never telling the Stephen Leader

          God willing, we will never have people in the Stephen Ministry behaving like this toward one another.  We can all help prevent such behavior by recognizing it, assertively pointing it out, and clearly saying that we will not allow others to treat us that way.

III.          Assertive, Passive, and Aggressive Bible Stories

A.   A New Term with Ancient Meaning

Even though the term assertiveness is a relatively new one, assertive, passive he time when God told Moses to go back to Egypt as his representative and Moses passively claimed the he could not accept that job because he was no good at public speaking.  Perhaps you also remember the story of Joseph, whose jealous brothers aggressively sold him into slavery because they were angry at him for being their father’s favorite.

          The Scriptures are full of examples of passive and aggressive behavior, and occasionally you even find Bible characters who relate assertively.  Recall Ruth saying “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you.  Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay.  Your people will be my people and your God my God.  Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried”  (Ruth 1:16-17a).  There was also a time when King Saul was hunting David to kill him.  David sneaked up behind Saul and had a chance to kill him, but chose not to because God had made Saul the king, and David believed he should honor the king God had chosen (1 Samuel 24)

          Jesus came into this world as the perfect example of how God wants people to live, and Jesus was consistently assertive.  Even when he was a twelve-year-old child and had remained at the temple after his parents has started their journey back home, re responded to his worried parents by assertively stating that he had to be doing his Father’s business.  Remember when jewish officals confronted Jesus with a woman they caught in the act of adultery.  Jesus steered the perfectly assertive course, avoiding the passive and aggressive rocks on either side, by saying, “If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her” (John 8:7).  Even when Jesus acted in aggressive or passive ways, he assertively chose to do so in order to carry out that mission God had given him.

          Jesus  came to bring us forgiveness and new life.  The new life he freely gives us is courageously assertive.  There is no nedd for us to dominate or control others, because we know that God is in charge and that he has graciously promised to provide everything we need.  There is no need for us passively to hide in fear of others.  We know that Jesus has defeated sin, death, and the devil and that he shares his victory with us.  This doesn’t mean that we are – or can be – perfectly assertive.  We are still on a journey towards the perfection that will be ours only in eternity.  It does mean that God has given us the gifts we need to work on relating assertively and that the Spirit will help us grow more and more like Jesus.

          VII. Looking Ahead

          I hope this session has shown that assertiveness is not only benefical, but, also possible for you.  We have another class session to devote to this important topic.  We will delve more deeply into being assertive in specific situations like making and receiving requests, expressing and receiving expressions of anger, and expressing and receiving compliments.

          You have a reading assignment to complete before the next session, which is the rest of Speaking the truth in Love, Chapters 13- 18.  In addition to that reading assignment,  I would like to give you an assertiveness assignment.  The assertiveness assignment is written in Focus Note 17 on page 113.

February 6th Class 5 Process versus Results in Caregiving

Under Construction

January 30th Class 4 Distinctively Christian Caring

Under Construction

January 23rd Class 3 The Art of Listening

Under Construction

January 16th Class 2 Feelings: Yours, Mine, and Ours

Under Construction

January 9th Class T-1 The Person of the Caregiver

A Transforming Journey

First Steps
Welcome to this first Stephen Minister training class and to a transforming Journey. This class marks the beginning of a new partnership in the gospel, as Paul wrote in the passage at the top of your Outline and Focus Notes. God is beginning another of his good works in you today, and you can be confident that he will carry it to completion.

All our Stephen Leaders are completely committed to your Ministry as Stephen Ministers. We will do everything we can to make sure that you have a very positive experience, are well trained, enjoy your training and service, and do a very good job as Stephen Ministers.
The first and most important fact you need to know about this training and your ministry is that Stephen Ministry is distinctively Christian ministry. You will focus much more on the Christian dimension of Stephen Ministry in upcoming training modules. From the onset, it is important to realize that the power for this ministry comes from Jesus. An important part of your training will be to learn to do everything you can to stay in touch with Jesus and to put others in touch with his healing power.
Who you will become as a Stephen Minister

Each of you brings your own special gifts and motivation to this training. Each of your caring relationships also will be unique. Some of you will be with people who are grieving a loved one’s death. Others will care for people who are chronically ill, divorcing, dying, or going through other crises or difficult life transitions. There is a story of a typical caring relationship in appendix A on page 7 of the Stephen Training Manual. I encourage you to read that story in order to get a better idea of what it will be like to be a Stephen Minster.
In that story you’ll find some elements of a caring relationship that will probably be part of your caring relationship. Your care receiver is likely to feel overwhelmed by his or her crisis. You may find yourself hurting right along with your care receiver. And you will find yourself counting on God’s promises and help, and your Supervision Group’s support, to continue a good job of caring. Most of all, your caring relationship will require much of you: your care, your commitment, and your faith in God.

God has been equipping you for this ministry throughout your life. Now, this training is the next step in God’s work of preparing you to be Stephen Ministers. The purpose of Stephen Ministry taining is to make you even better able to bring Christ’s healing care into caregiving situations.

This compass shows the character of a caregiver

The first and most important element is the symbol at the center. That is the Chi-Rho, which is the symbol for Christ

Chi and Rho are the first two letters of the Greek work Christos, which means “Christ” Since the early Christian times the first two letters of Christos – Chi which looks like an X and the Rho which looks like a P – have been used as a symbol for Jesus.

This symbol is at the center of the caregivers Compass because Jesus is always at the center of a Stephen Minister’s person and Ministry. Christ guides us along every road we travel as caregivers.

The four points of the compass, point to four very important characteristics of caregivers. Stephen Ministers are compassionate, full of faith, skilled, and trustworthy. God uses caregivers with these characteristics to bring Christ’s healing and wholeness to others.


You will have 20 class sessions in the 50 hours of initial training. The training schedule you received tells when these sessions will be and the topics you will cover.

In addition to learning from the Stephen Ministry Training Manual, and the training presentations, I want to encourage you to learn and grow on your own. While learning new skills is one extremely important part of Stephen Minister training, it is not the whole picture. In addition, you need to grow as people and as Jesus’ disciples, and I have a suggestion for how.


Spiritual Disciplines

Perhaps you are familiar with the term Spiritual Disciplines. If not, let me briefly explain what they are. We all know that some practices lead to good physical health – for example, eating a healthy diet, exercising, and getting enough sleep. When we exercise self-discipline in these areas, we are healthier, we feel better, and we can perform better.

Spiritual Disciplines are exercises people do to stay close to Jesus. Examples are prayer, Bible reading, worship, silence, meditation, and service.

You probably noticed that the word discipline sounds a lot like Disciple. Jesus’ disciples are disciplined learners who live in Jesus’ presence, follow him, and try to imitate the life he lived. Spiritual disciplines are like discipleship vitamins – God uses them to strengthen us to follow Jesus.
We know what God’s love is completely a gracious gift. There’s nothing we could ever do to earn it, but that doesn’t matter because God is eager to give it away. When we practice spiritual disciplines, it’s like getting in line to receive God’s gifts. God gives us his love and works in us to increase our faith and discipleship.

Reading Assignment

•Stephen Ministry Training Manual,
pp. 17–28, “Feelings: Yours, Mine, and Ours” Preclass Reading

•Christian Caregiving—a Way of Life, Preface through chapter 7