Some Categories of Pastoral Care

Preparation of Servants

Preparation of Servants

The preparation of servants is a vital matter in Church Education Schools. For according to the extent of care given to preparing the servant, his benefit to the service will be, as well as his spiritual influence on the students, and also the soundness of his teaching. Consequently, there will be no stumbling blocks in the service.

The success of preparing servants depends on three matters:

1. The personality of the one whom the Church prepares for service.
2. The quality of the information and studies he receives, the practical trainings he practices, and the curriculum for preparing servants in the Church.
3. The quality of the teacher or guide for the servant-preparation classes, as well as the rest of the lecturers, and the extent of their competence and influence.

In preparing servants, we present the following points:

1. From which group are servants prepared? And what are their qualifications?

• The most suitable person is the one who was raised in Church Education Schools from a young age, received spiritual teaching since childhood within the bosom of the Church, practiced its rites, benefited from the spirituality of its sacraments, and grew until he reached the servant-preparation classes.
• Some branches choose individuals from among those who regularly attend the youth meeting in the Church and participate in its activities, regardless of their childhood and how they spent it.
• Whether the person prepared for service is chosen by this way or that, he should be characterized by spirituality, good conduct, good reputation, and the approval of his confessor for his work in Church Education service.
• He should also be capable of teaching, leadership, and controlling the children in the class. It is also required that his knowledge assists him in teaching, whether what he receives in the curriculum activates what he already knew before.
• The preparation of the teacher should continue even after he begins his service. He should receive new lessons in the family meeting (“level”) which he serves in Sunday Schools, other lessons in the servants’ meeting, and also attend the lessons given in the youth meeting in the Church, in addition to his personal studies.
• It is good for a teacher in Church Education to begin by sharing with an experienced teacher in the same class, in order to be practically trained under his guidance while helping him in teaching. He should not be given a class to teach alone from the beginning of his service.

2. Servant-preparation classes need teachers of a deep type, capable of forming and preparing servants.
It is preferable that they not be handled by one teacher who shapes them with his image alone and with his own special style. Rather, it is better that they receive lessons from a group of teachers who take turns preparing them, or divide the curriculum among themselves.
A group of Sunday School branches can also cooperate together—within one city or within a district of a large city—to establish a joint class for preparing servants for all those branches with one spirit.

3. There is a need to establish one unified curriculum for servant-preparation classes.
This curriculum should include the educational aspect and what is necessary from the sciences of education, sociology, psychology, and the stages of child development.
Alongside what is necessary from the religious sciences: the basic principles of theology, doctrine, and rite; and the basic information in Church history and the lives of the saints.
Also, the spiritual preparation of the servant, so that he may be at the level befitting a servant, in a position of example and good conduct, and ensuring his perseverance in confession, communion, praying the Agpeya, and reading the Holy Bible.

4. Merely delivering the curriculum is not sufficient.
Rather, it must be ensured that it is understood. There is no objection to conducting an exam to make him feel the seriousness of the study. Perhaps there may also be practical preparation alongside the theoretical preparation.

Note:
We—in servant-preparation classes—are not able to give them all the necessary religious information. This will continue with them throughout their lives as they grow in knowledge. Rather, we need in this matter three things:
a. To encourage them to read and study.
b. To introduce them to sound references and sources for teaching.
c. To warn them against common errors, so that they do not adopt every idea they hear or read, but rather have a spirit of discernment toward everything that approaches their minds of ideas.

The Servants’ Meeting: Reasons for Its Success or Failure

We wish to speak in this subject about the importance of the servants’ meeting and its benefit, what are the reasons for its weakness or failure, and what are the factors that help strengthen and develop it.

Its importance and benefits:

1. The servants’ meeting helps in strengthening their bonds together, creating one spirit in service, and establishing one mind among them, through receiving the same information together in their meeting.
2. It is also a field for continuing in the life of discipleship, because in it teachers receive lessons and sit in the position of listeners, not speakers.
3. This helps in a life of humility.
4. Likewise, the servants’ meeting is a means for the servant’s growth, not only in knowledge but also in spiritual life.
5. By distributing topics to servants to present in the servants’ meeting, a new opportunity is given for study, reading, and research, because the servant who delivers a talk in the servants’ meeting is keen that his topic be of a high level befitting servants to listen to.
6. Thus, the servants’ meeting becomes a field for training servants to higher levels, and a field for preparing speakers for youth meetings and Sunday School conferences as well.
7. Moreover, the stronger the servants’ meeting becomes, it turns into a field for preparing leaders and consecrated ones, and it may even be a source for choosing priestly fathers in the future.
8. The servants’ meeting trains the servant in seriousness in service and faithfulness in it, and also makes him feel that he is serving under supervision and guidance.
9. The servants’ meeting has many other spiritual benefits if prayer meetings for servants or joint spiritual trainings emerge from it.
10. It is also a field of example, through the personalities that appear in it with their spiritual influence on the rest of the servants, through the example of their lives, good dealings, and precision in service.

All this we say about the ideal servants’ meeting.
But not all servants’ meetings are ideal. There are branches in service in which the servants’ meeting is weak or lukewarm. What are the reasons for that?

Reasons for weakness:
The servants’ meeting weakens if the servants do not find in it any spiritual benefit for them, nor any new knowledge added to their information, or if there are stumbling blocks or negativities in the servants’ meeting. What are the reasons for that?

1. If the meeting loses the element of preparation and readiness, and does not have a specific goal.
2. The meeting may weaken because of the weakness of the speakers and the weakness of the information they present. Thus, servants find no motive that makes them persevere in attending the meeting.
3. If the meeting becomes a field for politics and news, or an explanation of disputes and conflicts, servants feel that they fall into sins of judgment and their thoughts become distorted.
4. If the meeting is without discipline or order, or without commitment from the speakers, such that the original speaker is absent and the substitute speaks spontaneously.
5. If the meeting becomes a field for commands and prohibitions from the service secretary and his assistants, in a spirit of domination and rejection of the other opinion.
6. Or if the meeting includes sharp discussions that stir nerves.
7. Or the meeting may fail because of division among the servants and the absence of love and bonding between them, or if each servant is an independent unit with no relation to the rest of the servants.

Revitalizing the meeting:

1. By having a well-studied program and strong speakers in their knowledge and commitment.
2. That the program include multi-dimensional information, not only educational, but also diversified to include doctrine and theology, Church history, the lives of the saints, rites, spiritualities, explanation of verses difficult to understand, and responses to circulating doubts, etc.
3. That the meeting time be suitable for all and not extend to the extent that it conflicts with the servants’ other responsibilities, especially during exam periods.
4. There is no objection to exchanging some speakers with other branches, because undoubtedly the servants will find joy when their meeting hosts a well-known speaker from among the servants, who speaks to them on an engaging topic from his specialty and answers their questions and comments.
   But it is not permissible to invite any of the fathers bishops or priests of other churches without permission and without the knowledge of the priests of the Church, but rather, “Let all things be done decently and in order” (1 Cor 14:40), as the Scripture teaches us.
5. The servants’ meeting also succeeds if there is pastoral care for those servants who are absent, and courtesy toward servants in their special and social circumstances, for this increases bonding and helps regular attendance at the meeting.
6. It is good for the meeting to have a spiritual order and not be merely words delivered in it. In addition to beginning with the prayers of the Agpeya, the hymns or melodies said in it should be carefully chosen, as well as any meditations that may be said or readings that may be read.
7. There may be spiritual training in which all the servants participate together, for this helps unite their hearts in shared spiritualities.
8. It is also possible for a prayer meeting in the Church to emerge from the servants’ meeting at a suitable time.
9. The servants’ meeting can designate a day on which all the servants partake of Communion together. This helps their spiritual bonding, and if possible for servants of some branches to gather together in one Divine Liturgy that is easy to arrange, to partake together, this would have great benefit.
10. For all that we have said, each servants’ meeting needs to have an organizational aspect that strengthens its spiritual life and knowledge, as well as strengthens the servants’ presence in it.
11. In light of this organization, responsibilities and roles can be distributed among the servants: one, for example, responsible for preparing hymns and melodies in an organized and engaging manner; another responsible for recording attendance; a team responsible for pastoral care; and a group responsible for setting the lecture program of the meeting for the next three months, for example, and contacting speakers and confirming appointments with them.
12. It is good for the meeting to include more than one topic, with focus. Those for whom a certain topic is not suitable can benefit from the second topic.
13. Servants should not be burdened with many meetings that their time cannot accommodate, such that some are forced, in balancing their time and life requirements, to be absent from these meetings, and the servants’ meeting may be the one they excuse themselves from attending. Likewise, the start time and end time should be determined and adhered to.
14. There should be no favoritism in inviting speakers, but rather objectivity: no one should be invited to speak in a servants’ meeting except one who is strong in his topics and committed to his times.
15. For the sake of benefit, the talks can be recorded and placed in a servants’ library. There is also no objection to distributing copies to the servants, so that each one has a complete file of everything that has been delivered in the servants’ meeting of lectures.
16. Let the servants’ meetings be a matter of their prayers, so that the Lord may give a word to the speakers, and response and effect to the listeners.

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