Paper on Religion Issue: Identity and Ethics of Ministers

Many ministers straight out of theological schools are often desperate to make their mark in the society. This makes them want to make partnerships with organizations and institutions at the expense of their ethics and identity. It is not uncommon to find ministers who lose themselves in the bid to make themselves popular in order to attract a large congregation. As a result, they end up compromising their ethical values and often land in trouble. This paper aims at explaining the ethical conduct of ministers as they develop their professions and also gives an outline of how to keep their identity in the bid to get larger congregations.

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The best way to develop professionally as a minister is to form partnerships. These may be with organizations, institutions, community-based program coordinators among others. Such partnerships give you the chance to interact with people of different scopes and backgrounds and convey the message of God to them at any point. This also gives you the opportunity to counsel and offer guidance to people who need help.

When forming partnerships with institutions, it is best to discover the large institutions such as schools, churches, universities and colleges. Such institutions give you access to young minds that still are curious and need guidance on the correct paths. Within such institutions, you are also likely to encounter several challenges that will give you the needed experience to assist in other areas.

Organizations such as companies, non-governmental organizations, and charity foundations also provide a great platform for one to develop their profession. Such a partnership can be based on employment, contract signing or voluntarily offering your services. This enables one to experience the challenges that come with helping and evangelizing to different people of different background. Unlike institutions that are religion-based, organizations come with the challenge of having multi-religions.

Community-based programs enable a minister to work with the younger generation. This mainly is on a voluntary basis because such programs rarely have the financial ability to support the services offered by different people. Community-based programs are also the easiest way to start developing one's career especially immediately after graduating as they are the easiest to access and the chances of being turned away are minimal.

It is important to note that even though such institutions, organizations, and community-based programs give one the ability to interact widely with people, they also come with challenges. Such challenges include integrating your programs with the already established curriculum like the case for schools and colleges, sexual advancements from both genders among others.

As far as organizations offer the opportunity interact with different people, they also play an important role in the guidance of ethical aspects and identity of ministers. The ability of an organization to set clear ethics for their staff, students or even outside people when in contact with ministers helps a long way to keeping the morals of the society at bay. Apart from setting the ethical behavior, it should also have a way of monitoring the behavior of all concerned parties to ensure that the ethics are not violated in any way.

Some of the issues that the ethical boundaries of an organization can address are the education of the ministers. As ministering as a profession keeps getting updated with each passing day. If an organization offers to educate its ministers by sending them to further their studies in school or conventions then the ministers will have vast knowledge on how to deal with people.

Having a well regulating system is also fundamental in the ethical boundaries of an organization. This means that there should be a clearly laid out procedure for handling cases of unethical behavior among the organization's staff. This will help reduce crippling relationships amongst staff which will affect the performance in the organization. Also having a clearly set out justice system that is fair and equal to ensure that no one in the organization receives the burden of unethical behavior.

Other ethical issues to be addressed by an organization's ethical boundaries are employee conduct towards the organization, other employees and the employer. As with consideration of such, it will be easier to ensure ethical behavior within the organization's ranks.

Counseling is often a key aspect of everyday life. People counsel each other at any point in life. As a result, it is important for any minister who is sought for to provide counseling services at any point be equipped with the knowledge of identifying people who really desire their services as opposed to those of malicious intent. It is also important for the counselor to behave with as much needed ethical behavior of a counselor.

Before counseling, one must have the required knowledge to provide the counseling services. This is because counseling does not involve offering advice and a listening ear; it also involves identifying the emotional needs of the said victim. This requires vast knowledge in order to be able to identify the emotions conveyed. The counselor must also understand that by giving counsel, they are offering a service just as Jesus did.

One must also understand the counselee rights like the basic human rights of the counselee. Being able to understand their emotional needs, spiritual needs, and psychological needs are also important. Further being just and treating all counselees equally is crucial in counseling. The relationship between counselor and counselee should also be a dual relationship. Intimacy should be avoided during such sessions.

In order for counseling to be successful, it is important that the counselor is of high moral behavior. The counselor must only use the knowledge and procedures known to them during counseling. Any change of procedure must have a reason and a said goal to achieve. Being able to understand the ethical guidelines for both parties is also a key aspect in the success of counseling.

In regard to the background check, I acknowledge the receipt of this notification and I am willingly giving my consent to conduct a background check on me. This is important with regard to the profession and to help understand the ethical issues I have faced in the past. I do hope the issues will be of help during the MA PACO internship period.

References

Wayne E. Oates (); A Practical Handbook for Ministry. Edited by Thomas W. Chapman. Retrieved from: https://books.google.co.ke/books?id=D0Xn3SVFsNoC&pg=PA65&lpg=PA65&dq=ministerial+identity+and+ethics+handbook&source=bl&ots=RRMfFE_ilC&sig=OYe9u2mApIxQWaGKzxrCKT1KTco&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=ministerial%20identity%20and%20ethics%20handbook&f=false.

Brandon Pierce (October 2015); The Case for Ministry. Retrieved from: http://symposiumethics.org/2015/10/06/the-case-for-ministry/.

Mark S. Putnam (2003); Ethical Boundaries at Work. Retrieved from: http://www.globalethicsuniversity.com/articles/ethicalboundaries.htm.

David Shoemaker (June 2009); Personal Identity and Ethics. Retrieved from: http://metapsychology.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=book&id=4963.