Pastoral Care with Humanities 
I recall first encountering the term “pastoral care” during my third year of undergraduate studies at Baekseok University (1997).
I was a student of Professor Jang Seong-sik, my mentor, when he lectured using a translated manuscript of John Patton’s *Pastoral Care in Context*. At that time, we looked for typos in the translation and took exams. I remember receiving quite good grades back then.
Professor Jang learned directly from Patton using the manuscript before the book was published at Columbia Theological Seminary in the United States. Professor Jang stated that it was difficult to find appropriate terminology for translating this book because pastoral counseling and care had not yet taken root in the Korean church at that time.
Later, in 2000, I met Rev. Seo Byeong-chea, the director of the Institute for Lay Pastors Ministry. He introduced me to Dr. Melvin Steinbrun’s book, *Can You Do Ministry Alone?*. It was in that book that I discovered Melvin’s ideas. Melvin simply summarized the broad scope of pastoral care.
This is PACE. Melvin stated that pastoral care (or nurturing) should become a shared resource, shared by the laity, rather than the ministry that ordained ministers had considered their exclusive property. Melvin even argued that this constituted a second Reformation.
Furthermore, in the preface to the translated edition (Pastoral Care In Context), Professor Jang Seong-sik described one of the characteristics of Patten’s work as follows:
“Pastoral care is not the exclusive property of the pastor alone, but the role of the entire church. It shifts from pastor-centered care to care for everyone belonging to the church (including the laity).”
I believe that Melvin presented a simple yet powerful tool to enable all believers to engage in ‘mutual pastoral care.’
Here, the term ‘mutual pastoral care’ was learned from the term ‘interdependent ministry’ in Paul Stevens’s *Theology of the Laity*. And Patton referred to this as “communal care and context.” The central theological confession or thesis of this book states, “God created humans for the sake of a relationship with Himself and for relationships among human beings. God sustains relationships through creation, which listens to and remembers us, and calls us into individual relationships with people.”
It argues that human care and community are possible because we are beings within God’s memory.
Professor Kim Ki-chul, who teaches pastoral counseling, described “intersubjective pastoral care” in [Jangsin Forum, Vol. 49 No. 1].
Therefore, he views pastoral care not as a superficial or unilateral ministry, but as a means to create creative dynamism within the church community alongside mutually communicative relationships.
In the next chapter, I intend to discuss “being remembered and remembering,” the central biblical theme for pastoral care found in John Patton’s writings.■