of power; congregants are often vulnerable, in pain, in trouble, or seeking direction and guidance. We must be aware of our underlying motivations in everything we do. The less in touch we are with our motivations, the more potentially harmful we can be to our congregants, as we cannot assume we are not manipulative. And, because we have a great capacity to manipulate others, we have great potential to move people to relate to us in ways consistent with our ruling passions. 2
The potential to manipulate and hurt others is especially evident when we serve as counselors. In every counseling session, the counselor faces numerous choices about interventions to implement in each moment: when to ask questions, what questions to ask,
when to engage in self-disclosure, whether to pursue one topic or another, whether to go deeper into the details of the counselee’ s experience, whether to deepen an emotion— the choices are endless. The decisions we make will be based on our motives and whether we are aware of them. This is why the degree to which we are not in touch with our ruling passions is the degree to which we are dangerous.
If we have the need for admiration, we will unconsciously( or consciously) manipulate our counselees to admire us. If we feel the need to be liked, we may manipulate our clients to like us. If we act on such motives, we are violating the basic premise that ministry is about serving our counselees’ needs and not
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