Keeping Up Is Essential But Not Easy

I've just completed reading a book about being a pastor. It is an excellent book written by a well-known pastor-scholar. In a very honest reporting about being a pastor in the mid-1960s, he tells of a physician's advise to a young boy who had been sexually abused. That advise was "forget it." Maybe that is how mental health workers were trained to respond in the mid-1960s. However, to offer that advise today would probably begin a process resulting in having your license to practice revoked. Today, you call in the "authorities" who are trained not only to investigate but, also, to get an abuser away from children and, hopefully, to some help. Keeping up with how to do one's job is essential but not easy. There are always changes which require continual study and on-going supervision. In my mental health field, i.e., Marriage and Family Therapy, I'm required to have Board-approved 15 hours of continuing education each year. I usually fuss about that because the Board doesn't necessarily approve the seminars that I want to count. Nevertheless, I know that those continuing education units are essential. I wish ministers were required to have some continuing education units each year in order to keep our Ordination valid. I believe that keeping up is essential but not easy.