Pastoral Care

Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood. (Acts 20.28)

Pastoral Care at Iron Works

We’d like every member at Iron Works City to experience genuine community and faithful care. Very often those things go hand in hand -- folks with ongoing, established friendships are often well-cared for. But as a growing church, not all of these things can happen organically or automatically. Thus we need to be intentional about our processes to best care for the flock.

At Iron Works, we consider faithful care to be expressed by being known, fed, led, and protected. Functionally, this is carried out in different ways.

Community Groups

In practice, Community Groups (along with men’s and women’s groups) are the life of our church. The real relationships expressed in groups enable disciple-making, mission, and care. It is the church who builds up and cares for the church. This is a beautiful picture of Ephesians 4 playing out. Community Group leaders take responsibility for checking in on, praying for, and providing regular care for group members. Common care (the day-in and day-out maintenance of “life together”) happens best in small groups.

Elders

Even while community group leaders do much of the “day to day” care of members, elders are given the task of responsibility for this shepherding. As such, they will provide care, shepherding, counsel and support to community group leaders. Each community group will have an elder or pastor assigned to it. Elders check in with their designated members a few times a year, in addition to all their informal conversations with members simply by doing “life together.”

Pastoral Counseling

Every person is both marked by dignity (having been made in the image of God), and broken to the core (because of the devastating effects of sin). We understand that this brokenness affects all relationships so we take seriously the need for providing thoughtful and wise counsel, which we offer to our members. Pastor Robbie engages in pastoral counseling, which may cover a wide range of issues from spiritual struggles to life transitions to relational difficulties. Pastoral counseling is intended to be short-term -- from one to four sessions. To schedule an initial appointment for pastoral counseling, please fill out this form.

Clinical Counseling

At times, the expertise of a specialized counselor is needed (especially in crisis situations). Our pastor will often make referrals based on the specific nature of the need. If the cost of counseling is an obstacle, members are encouraged to fill out a Mercy Fund application which could help with the cost.