By responding to the expressed needs of callers through active listening, befriending, and referral, and by supporting those who call in finding independence and wholeness, CONTACT is quite naturally an expression of the life and mission of the Christian Church. Wherever there are ministries of healing, of dealing with pain and suffering, and bringing new perspectives on the misuse of life, there God is at work through His abiding Spirit.
From the birth of Life Line in Australia and through the growth of CONTACT in the U.S., the Christian community has been a source of continuous nurture and support. The origin and history of CONTACT as an outreach ministry of the Church is itself a witness to the unconditional love of God, a model of the lifestyle of Jesus Christ, and a fulfillment of the biblical call to ministry. We believe that our service, as an instrument of healing and compassion, is a spiritual discipline and a sacred act, as well as a cultural and community imperative.
While individual CONTACT workers can and obviously do differ in their own personal faith and in the words they use to talk about their faith, being associated with CONTACT certainly means understanding and appreciating the Christian motivation which brought this service into being and which continues to nourish, sustain, and enlighten this service. This also means a commitment to a caring ministry which is supported by knowledge and tempered by wisdom.
The CONTACT telephone ministry does not provide an opportunity for volunteers to preach or initiate religious discussions. We expect our volunteers to be sensitive to the spiritual dimensions of life and capable of exploring questions of meaning and purpose but only, as with other issues, in response to the caller’s initiation. Volunteers are expected to refrain from imposing their values, beliefs, and lifestyles upon others.
In relating to each other and to our callers, we intend to demonstrate that we value individual uniqueness and affirm each person’s right to live out his or her personal convictions. To these ends, we make ourselves available to serve others in times of crisis and need. We believe that each person has the right to make decisions affecting the direction and quality of his or her life and has the responsibility to live according to these choices. Our intent is to relate to each other and to our callers in ways which give honor to personhood and maintain personal integrity.
Our program is thus grounded in the context of Christian ministry. We invite any who are sympathetic with the understanding of this ministry to join with us in providing this service. We neither impose anything nor take our callers beyond the point they are ready to go. Our intent is to help…to serve…to minister…and in so doing, to give expression to the unconditional love of God for all of His children.
There are many ways to call for help. By far, the most readily available is the telephone. For millions of Americans in areas served by a CONTACT center, the telephone is not only a means of emergency assistance, it is also an instrument of human compassion and a lifeline of hope. Marshall McLuan has called the telephone “the most intimate of all modern media.”
Almost every American has access to a telephone. Each telephone represents an instantaneous, omni-present source of help. Those who call a CONTACT center are immediately in touch with a person who cares and who is prepared to listen, to try to understand, and to offer help.
Being on the helping end of a telephone line has become an exciting and practical way for many to put their faith to work in the service of others. In a growing number of cities in the United States and Canada (and in other countries, as well), trained laymen and women are making themselves available to others in all kinds of need.
CONTACT is a 24-hour-a-day telephone helpline available to anyone, anytime. The helpline is a crisis-intervention center on constant standby to help a person who is unable to cope as well as a community information and referral service that provides a front line of defense against the anxiety of not knowing where to turn.
The CONTACT model is built around well-motivated and highly-trained volunteers who are prepared and ready to put themselves “on the line” to become involved with another person at the point of his or her pain.
The CONTACT model for ministry originated in Sydney, Australia in 1963. This model grew out of the experiences and vision of Alan Walker who was the Superintendent of the Central Methodist Mission in the center of Sydney. Dr. Walker conceived the idea of a telephone ministry – a “mantle of safety,” as he first conceived it – to enable the church to get beyond the concerns of the institution and to be in contact with those who might never come to church and had no pastor.
On March 16, 1963, after two years of preparation, the Central Methodist Mission opened its Life Line Center and said to the people of Sydney, “You need never be alone. Help is as close as the telephone.” And from that time to now, volunteers from all walks of life and from all faiths have been answering the call.
From its beginning in Australia, telephone ministries patterned on the Sydney Life Line Center have been established around the world. In 1966, after Time magazine told the story of the Sydney ministry, Life Line International was organized to promote the development of new centers and to establish standards for the accreditation of these centers. The high standards of accreditation, which protect the use of the name of CONTACT and the international service mark of Life Line International, are the distinguishing difference between teleministry centers and the hundreds of other hotline and crisis centers in the United States today.
One of the more dramatic areas of CONTACT ministry is the prevention of suicide. The telephone workers at CONTACT centers are persons who, because of their religious or other motivation and careful training, are prepared to treat the threat of suicide seriously and to be open to talking about suicidal feelings. Depending on the lethality of the situation, professional help may be required. Often the most, not the least, a telephone worker can do is to care enough to listen.
This kind of drama, of course, is not the usual daily fare. Thank God for that. Yet, the day-to-day operation of a telephone helpline produces more drama than most people realize. Most of the time, it’s a quiet sort of drama played by two people who probably do not even know each other’s name. One of them is upset, troubled, or lonely and the other is actively listening.
There are many ways in which one human being can minister to the needs of another. Feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, and healing the sick are traditional ministries of mercy known to everyone. Yet, we seldom hear anyone mention the ministry of listening. This, too, is an act of kindness. Often, listening is the most helpful thing one person can do for another.
CONTACT centers specialize in the ministry of listening. This sounds simple and purely passive, but it is not. Listening is difficult and requires an active, compassionate skill. Developing this skill is the main goal of the training program for the telephone workers.
Many genuinely compassionate people make poor listeners. They are so anxious to give advice or to correct the problem that they would rather talk than listen. Anyone can give advice, but not many people are prepared to listen carefully and to deal unshakably with the wide range of human need which surfaces on the telephone.
Sometimes, as in the case of a person who is grieving over the loss of a loved one, there is really nothing which can be done to “solve” the problem. Any effort to distract a person from this grief will only make him or her feel more lonely because it will convince him or her that you do not really understand or comprehend how he feels. This is true of many situations. Listening requires a willingness to suffer silently and to feel empathically with the person who hurts.
When a person reaches out to confide in an anonymous telephone counselor, he or she usually does not want advice. He or she probably has been given more advice already than he or she knows how to handle. What this person wants is somebody to understand and care about his or her troubles, somebody who has time to listen.
This is what CONTACT has more than anything else – time to listen. In our contemporary, high-speed society where relationships between people seem to be growing more impersonal and dehumanized, most people do not have the time or the patience to become involved with another person at the point of his or her pain. CONTACT is an attempt by concerned, caring people to be available any time of the day or night, available to be interrupted and to become involved. The listening ear has an awesome power to heal and to enable another person to discover hope to find, often within himself, the resources necessary to cope with a problem.
Carl Rogers, at a 1971 helpline conference in Monterrey, CA, said, “Listening, rightly done, is the most significant thing you can do for a person. To the caller, the empathetic non-directive therapy means that you, the listening, really care. This is something you can’t fake. It’s willingness to stand in the caller’s shoes, to understand deeply what he means, without a trace of judgment. This is very rare for a person to experience. A caring relationship is formed and the caller’s self-respect is increased.”
Paul Tillich said, “The first duty of love is to listen.” Those of us who are involved in what we call our “network of compassion” are convinced that CONTACT is a realistic and effective model for ministry. It’s a way for us to get beyond our own institutional concerns and to engage our finest resources in serving others.
Early Thoughts on Establishing a CONTACT Center in Fayetteville
(adapted from the 1969 writings of the Rev. Wallace H. Kirby, Founder of CONTACT of Fayetteville)
A young woman was discovered on the
steps of Hay Street United Methodist Church early one
evening. She was sobbing so that the only detectable thing
her finder could discover was that she needed to talk with
someone. So she talked, while the other listened.
A couple with marital problems
parked on Ray Avenue found the church office and sat and
talked for hours. They were so emotionally and subjectively
involved in their own affairs that they sought someone who
would listen objectively and in a non-judgmental fashion.
They had tried one church and the minister had insisted on
making them kneel at the altar for repentance, without any
concern over what as troubling them. They wanted to talk;
they wanted someone to listen.
Married six years to a man much
older than she and a mother of two children, a woman from
South Carolina traveled to Fayetteville to meet her lover
for the evening. The next morning she walked up Hay Street,
at her breakfast at Kress’ Store, and eventually found her
way to the Hay Street Church to pour out a confession to a
stranger. She needed to talk. She needed to share her
torment with someone. She judged herself with rebuke and now
she had to have someone to listen.
A student rode around for hours one
Sunday evening. The only way out was suicide. How –
automobile wreck? Pills? She had a strong enough tie with
the Christian faith to hold on and to talk with a clergyman
on Monday. Counseling followed and a near waste of human
life was avoided.
Anything I did with these four
cases could have been done by a properly trained layman in
Fayetteville. In fact, I feel sure the couple would have
preferred a layman after their experience with one minister.
I keep thinking – what a marvelous ministry could be
extended to these persons, and hundreds like them, by
dialing a number on the telephone, knowing that at the end
of that line there would be a concerned, interested,
non-judgmental voice saying, “Hello, this is CONTACT, may I
help you?”
Two news items in The
Fayetteville Observer disturbed me. One told of a
salesman in a local motel who almost died of an overdose of
sleeping pills. He was taken to Cape Fear Valley Hospital
and it was later revealed that a family argument led to his
attempted suicide. It was apparent that he did not really
want to die, for he certainly could have. He needed to talk
to someone. I think of what he might have done had there
been a card in that motel room which read: “For a person
with a need, help is as near as the telephone, CONTACT
485-4134.”
The other news item was cited at
Fort Bragg. “Military officials said they were investigating
the death of a 20 year old soldier whose body was found
hanging from a tree in a remote section of the base.” I keep
wondering if “Joe” might have used a CONTACT helpline to
talk out his problem.
It is true that we need to redeem
the structures of our society, but this is only a part of
the task. There are millions of individuals who are lonely,
thousands of men and women of earnest compassion and sound
judgment who wish to help and to show they care. How do we
the two together?
I believe God’s
Spirit has shown a way.
It is called
CONTACT Telephone Ministries.
I heard Dr. Alan Walker (founder of
Life Line International) talk about this new form of
ministry at Lake Junaluska in the summer of 1968. I read his
book describing the dramatic story of this movement, As
Close as Your Telephone, and have seen the film by the
same title. The Rev. Ross E. Whetstone, Director of the
Telephone Ministries with our Methodist Board of Evangelism,
came to Fayetteville in January of this year (1969) to talk
with interested persons at an open meeting. A request for
help in establishing such a ministry has been made at the
North Carolina Conference of the United Methodist Church on
the Bishop’s Reconciliation Fund. We have made trips to
Greensboro ad High Point where such ministries have
initiated. Recently, Hay Street United Methodist Church sent
Sam Meares and me to an international convention on the
telephone ministries in Chicago.
A CONTACT center ministers to
anyone having a problem who needs a “listener.” Committed
laymen will receive extensive training to be telephone
workers. They will become counselors who do not judge,
condemn, moralize, or preach over the telephone. By
acceptance, understanding, and love, they will relate
themselves to another human being who is in trouble or who
just needs someone to talk to.
The Rev. Peter Storey of South
Africa said, “The laity is weary of being used merely to
hand around collection plates and patch up hymnbooks.” From
his experience with this kind of ministry in Australia and
Cape Town, he states that when someone calls on the
telephone, they are not interested in the listener’s
qualifications, they want someone to care, to be concerned.
I believe there are enough lay people who are willing to
discipline themselves to the necessary training and who have
compassion for another human being to give this kind of
ministry in Fayetteville. This is all it takes.
The ministry will be a 24-hour
watch over our city and area. The marvelous part of this
ministry is that when most caring agencies have closed their
doors for the day, hope still holds out its hand through the
medium of the telephone. People never choose the time or the
hours when they suffer, so we cannot choose when we serve.
The undertaking of such a ministry
to Fayetteville is not an easy task; in fact, it is a
demanding one! But once we catch a vision of men, women, and
young people whose burdens will be made bearable, whose
hurts will be healed, whose lives will be saved and opened
to wholeness, we will rejoice that God has chosen us for
such a ministry to the people He loves.
Wallace H. Kirby,
1969
