Some folks are idea people while others are more oriented around other people. When I was in the ministry we used to remind ourselves that ministry was about people and not about programmes.

I am more an idea person, while my wife is more oriented around people. We went to watch the sunset one evening. We sat in beach chairs watching the water and taking photographs of children playing the surf. At one point we noticed a very large and very colourful fish swimming around some rocks close enough to the beach that one could actually see its colours through the water.

On the way up the beach as we were leaving, I was starting to think about the various projects I had waiting for me at home, but my wife stopped to tell some other people about the fish in case they wanted to go see it as well.

When I was in the ministry I could spin out projects like crazy. One year we put together a storytelling festival. I recruited high school students to be the shepherds for groups of about ten to 15 young children, and I recruited and trained about five or six storytellers.

Each storyteller was responsible to be able to tell the same story over and over for each successive group of children who came into his or her venue. Each shepherd was responsible to get his or her children from point A to point B at the necessary time.

There were large group sessions, in which I created the Kazoo Band (children who would come up front and be on the stage to perform the Kazoo version of some well-known hymn) and helped them perform, and in which we played games.

This took place in the summer heat of the central valley of Northern California, where it can often get up to 105 for days on end. So, sometimes our games turned into all out water fights with squirt guns and water balloons.

I have pictures of children hanging off me, screaming with delight, but for me, the whole thing, all the various parts, the training of the storytellers and the weaving together of several generations of people, was all one giant project – a programme of ministry. As such, it was a vehicle where people could meet, but it wasn't the actual meeting that can take place between people.

Those who are oriented toward other people, make meaningful contact in the most simple of conditions. They do not require an elaborate programme in which to do it. Such people move towards others, stopping when they meet someone else's gaze, reaching out with their hands to touch another's arms or to put their arms around someone with a hug.

They speak to others using their names. They smile, and their smiles are warm. For such people ministry is something that just happens in the course of relating to others; it does not need to be put on a schedule or fit into the confines of a structured programme.

These two approaches, people and project, are not mutually exclusive. In clinical psychology, for instance, it is possible for people to meet one another in a scheduled fashion. Certainly, that is what takes place when people make appointments to meet for therapy with a given therapist. In such cases, it is the therapeutic relationship that is often the most salient factor in positive outcomes to psychotherapy, and that working relationship is something that a skilled and experienced therapist attempts to build as a first step.

While there are usually forms to fill out and policies to be informed about, and while the psychologist will undoubtedly need to understand the larger picture of the person's life (thus need to take a history of some kind), none of those things makes any sense if there does not develop some kind of bond between therapist and client. They must "click" with one another, and usually a person can tell within two or three sessions if that is going to happen.

Unfortunately, some therapists are more "programme" oriented.

They are more comfortable with the structure of the meeting with their clients than they are with the actual people themselves.

That kind of psychologist is at ease with research literature, statistics and testing, with forms and tables and "data''. They are less comfortable just sitting across from another human. They are also usually ignorant of the difference between I-It discourse and I-Thou discourse. The first kind of interaction is for the purpose of getting business accomplished, and it is focused more on some kind of goal than it is on some kind of person. The second kind of interaction is focused on knowing and being known.

People of all kinds, whether they be psychologists, business executives or married couples, can all benefit from keeping in mind the difference.