While Christian soul care has taken many forms over the course of church history, William A. Clebsch and C. R. Jaekle (1964) note that it has always involved four primary elements—healing, sustaining, reconciling and guiding. Healing involves efforts to help others overcome some impairment and move toward wholeness. These curative efforts can involve physical healing as well as spiritual healing, but the focus is always the total person, whole and holy. Sustaining refers to acts of caring designed to help a hurting person endure and transcend a circumstance in which restoration or recuperation is either impossible or improbable. Reconciling refers to efforts to reestablish broken relationships; the presence of this component of care demonstrates the communal, not simply individual, nature of Christian soul care. Finally, guiding refers to helping people make wise choices and thereby grow in spiritual maturity.