I am a pastor and view the calling of being a “physician of souls” very highly.  We must not, however, allow a high view of the ministry to lead us to denigrate the physical and material needs of people.  In the words of Richard Baxter,

Do as much good as you are able to men’s bodies in order to the greater good of souls.  If nature be not supported, men are not capable of other good.  We pray for our daily bread before pardon and spiritual blessings, not as if it were better, but that nature is supposed before grace, and we cannot be Christians if we are not men.  God has so placed the soul in the body that good or evil shall make its entrance by the bodily senses to the soul.  God himself conveys many of his blessings this way, and this way he inflicts his corrections.  Ministers who are able and willing to be liberal find by great experience that kindness and bounty to men’s bodies open their ear to counsel and make them willing to hear instruction…All men are sensible of pain or pleasure, good or evil to the flesh, before they are sensible of what is necessary for their souls.  You must therefore speak on that side which can hear and work upon the feeling part if you will do good…

There is so much insight here and yet challenges will always attend this insight to not settle with merely supplying for peoples’ material welfare and not pushing through to their soul’s welfare.  People will not complain or reject physical handouts and kindnesses but they will [by nature] resist spiritual service rendered in the name of Christ.  Yet, this challenge is not meant to prevent the doing of good but to insist that it be bathed in prayer.