Spiritual Map Quest

Note: This is the first in a blog mini-series asking the simple question: Is there a biblical model for spiritual friendship, one-another ministry, biblical counseling, and pastoral counseling? I’m summarizing these posts from Spiritual Friends.  

Comprehensive, Compassionate, Christ-like Care

Two recent interviews with prospective faculty members reminded me of Frank Lake’s insight. “The maladies of the human spirit in its deprivation and its depravity are matters of common pastoral concern” (Lake, Clinical Theology, p. 37, emphasis added).

The first interviewee saw deprivation or suffering as the core issue addressed in Christian counseling. “We have to focus on healing the hurts in human hearts,” he contended.

The second interviewee perceived depravity or sin to be the core issue that biblical counselors must face. “God calls us to expend our energy on confronting hard hearts,” he insisted.

Which is it?

• Do we follow the counseling roadmap marked deprivation, suffering, hurts, healing/comforting, and parakaleo?

• Or, do we travel the route marked depravity, sinning, hardness, confronting, and noutheteo?

• Or, like Frank Lake, do we see deprivation and depravity as matters of common spiritual friendship, pastoral care, and one-another concern?

In this blog mini-series, I propose that a biblical and church history model includes sustaining and healing for the evils we have suffered (parakaletic counseling/comforting) and reconciling and guiding for the sins we have committed (nouthetic counseling/care-fronting). Clebsch and Jaekle, along with Lake, say it well.

“The ministry of the cure of souls, or pastoral care, consists of helping acts, done by representative Christian persons, directed toward the healing, sustaining, guiding, and reconciling of troubled persons whose troubles arise in the context of ultimate meaning and concern” (Clebsch and Jaekle, Pastoral Care in Historical Perspective, p. 4).

“Pastoral care is defective unless it can deal thoroughly both with these evils we have suffered as well as with the sins we have committed” (Lake, Clinical Theology, p. 21).

Do We Even Need a Roadmap?

Of course, there’s a more fundamental issue. “Do we even need a roadmap?” Some say, “I don’t have a counseling model. I just do what comes naturally.” Still others claim, “I don’t follow a model of counseling. I simply use the Bible.”

Realize it or not, we all have some counseling “model.” We all approach personal ministry from some perspective and practice our approach according to some pattern.

Every person approaches spirituality and spiritual care out of some particular framework. The value of a model is that it makes explicit the already implicit framework.

Further, it’s evident that we either develop a biblical approach to counseling or we borrow a secular model of counseling. Speaking about what happens when we lack a well thought-out Christian model of care, Clebsch and Jaekle explain:

The unfortunate result of this circumstance is that the pastoral profession sorely lacks any up-to-date vocabulary of spiritual debilities and strengths that takes seriously man’s intense personal and social aspirations and anguishes. Faced with an urgency for some system by which to conceptualize the human condition and to deal with the modern grandeurs and terrors of the human spirit, theoreticians of the cure of souls have too readily adopted the leading academic psychologies. Having no pastoral theology to inform our psychology or even to identify the cure of souls as a mode of human helping, we have allowed psychoanalytic thought, for example, to dominate the vocabulary of the spirit. (Clebsch and Jaekle, Pastoral Care in Historical Perspective, p. xii).

Urgent concerns plus no Christian model equals acceptance of secular psychology as the only hope.

Someone enters your office saying, “My daughter has been diagnosed with an eating disorder . You have to help us. Please meet with him tomorrow.”

What do you do? Does your Bible concordance have a notation for “eating disorder”? Since it doesn’t, you and I are tempted to rush to the self-help shelf of the local bookstore. When faced with the complexity of the human soul, we turn to secular models if we have no thought-out Christian model.

Edwards sounds a dire warning concerning what is happening in post-modern Christianity due to our lack of a time-tested, traditional, Christian model of care.

But if there is no deep awareness of the experiential, developmental anthropology of the tradition, then there is no real mutation, just a whole-hog graft. If the graft takes, it tends to take over. Sooner or later then the Church loses its unique experiential wisdom for society; it finds itself more and more absorbed as an expedient base for someone else’s “revelation,” unqualified by its own (Edwards, Spiritual Friend, pp. 32-33).

Without a theological foundation and a historical Christian model, we reject biblical revelation in favor of human reasoning.

Wayne Oates joins his voice to the chorus of concern. Speaking specifically of Protestants, he notes:

Protestants tend to start over from scratch every three or four generations. We do not adequately consolidate the communal wisdom of the centuries because of our antipathy for tradition. Therefore, we have accrued less capital in the form of proverbs, manuals of church discipline, etc. We have been, furthermore, in closer contact with the distinctly empirical dimensions of pastoral counseling by reason of our greater dependence upon secular forms of education. At the same time, as Protestants we have tended to draw our theoretical presuppositions for pastoral counseling from the scientific sources that are extrinsic to the theology of the church (Oates, Protestant Pastoral Care, p. 11).

We all follow some model in our people helping, and our approach is either Christian or non-Christian. We surrender our approach to the prevailing secular theories unless we follow some roadmap, some model of Christian care based upon biblical theology and Church history.

The Rest of the Story

I invite you to return for Part 2 where we introduce God’s Treasure Map for one-another care.

Join the Conversation 

How have you developed your biblical model for spiritual friendship, one-another ministry, biblical counseling, and pastoral counseling?

RPM Ministries: Equipping You to Change Lives with Christ’s Changeless Truth 

Grace Connecting: Exposure without Rejection

The Big Idea: You’re reading Part Two of a series designed to equip you with five biblical counseling skills using the acrostic GRACE. Read Part One: How to Care Like Christ. Excerpted from Spiritual Friends.

What Grace Connecting Requires: Romans 5:6-8

Grace connection requires exposure without rejection, truth with relationship, curiosity rather than analysis, and face-to-face relating instead of back-to-back professionalism. Christ models exposure without rejection in Romans 5:6-8. “While we were yet sinners” (exposure). “Christ died for us” (acceptance). Grace connection communicates, “I see you warts and all, and I still love you, accept you, like you, and move toward you.”

Paul models truth with relationship in Ephesians 4:15. He tells us that the essence of pastoral care involves speaking and living out the truth in love. Consider possible ways to do ministry:

• Truth Minus Relationship: Intimidation/Compliance

• Relationship Minus Truth: Indecision/Confusion

• Truth Plus Relationship: Internalization/Conformity to Christ

Jesus models curiosity versus analysis. At the end of John 2, John notes that Jesus knew all people universally and deeply. Yet, he did not allow his full knowledge to blind him to the uniqueness of individuals. Following John 2, Jesus engages two of the most diverse individuals imaginable: the Jewish male moral religious leader and the Samaritan female immoral irreligious follower. Reread both accounts and you’ll see his respect for each. His probing curiosity. His unique interactions and involvement.

Analysis views your spiritual friend as “a specimen” to be dissected, analyzed, and studied. Curiosity sees your spiritual friend as an image bearer to be experienced, a mystery to enter, and a soul to know.

We would all do well to tape the following prayer somewhere in our “counseling” office. Or better, somewhere in our soul.

The Spiritual Friend’s Prayer: “Dear Lord, Help me to approach every relationship as an audience with an eternally valuable human being.”

In John 3-4, Jesus models face-to-face relating instead of back-to-back professionalism. He enters their individual worlds. He goes where they are, both geographically and soulfully. He becomes a cartographer of their soul, exploring their personal terrain.

With the woman at the well, in particular, he exposes his humanness. He’s authentic, open, vulnerable, and honest. He connects, touches, and moves toward. He’s anything but surface, fake, phony, uncaring, and distancing.

Building a Connected Spiritual Friendship: Galatians 6:1

How do you develop connected relationships? Exploring how not to develop grace relationships begins to answer that question.

How Not to Build Grace Connections: Job 16:2

Job accused his “friends” of being “miserable comforters.” The word “miserable” means troublesome, vexing, and sorrow-causing. They were the opposite of “comforters”—they were not consoling, sympathetic; they did not feel deeply Job’s hurt. They never said or conveyed in any way, “It’s normal to hurt.”

Instead of grace connecting, they practiced condemning distancing. Read the verses below and notice examples of their poor relational abilities flowing out of their poor theology (Job 42:7) and their cold hearts:

1. Superiority: Job 5:8; 8:2; 11:2-12; 12:1-3; 15:7-17

“We’re better than you. You’re inferior to us.”

2. Judgmentalism: Job 4:4-9; 15:2-6

“It’s not normal to hurt! Your suffering is due to your sinning!”

3. Advice without Insight/Discernment: Job 5:8; 8:5-6; 11:13-20; 42:7

“Here’s what I would do if I were you.” “Do this and life’s complexities will melt away.” “I have the secret that will fix your situation.” They offered quick, trite advice. They were rescuers, answer men, and cliché makers. 

The Rest of the Story

I know, you want to scream, “Don’t stop now! Not with what not to do!” Sorry. But come on back for Part Three: How to Build Grace Connections.

Join the Conversation

How would your relationships change if you prayed The Spiritual Friend’s Prayer? “Dear Lord, Help me to approach every relationship as an audience with an eternally valuable human being.”

How to Care Like Christ: Offer GRACE

The Big Idea: You’re reading Part One of a new blog mini-series designed to equip you with five biblical counseling skills using the acrostic GRACE. Excerpted from Spiritual Friends.

What to Do After the Hug

When your friend comes to you in the throes of suffering, how can you help? What do you do after the hug? Or, put another way, “How can my spiritual friends and I engage in grace relationships that sustain their faith?”

This question begs another. “What is a grace relationship?” Grace relationships involve five one another relational competencies that I summarize using the acrostic GRACE:

• G Grace Connecting: Proverbs 27:6

• R Rich Soul Empathizing: Romans 12:15

• A Accurate/Active Spiritual Listening: John 2:23-4:43

• C Caring Spiritual Conversations: Ephesians 4:29

• E Empathetic Scriptural Explorations: Isaiah 61:1-3

Picture grace that helps others in their time of need. Picture Jesus. Picture caring like Christ.

“Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weakness, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need” (Hebrews 4:14-16).

What a perfect picture of grace relating. Jesus is not aloof, distant, or removed. In His incarnation, He went through the heavens to earth sharing in our humanity, becoming like us, so that He might help us (Hebrews 2:14-18). Jesus is not unsympathetic. He is touched with the feelings of our infirmities. He’s able to suffer with and be affected similarly to us. He has the same pathos, shares the same experience, has fellow feelings, endures a mutual participation, and partakes of a full acquaintance with us. He offers grace to help in our time of need—well-timed help, help in the nick of time, words aptly spoken in season and actions seasoned with grace.

We can become Jesus with skin on by expressing GRACE relational competencies. The first of which we aptly call “Grace Connecting”: personal involvement with a deep commitment to the maturity of another person.

Grace Connecting: Committed Involvement—Proverbs 27:6

Grace connecting involves communion through communication. You have love in your heart for your spiritual friends. Do they know that? Can they feel it? Do they experience you? Grace connecting allows your passionate love to powerfully touch your spiritual friend.

Connecting is the foundational competency in the art of relationships. Spouses need it. So do parents, co-workers, teammates, friends, church members, and neighbors. We all need to become competent connectors. If we were, all professional helpers (social workers, counselors, and psychologists) would be superfluous, extra, excess, fluff.

The Need for Grace Connecting

There’s plenty of potential pain in spiritual friendship. Ponder what it’s like for you when another person becomes aware of the grief in your soul or the sin in your heart. Risk. Vulnerability. Exposure. Consider:

• How unpleasant it is when you experience and acknowledge devastating emotions (Psalm 42, Psalm 88) (emotional).

• How shameful it feels to admit your sinful motivations and actions, and to feel too weak to do anything about them (Romans 7, James 4-5, Hebrews 3) (volitional).

• How embarrassing it is to confess your mental confusion and sub-biblical images and beliefs about God, others, yourself, and life (Romans 8, 12, Ephesians 4) (rational).

• How vulnerable you feel when you open up about emptiness and thirsts in your soul (Romans 8:18-27) (relational).

• What it’s like to feel like your hurt is abnormal (sustaining).

• What it’s like to believe that it’s impossible to hope (healing).

• What it’s like to experience the horrors of your sin without understanding the wonders of God’s grace (reconciling).

• What it’s like to sense that you’ll never mature (guiding).

When people share about these issues, they need a trustworthy friend. They need grace relationships offered through grace connecting.

Defining Grace Connecting: Proverbs 27:6; 20:30

What is grace connecting? I often learn best by opposites, by poor examples. Let’s start with what grace connecting is not.

Grace Connecting Is Not

The following would not make the pain, risk, and vulnerability of spiritual friendship bearable.

• A Warm Feeling: “Boy, I feel neat when I’m with you.” Spiritual friendship is not always a pleasant experience.

• Sweetness: Merely reflecting and mirroring whatever your spiritual friend says. Non-directive acceptance of everything, including sin.

• A Stage in Counseling: “We’ll do connecting today and then drop it.”

• A Technique in Counseling: “Crying 101.” “Three steps to really caring.”

What Grace Connecting Is: Incarnation

Let’s develop from Scripture our definition of grace connecting: personal involvement with a deep commitment to the maturity of another person. “Faithful are the wounds of a friend,” Solomon teaches in Proverbs 27:6 (KJV).

“Wounds” are a splitting apart as a doctor does for surgery, an exposure. You enter the ER and say, “Doctor, my chest and the right side of my body are killing me!” You don’t want him to simply be sweet. “That must be really hard for you.” You want him to be skillful, competent—able to diagnose and treat your ailment. So, too, with spiritual friendship. You want to be able to compassionately diagnose heart issues, pulling open the soul and peering deeply inside.

“Faithful” means to support, to bear, to be trustworthy. Alonzo, facing the diagnosis of inoperable cancer, wants to be able to say about you, “I trust you with my soul.” “Faithful” also means to be strong, stable. Alonzo wants to know that his words will not overwhelm you. Touch you deeply, yes. Overwhelm you, no. As his wounds are opened, he wants to know that they will not make you faint, that you will not think less of him.

“Friend” literally means “one who loves you, lover.” The Scriptures use the same word in 2 Chronicles 20:7, calling Abraham God’s “forever friend.” Think of God’s grace relationship with Abraham—encounter, intimacy, fellowship, accountability, fidelity, stability—and you will picture grace connecting.

Proverbs 20:30 speaks of deep commitment to maturity. “Blows and wounds cleanse away evil, and beatings purge the inmost being.” “Cleanse” means to rub, to polish, to grind and buff repeatedly. Picture waxing your car, cleaning your silver. That’s hard work requiring time, effort, and commitment. Alonzo wants to know that you will use all your resources to help him in his time of need. Connection means that you are committed to Alonzo’s growth even when it hurts him and you.

The Rest of the Story

Join us next time as we learn how to practice the art of grace connecting.

Join the Conversation

Who ministers to you through grace connecting?

The Anatomy of Anxiety

Part 24: SOUL-u-tion-Focused Ministry

Note: For previous posts in this blog mini-series, visit: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, and 23.

Big Idea: Does worry, doubt, or fear get the best of you sometimes? Do you wonder where anxiety comes from and how to defeat it in your life and the lives of those you love? Then we need a biblical anatomy of anxiety. We need God’s prescription for victory over anxiety.

SOUL-u-tion Focused Biblical Counseling

The Apostle Paul’s solution to anxiety is not simply to exhort, “Stop being anxious!”

In fact, Paul is not solution-focused. He’s SOUL-u-tion focused!

True biblical counseling is soul-to-soul counseling. True victory over anxiety, worry, fear, stress, panic, and phobia only occurs in the context of relationship.

We discover this biblical reality in the larger context of Philippians 4:6-7.

Relational Healing for Victory Over Anxiety

Biblical counseling sometimes is accused of the stereotype of, “Take two verses and call me in the morning.” Someone struggles with anxiety and they’re prescribed Philippians 4:6-7.

Scripture is totally sufficient. It is not a lucky charm.

Scripture is totally relevant. It is not applied out of context—neither out of the person’s life context, nor out of the scriptural context.

We’ve been applying the sufficiency and relevancy of Philippians 4:6-7 for conquering anxiety when anxiety attacks. But certainly not in a “take two verses” mentality.

So let’s travel back a bit in the scriptural context of Philippians and let’s notice some relational prescriptions for healing anxiety.

*Therefore my brothers (4:1)

*You whom I love and long for (4:1)

*Stand firm in the Lord, dear friends (4:1)

*I plead with Euodia and Syntyche to agree with each other (4:2)

*Loyal friends, help these women who have contended at my side (4:3)

*Along with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers (4:3)

It Takes a Community

Paul lives and ministers soul-to-soul with brothers whom he loves and longs for. Is that how we minister, or do we minister arms-length, giving one another spiritual stiff-arms?

Paul’s biblical counsel for victory over anxiety involves standing firm in community. With brothers and sisters in Christ. With dear spiritual friends.

“Loyal friends” (or “yokefellows”) is used only this one time in the Bible. It means being united by a relational bond as close as family. It pictures comrades, partners, loyal spiritual friends. A band of brothers. Sisters in the Spirit.

“Fellow workers” is sun athleo: athletes together! Teammates.

It’s not, “Take two verses and call me in the morning.”

It’s, “Travel with a few safe spiritual friends morning, noon, and night.”

It’s, “Cultivate a band of brothers, a sorority of sisters, a team of spiritual athletes, a family of spiritual friends.”

Victory over anxiety comes in community.

Making It Real

1. How do you minister? Arms-length? Spiritual stiff-arms? Solution-focused? Or soul-to-soul? Loving and longing? SOUL-u-tion-focused?

2. Who are you spiritual athletes together with? Who are your spiritual teammates?

3. Who are you loyal, trustworthy friends with? Do you have a band of spiritual brothers? A sorority of spiritual sisters?

The Rest of the Story

What sort of spiritual conversations can spiritual brothers and sisters engage in to experience joint victory over anxiety? We’ll find out next time.

Join the Journey

How can biblical ministry move from solution-focused to SOUL-u-tion-focused?

The Anatomy of Anxiety, Part 15: Five Battle Plans in Your Victory Over Anxiety

Note: For previous posts in this blog mini-series, please visit: 1: http://bit.ly/aHstk, 2: http://bit.ly/20R01P, 3: http://bit.ly/HAoxI, 4: http://bit.ly/1I6XmF, 5: http://bit.ly/19Jdqt, 6: http://bit.ly/19vCXx, 7: http://bit.ly/21wPLg, 8: http://bit.ly/m50On, 9: http://bit.ly/4vhNIt, 10: http://bit.ly/1ClPr4, 11: http://bit.ly/2Sb2Ec, 12: http://bit.ly/2xv4BV, 13: http://bit.ly/baNuS, 14: http://bit.ly/UFIy1

Does worry, doubt, or fear get the best of you sometimes? Do you wonder where anxiety comes from and how to defeat it in your life and the lives of those you love? Then we need a biblical anatomy of anxiety. And, we need God’s prescription for victory over anxiety.

Biblical Battle Plans

There are no “secret steps” to “quick cures” of anxiety. However, there are practical biblical principles. There are “battle plans” such as:

Battle Plan # 1: Scout Out the “Flip Side” of Anxiety

Feelings of fear ought to be a warning sign to trust God and to take action to protect others. Rather than being terrified of fear, rather than turning to a flight or fight response, in the midst of fearful circumstances turn to a bold choice to trust and protect.

Battle Plan # 2: Recognize Your Strengths that Are Masked by Stuck Anxiety

If you’re struggling with anxiety, it’s not uncommon that you may also be a sensitive person, intuitive, intelligent, analytical, imaginative, creative, a pursuer of excellence. Yes, when these traits get “stuck” in the extreme position, they are … well … maddening. However, when corralled by Christ and for others, they become powerful weapons in kingdom warfare. For example, use your sensitivity to sense danger and then move into tend and befriend behavior, rather then settling in a flinch and fear mood state.

Battle Plan # 3: Learn to Soothe Your Soul in Your Savior

I’m convinced that one of the reasons God designed us with emotions is so that we can be driven to recognize our desperate desire and continuously need for God. Like the Psalmists, learn to lament, to cry out, to beg, to confess…not just sin, but neediness…desperate need for God’s rescue.

Battle Plan # 4: See Christ as Your Sentry

Explore, apply, memorize, meditate upon, paraphrase, and personalize passages about trust, about Christ as your Sentry/Rock/Guard/Protector, such as Psalm 34, Psalm 77, Philippians 4, and 1 Peter 5. Renew your image of Who Christ is.

Battle Plan # 5: See Yourself As Christ’s Sentry

Victory over anxiety requires that we renew our image of Who Christ is and that we renew our image of who we are in Christ. In Christ, we are sentries, guards, and protectors. We are warriors not worriers. Guard the garden. Have dominion over the earth—including over your own emotions. Defend others. Courageously sacrifice even when you are scared to death. You are Christ’s sentry because Christ is your Sentry.

The Rest of the Story

What possible role does sin have in issues of anxiety? I know, it’s an uncomfortable place to go, especially after today’s stirring, encouraging biblical principles. However, we’d dishonor God, dismiss His Word, and diminish our victory over anxiety if we ignored those times and those areas when and where sin becomes entangled with anxiety. In coming posts, we gently speak the truth in love about anxiety. Join us.

To Glorify God and to Comfort the Saints

*A review of Anthony J. Carter, “On Being Black and Reformed: A New Perspective on the African American Christian Experience”

With one succinct sentence, Anthony Carter integrates historical Reformation theology and historical African American experience. “Our primary goal as theologians is to glorify God and to comfort the saints.”

Some may wonder what’s so novel about that declaration. A careful reading of most modern presentations of Reformed theology exposes the truth that God’s glory is always emphasized (rightly so), while the saints’ comfort is often minimized (sadly so).

Reformation theology has historically offered great treatises on anthropology (human creation and God’s design), hamartiology (human sin and depravity), and on soteriology (Christ’s salvation and human deliverance). Historically, what has been lacking is a biblical sufferology—a theology of suffering that brings comfort to human misery, that brings hope to the hurting.

Throughout “On Being Black and Reformed” Carter’s subtext reverberates. Reformed theology has much to offer African American Christians. And, African American Christians have much to offer Reformed theology. When separated from Reformed theology, African American Christians, according to Carter, are tempted toward a lower view of God, truth, and theology. When separated from African American Christianity, Reformed theology, according to Carter, is tempted toward a lower view of comfort, love, and contextual experience. Reformed theology and African American Christianity need each other equally.

Nowhere is this juxtaposition more clearly revealed than in the Reformed African American theological interpretation of American enslavement. How could a good and sovereign God allow an entire people group to be enslaved for centuries? African American pastors like Lemuel Haynes, Richard Allen, and Absalom Jones, and writers like Phillis Wheatley, Olaudah Equiano, and Quobna Cugoano all offer the “Joseph Answer.” “You meant evil against me, but God intended it for good.” In God’s affectionate sovereignty, He shepherds good from evil, He creates beauty from ashes.

Anthony Carter’s retelling of this historical merging of African American Christian experience and Reformed theology is a gift to all people of all races.

Reviewer: Bob Kellemen, Ph.D., is the author of “Beyond the Suffering: Embracing the Legacy of African American Soul Care and Spiritual Direction,” “Soul Physicians,” and “Spiritual Friends.”