This article is very poignant in the conversation between emerg and the more traditional churches. Sometimes I think we miss this point on both "sides." Whether or not we believe that mankind is born sinful dictates what gospel we preach and how we preach it IMO.
Does one need to have good (although no perfect by any stretch) theology in order to be part of Jesus' church or should we focus on being missional to the detriment of theology? No, I am not claiming that the emerg are all either one or the other so please don't assume that is what I am saying. But, do we need a theological underpinning to be;
1. Christian and
2. missional about the gospel?
Jim
Jim,
The knowledge of our need is vital to any vital Christianity. Also, the need to seek a solution to the problem in the Gospel is vital.
My approach is that we need a solution to our brokeness to be truly missional.
I see a dying world and I learn a path to freedom and fearlessness that I can bring to some other poor beggar. If we as a community can bring peace to a people who knows no true peace then we hve a gospel that is good news indeed.
The 1 percent rule really hit home for me I struggled mightly with my marriage and with two teenage daughters I do not see divorce as a option and i know it is against Gods will. My wife is an extremely difficult woman and it is easy for me to blame our difficulties on her but reading your post I see that you are correct more than 1 percent does belong to me as a result of my character defects and through Gods grace I need to work on that and just maybe my marriage will improve and it it does not at least I will and is not that what God desire. Dear Lord less of me and more of your son. You can not imagine how timely this was for me
George,
God bless you. Your willingness to seek growth in all of what life gives you is a treasure.
God Bless,
brad
I found this link via BW3's site.
As someone who has done lots of therapy, who owes my life to it and continues to benefit, allow me to say that your representation of the therapeutic model is far from what I've experienced and what many of my friends have experienced. Uncovering wounds and processing feeling in a supportive environment is critical to emotional well-being and the healing of trauma; a good therapist does this for a living.
Also, there is more to therapy. Christians can't write if off wholesale like scientologists. There is cognitive work, grief work, anger work...in fact what you are suggesting, something like the fourth and fifth step of a.a., is a cognitive reassessment...my own character defects took part in my relationship failures. Okay. The mature person does get there.
It is not, however, always the best place to start. For those incested, physically abused as children...even betrayed by pastors or priests...what's their part of that abuse? Zip.
My only real complaint here is that this kind of thinking may make Christians hesitant to seek counseling. The church is a community and must function relationally; therapy is one component of human community. As you are a pastor, I respectfully suggest you learn more about the vast field of psychotherapy before you recommend anyone away from psychotherapy and into what you are proposing, which is in fact a kind of therapy which will be helpful to some, destructive to others.
This is as close to a flame as I've ever gotten online. Frankly, if I want my car tuned I got to a mechanic; a verse exegeted a pastor or scholar; if I'm suffering from depression, I find a competent counselor to oversee my recovery process. Anti-therapy attitudes in the church, which I believe I find here, distress me deeply.
Sincerely and believe it or not with love,
Troy
Troy,
I am sure I generally agree with you. I imagine most of what I think we are differing is somewhat semantic.
When I use the phrase "therapuetic model", I am not talking about counseling per se. Sorry for the confusion. I spend a good portion of my time counseling and see unimaginable blessing come to some people's lives. It brings tears to my eyes just thinking about it.
As for the pastorate being about bible exegesis, I could not disagree more. Expositing the bible from my perspective is used to lead people into an experience of peace and joy not to know the bible. I do beleive that Jesus is wholesale the teacher that brings us into this life experience and the model is that eventually we need to come to the place of finding the self-centered response that in the present is quenching the power of the spirit in our experience.
I am really only speaking of a healing model that never brings healing that I have seen used to many people's ruin and likewise seen some of these same people find remarkable transformation when embracing the path I suggest.
Brad,
thanks for the email.
Yes, my phrase, 'if you want your car worked on see a mechanic...,' all that, isn't the best I can offer for my point of view. As an Episcopalian I have to acknowlege the sacramental, the figurehead nature of the pastorship/priesthood, etc. It's not just about preaching. In fact, I think it should be less about preaching or exegesis than it sometimes is.
The point I tried to lamely make (late at night if that's any excuse) is that counseling, in my view, really is an area which requires expertise. This is not to say that mentoring, lay and pastoral counseling, good friendships, that all these don't matter. It is certainly not to say that the pastor/priest should be an aloof academic resource. But people seek counseling for different reasons. Some issues can be handled by amateurs, some, in my view, benefit from competent, experienced professional help (and that can be hard to find).
More than anything what struck me in your post was the phrase which seemed critical of 'kind nurture.' Nurture and acceptance are critical to spiritual and emotional growth, and I do believe we agree on that. It's also not the only thing required. I've known Christian individuals with both therapeutic knowledge and nurturing skill who had self-centered ethics. Both these men caused great damage; they were both professional therapists.
I've also seen pastors take on problems that were beyond them, and I've seen pastors/priests refer people out to professionals who needed it when the issue was serious; this last is what I like to see.
And I'll say this also. Yes, almost all relationship problems between adults are mutual. The poor fellow who posted above, George, writes about coming to see that he has a role in his marital pain, whatever that pain is. My heart goes out to him. Learning to see our defects is part of maturity; blaming only gets us so far. But it's not, in my view, always the place to start, again, depending on the problem.
We don't know each other and I'm going off just one blog post! Not the best tack, I know, but while I don't consider myself emergent (I emerged into another denomination entirely; I don't actually know what emergent means) I do think that psychological technology, theory, practice and method are of critical value to the church. Critical value. I'm emergent in that I don't believe the collection of texts we call the Bible contains that technology.
Jesus' admonition to love, though, and not judge, are the core of humanistic therapy. Yet much is necessary for some of us beyond just that.
This is why I think pastors need to be connected to a professional therapist or two so that those who need more specialized help can get it. You may very well do this, of course.
Finally, God's love heals. I've seen it and felt some of it myself. Therapy isn't the answer to life; it serves a limited through critical, sometimes lifesaving purpose. Merc
Any comment I make here probalby won;t be read as it has been a week or so...
BUT ...certainly we are in agreement. I would ask to what extent is a "technology" beyond the kingdom principles and the method of loving mentoring. What I mean by "kind nurture" is just avoiding being hurt. The world and life will always hurt us and the technology of the kingdom principles is the way to cope with very real pain and suffering.
What you have presented is the Fourth Step of Alcoholics Anonymous's 12-step program: Made a searching and fearless moral inventory. You even use the same chart breakdown that Bill W. proposes in the Big Book.
Commenting by HaloScan
