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"Caring
for Souls in Jesus' Name," Session 5, March 2004
William
Gaultiere, Ph.D., ChristianSoulCare.com
What effect
do we have on people's lives? As Christians we want to help
people grow, to lead them closer to God. But appearances can
be deceiving. Jesus' said that in heaven the first would be
last and the last would be first. This was the case with a
pastor and taxi driver.
The pastor
and a taxi driver both died and went to heaven. St. Peter was
at the Pearly Gates waiting for them.
"Come with
me," said St. Peter to the taxi driver.
The taxi
driver did as he was told and followed St. Peter to a mansion.
It had everything you could imagine from a bowling alley to
an olympic size pool.
"Wow, thank
you," said the taxi driver.
Next, St. Peter led the pastor to a rugged old shack with a
bunk bed and a little old television set.
"Wait, I think you are a little mixed up," said the pastor.
"Shouldn't I be the one who gets the mansion? After all I was
a pastor, went to church every day, and preached God's word."
"Yes, that's
true. But during your sermons people slept. When the taxi driver
drove, everyone prayed."
Prayer
The
Best is Yet to Come!
This past
weekend I went with my wife and three children up to my in-laws
cabin in Lake Arrowhead. We're so fortunate that the cabin
and surrounding forest weren't burned down in the fires last
fall. The fires came within a couple of blocks. We thank God
for our valiant firefighters and the rain that finally came.
While we
were at the cabin we all went sledding in the snow on a big
hill in the nearby forest. My son David, who is about to turn
13, and I had so much fun that we went back out just the two
of us. We really got into it. We expanded the sled run and
took it farther down the hill by going around a corner. It
was really steep. I call it a big hill, but it's really the
side of the mountain. It was probably 150 yards long. So we'd
go flying down the hill in a two-person sled. And I do mean
flying! There were parts that we were airborne. It was so
exciting for both of us.
But the
best part was the end. That was the steepest, fastest part
of the run and it headed straight for the street. Picture this.
There we are both of us in this sled and we're soaring down
the mountain and screaming with excitement, "Wooooo!" Then
at the last second David would yell, "Bail!" and we'd launch
ourselves off the sleds and go sliding and laughing into the
snow.
That was
fun! And I hope you're enjoying yourself and experiencing some
adventure in this Soul Care Pre-Conference. And the best
is yet to come! Because you didn't bail out before we turned
the corner, you're waiting until the last second, getting all
you can out of this sled run.
The
Focus of Soul Care
Yesterday, I illustrated what I call "Christian
Soul Care" to you with stories, songs, Scriptures, movies, and
reflection times. This morning let's come back at our subject
a little more studiously.
What is the "soul" anyway? What do you think?
Shout out a word or phrase and I'll write it down.
["Soul" Definitions]
So we'd say that "soul care" looks at the whole
person - on the inside. This isn't usually true with the other
helping disciplines today, even amongst Christians. Consider
the focuses of theology, psychology, medicine, missions, family
therapy, social work. Let's illustrate this with a shape.
What shape might we choose? Of course, a triangle!
Soul care is an integration of all this - especially
counseling and spiritual guidance. As we learned yesterday,
it's an application of Jesus' Greatest Commandment to Love God,
Self, and Others. In other words, it's all about relationship.
Soul Care Opens the Eyes of our Hearts
At the age of 20 Rose Crawford from Ontario, Canada, was struck
with blindness. 30 years later she underwent surgery and when
the doctors removed the bandages from her eyes, the light shown
in and she could see! First the doctors, the room, and her
family. Then to step out of the hospital and into the blue
sky, to see the flowers she had been smelling for 30 years.
She could see again after 30 years of being blind to the beauty
of God's creation! The sad part about this story was that
this surgery was available 20 years earlier. (Rev. Dr. Brent
McCumons from the First United Methodist Church in Midland,
Michigan told this story, www.fumcmid.org.)
You might say, "Oh, I wouldn't wait 20 years! I'd find the
money to get the surgery." Maybe you would find a way to get
the surgery. And yet many of us refuse the surgery we need
for the eyes of our hearts to be opened. To see God and to
see ourselves and our lives as He does our hearts need to be
purified, they need to be cleaned and healed from the damaging
and blinding effects of our sins and the sins of others against
us.
To explain my point I'd like to share with you one of my favorite
Bible verses. It means a great deal to me personally and to
my ministry as Christ's ambassador. It's one of Jesus' beatitudes:
"Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they will see God" (Matthew 5:8).
In The Message Eugene Peterson translates it like this:
"You're blessed when you get your inside world - your mind
and heart - put right. Then you can see God in the outside
world."
To understand this beatitude you need to know that this word
"pure" is related to the word "catharsis." More importantly,
you need to have experienced catharsis. It's the peace that
comes when a friend listens with compassion and patience as
you pour out your heart.
I lived mostly without this peace for the first 20 years of
my life. I was blind until I underwent surgery for the eyes
of my heart in college and my first mentor and counselor spent
an hour every week listening to me share my feelings. The surgery
wasn't instantaneous, but with the help of this woman and other
counselors, pastors, and friends who followed her and picked
up where my parents left off, my eyes were opened. Slowly my
self, my life, other people, and God were enlightened and came
into focus.
Now, to maintain my heart's peace and vision and I regularly
talk about what's going on in my soul with God and my friends.
It's how I keep growing.
You see, in life our souls gather toxins from our sins and
others sins against us and from the stresses that we encounter.
It's natural and healthy for us as Christians to feel sad, hurt,
scared, or angry in these instances. But, if we repress our
feelings about our struggles and stresses and isolate then in
time guilt, anxiety, self-criticism, resentment, doubt, and
a host of other negative emotions are sure to get clogged in
our emotional piping, sapping our soul's energy, dragging down
our bodies, and blinding our hearts to God's goodness.
We need to verbalize our struggles and feelings to a friend
and to God in prayer and receive God's grace from a compassionate
listener. And when we do there is a cleansing that occurs.
Our souls are awakened and alerted, refreshed and renewed, made
hole and holy. The eyes of our hearts are opened to see and
receive God's goodness so that the sky seems bluer, the birds
sound more beautiful, our friends and family are appreciated
as lovelier, and the present moment is enjoyed as more precious.
Now that I can see and maintain my vision I find such joy in
helping others to see by offering the compassionate listening
that facilitates their cathartic, cleansing, eye-opening process.
And so with the Apostle Paul I pray for you:
"I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened
in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you,
the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his
incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like
the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ
when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right
hand in the heavenly realms" (Ephesians 1:18-20).
Reflection
"That the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that
you may know the hope." This is such a marvelous prayer. Let's
take some time to pray it. Let's each us go to God in prayer
and ask him to open the eyes of our hearts - right now, right
here.
To help us do this I'm going to play a worship song by Michael
W. Smith, "Open the Eyes of My Heart."
[Music: Michael W. Smith, "Worship": "Open the Eyes of My Heart,"
#5]
What the Research Says About How People Grow
There's actually been scientific research done to understand
how it is that people grow personally. What helps hurting,
struggling people make positive changes? What factors explain
the help that people receive from psychotherapy? And, by application,
all forms of relational helping including ministry and lay counseling?
At last year's, "International Conference on Care and Kindness,"
Siang Yang Tan reported on this research in his address on "Messengers
of Love." He summarized what the research says on why clients
receiving psychotherapy from counselors of various theoretical
orientations make positive changes.
The research says that regarding the help people receive.
- 40%
is due to client factors like motivation, faith, friendships,
support groups, personal study, and other things they do to
help themselves outside of their counseling
- 30%
is due to relationship factors like warmth, empathy, caring,
congruence, and therapeutic alliance (client and counselor
working together to care for and help the client)
- 15%
is due to counselor techniques, which includes skilled interventions
and advice
- 15%
is due to client expectations (hopes and beliefs) of getting
well
This means
that whether or not someone receives the needed help from a
counselor is 55% up to them (motivation and expectations), 30%
up to their relationship with their counselor, and 15% up to
the counselor.
We tend
to reverse it. We think that our helpers need to do more for
us and focus on their part too much. Instead we need to take
responsibility for our own growth and what we're doing to get
the most of our counseling or support group or friendship.
Let's talk
about four implications of this research for us as people helpers
and givers of soul care.
- We
need to focus on empowering people to take ownership of their
concerns, to mobilize their problem-solving abilities toward
positive action. This means not trying to fix or rescue people.
If counselors take too much responsibility for people's concerns
then it undermines the helping! Instead, we need to recruit
people's motivation and other problem-solving resources.
- And
we need realize that the most significant area that counselors
have direct influence is in the counseling relationship.
By being friendly, seeking to understand feelings, showing
concern, being genuine, and collaborating with people on what's
important to them we build the relational connection that
is the context for them to be helped. This is the heart of
soul care.
- Even
though our counseling techniques or specific ways of helping
people may only account for 15% of the reason why people are
helped by us they are still important. And they are the only
factor in the helping relationship that we are solely responsible
for! Furthermore, through our skilled interventions we can
influence the client factors and relationship factors that
are the primary agents of change. For those of you who are
New Hope Counselors this is why the basic interventions we
make (reflecting feelings, summarizing, inviting self-disclosure
with questions and probes, engaging problem-solving ideas
and energies with questions, prayer, and offering referrals
or resources) should be focused on the first two factors that
the research identified as leading to change: Demonstrating
care in the relationship and empowering people to use their
own resources for positive action.
- Last,
and not least, we ought to encourage people to have specific
expectations for their help. I think a better word here is
hope. My observation is that people to get much help without
hope. We'll be talking more about hope later this morning.
How
Jesus Helped People Grow
Jesus is referred to as the "Wonderful Counselor"
in Isaiah 9:6. And Jesus played out a counseling role in some
of his interactions with people. And he had many other important
helping roles like healer, deliverer, preacher, teacher, discipler,
leader, and spiritual director. By looking at how Jesus cared
for people we gain the best model that we could for giving soul
care.
And when we look at how Jesus helped people
2,000 years ago we realize that the research I just mentioned
is merely confirming what he's already shown us! The people
he ministered to changed dramatically. What did he do? He
did the same four things:
- He
gave people personal responsibility for getting well, eliciting
their motivation and empowering them to action. For instance
to the paralytic at the Sheep Gate Pool he said, "Do you want
to get well?" and challenged him to pick up his mat and walk
(John 5:1-14).
- He
sought to work with people to help them. He sought to establish
a focused, trusting relationship with those he ministered
to. An example of this is when he asked two blind men beside
the road, "What do you want me to do for you?" (Matthew 20:29-34)
- He
used many basic counseling techniques to minister to people:
Listening (to the Samaritan woman at the well, John 4:1-42),
empathy (for Mary and Martha when Lazarus died, John 11:1-16),
focusing questions (to Nicodemus who snuck to talk to at night
about faith, John 3:1-21), affirmation (to the Roman centurion
with a sick daughter, Matthew 8:5-13), analogies (telling
the parable of the "Good Samaritan" to the religious leader
asking about love, Luke 10:25-37), prayer (taught Lord's prayer
to spiritual seekers), teaching truth (Sermon on the Mount
to expand on the commandments for spiritual seekers, Matthew
5-7), confrontation (to rich young ruler seeking more meaning:
"Sell your possessions." Luke 18:18-30), boundaries (to woman
caught in adultery: "Go and sin no more," John 8:1-11).
- He
inspired hope and positive expectations in people. For instance,
to the blind man at the Pool of Siloam he asked, "Do you believe?"
(John 9:35-41).
Spiritual
and Psychological Growth
Spiritual
and psychological growth are connected; inseparable in my view.
Both are personal and relational. Can we grow without God's
help? No. If God grows us shouldn't it change us on the inside,
psychologically? Yes, of course. So one should lead to the
other. Along these lines, in "How People Grow," Henry Cloud
and John Townsend said, "All growth is spiritual growth."
I prefer
to say that all growth is soul growth, because the term "soul"
more clearly integrates the spiritual and the psychological.
The soul is the eternal, essential you on the inside. It's
who you are and who you're becoming. It's your personality,
gifts, values, mind, will, emotions, spirit all wrapped together
into your being. It's YOU!
Despite
the unifying aspect of the soul I think it's helpful to our
understanding to separate out spiritual and psychological growth.
Imagine a person who has experienced tremendous psychological
growth (self-awareness, healing, bondedness, good boundaries,
an integration of fragmented parts of self, the abilities
to care for others and achieve important things) has no connection
to the Living God. I meet people like this all the time when
I go to my continuing education classes as a psychologist.
They have psychological growth, but not true spiritual growth.
Their overall maturity is limited by not having faith in Christ.
They're benefiting from God's grace in general and unacknowledged
ways, but they're not transformed into the glorious image
of Christ.
Now imagine a different
person: a Christian who loves the Lord. Regularly, he reads
his Bible, prays, goes to church, and serves people in Jesus'
name. By most measures we'd say he has quite a bit of spiritual
growth. But, he's rather cut off from his feelings. Psychologically,
he hasn't grown much. (We could also say that he's lacking
in inward spiritual formation.) His overall growth is limited
by his psychological defences.
True maturity comes when we grow spiritually
and psychologically by growing in love for God, others, and
self.
The Pattern
of Spiritual Growth
In his book "Renovation of the Heart," Dallas
Willard identified three points in what he calls "the general
pattern of spiritual change": Vision, Intention, and Means or
"VIM" for short. "VIM" as in the phrase "vim and vigor." He's
saying that in order to grow spiritually we need to envision
the change, be motivated to do it, and take action to accomplish
it.
When I came across Dallas Willard's "VIM" model
just a couple of months ago I couldn't stop thinking about it
for days. I realized that I had been operating on a similar
theory without knowing it.
We teach our volunteer
New Hope Counselors what we call the A-B-C's of Counseling,
which are Active Listening, Brainstorming Action Steps, and
Closing with Prayer or Referrals. Active Listening gives people
the vision to see their hurts and struggles and needs in the
light of God's caring. Brainstorming action steps is a way
to elicit people's intention or motivation to take action to
make positive changes. And closing in prayer is a spiritual
means of helping people to connect with God's care and power
so that they can change. (New Hope Counselors also use goal-setting,
referrals, and resources as means.) VIM: Vision, intention,
and means. Did you see it?
It's also in Dr. Ken France's model (Psychologist,
Author, Professor, and New Hope volunteer mentor and counselor),
which is really the basis of New Hope Crisis Counseling, only
in the A-B-C's the "C" for "Close in Prayer" is stressing our
primary spiritual resource and integrating the spiritual guidance
role with the counseling role (which we'll discuss in a minute).
Ken's model is: Exploration of thoughts and feelings, Considering
Alternatives, and Negotiating a Plan that's specific, concrete,
realistic, and current. I think you can see that Exploration
is like Vision, Considering Alternatives taps into Intention,
and Negotiating a Plan is all about Means.
Spiritually what we want to do for people to
as lay counselors or friends is to help them grow - and what
we are in fact doing with the New Hope A-B-C's - is to shine
God's Light, be Salty to increase people's thirst for God and
motivation to follow his good purposes, and give people keys
(as in plans of action and resources like support groups and
prayer) to open doors of opportunity.
[Light. Salt. Keys.]
[Vision. Intention.
Means.]
This pattern of change is everywhere in life.
Not just in counseling and ministry as we've discussed. But
also in any process of growth or learning. For instance, Dallas
Willard shows how VIM is the basic structure of Alcoholics Anonymous
and language learning.
You didn't realize it, but I've been using this
pattern with you in these seminars on soul care! I'm trying
to give you a vision of what soul care looks like, inspire you
to seek it and give it, and then show you how to do it. I want
to be Light, Salt, and Keys for God all the time!
We can also see this pattern
of VIM or Light, Salt, and Keys in the Bible. I'd like to share
with you just one example: The Paul met the Christ and was transformed
from Saul the Zealot Pharisee who murdered Christians to Paul
the Apostle Christian who built Christ's church. Here's the
story from Acts 9:1-18 in the Acts Visual Bible.
["Acts Visual Bible":
Acts 9:1-18]
Did you see how Saul's metamorphosis into Paul
began with a vision of Christ in a blinding light?
Then, as the parallel account of this story
later in Acts records, Paul asked, "Lord, what do you want me
to do?" In other words, Paul developed the intention to
serve Christ. So salty was his encounter, so thirsty
was his soul to know God's will that he fasted from food and
water for three days.
Next, he followed the means of spiritual
growth that God led him to, he used the keys that God
gave him to open the door to a new future: He sought prayer
and instruction from Ananias.
The
Complementary Roles of Counseling and Spiritual Guidance
So what
we're doing when we help people grow through soul care is as
an integration of counseling and spiritual guidance. What I'm
saying is that I think the most effective help we can give people
is both psychological and spiritual. To be truly impactful,
our care must connect with people's souls with God.
I think
this applies, in different ways, not only to the work of psychotherapy
that I do, but also lay counseling, being a small group facilitator,
leading a discipleship group, ministering to someone in the
hospital, or supporting a friend who needs to talk about a problem.
Let me quickly
diagram for you the complementary roles of counseling and spiritual
guidance.
In counseling
the Ambassador represents or mediates God to people. Often,
God or Scripture are not even mentioned. God is in the background
working through us. The focus is on the person's relationship
with the counselor and other people.
In spiritual
guidance or ministry the Ambassador emphasizes a different role.
Of course, the Ambassador still mediates God's care, but the
focus for receiving help is on the person's relationship with
God more than the relationship with the Ambassador or other
people. And the Ambassador facilitates that connection with
God.
In David
Benner's book, "Sacred Companions," he makes the distinction
that in counseling we listen to people's feelings and in spiritual
guidance we listen to God.
In reality,
as Christ's Ambassadors we may do both when helping people.
We may go back and forth.
Let's look
at an example of the complementary work of counseling and spiritual
guidance in terms of their goals and techniques
and the four possible interactions represented by the four boxes
on the chart, "Counseling and Spiritual Guidance." (Based on
the table by Gary W. Moon in "Psychotherapy and Spiritual Direction.")
Example
1
I was helping
a young man in his early 20's with an addiction to pornography.
I'll call him Brendon. Brendon had been doing 12 Step work
to maintain sobriety and had made some progress in his psychotherapy,
but lust continued to have a hold on him.
I suggested
that Brendon consider fasting and praying about this issue and
said that'd I'd also fast and pray with him if he wanted. Along
with this I offered him some "Hungry Heart Scriptures" to meditate
on from the psalms that highlight our longings for God. I explained
to him that lust was crowding out love in his life and porn
stars were replacing God in his heart at times. What he really
hungered for deep in his heart was God's love, not immoral sex,
but in order to overcome his lust he needed to affirm his need
for God and renounce his desire for lust. He did this and indeed
he experienced a stronger connection with God that diminished
his lust desires.
The experience
also elicited waves of grief from Brendon's childhood injuries
that he shared with me and received comfort for through my listening,
empathy, and validation of his pain and anger.
Of the four
boxes where would you place fasting? Prayer and meditation
on Scriptures? Answer: Box 3. He had a Psychological Goal
to decrease pornography and we used the Spiritual Techniques
of practicing spiritual disciplines.
How about
his 12 Step Recovery program? Grief work? Answer: Box 1.
He had a Psychological Goal to decrease sexual addiction symptoms
and we used Psychological Techniques of recovery program and
grief therapy.
Example
2
Let's look
at another example of the relationship between counseling and
spiritual guidance. I was helping a businessman with burn out.
I'll call him Terry. Terry needed help with depression connected
to overworking and doing things that he wasn't excited about.
So I worked with Terry on learning to set boundaries with his
work and setting limits because he couldn't do everything he
was doing and needed to focus his work on what he was best at.
Later we
were discussing how Terry felt his life was consumed with his
work and he wanted more fulfillment. I learned that he missed
being involved in ministry in his church. So I had him take
some Spiritual Gifts Tests and then to pray about what he discovered
and how he might use his gifts. He was reminded how much he
loved to teach the Bible and so he taught a Bible Study.
Which box
would we place using the Spiritual Gifts Test? Answer: Box
4. He had a Spiritual Goal of getting involved in ministry
and to achieve this we used the Spiritual Technique of taking
Spiritual Gifts tests.
And what
about the earlier work we did on his workaholism? Answer: Box
1. He had a Psychological Goal to decrease symptoms of depression
and to help him I used Psychological Techniques like boundary
setting, prioritizing, and empathic support.
Example
3
Let's take
one more example. Imagine a woman calls 714-NEW-HOPE and talks
with one of our volunteer counselors. She calls the hotline
complaining because she feels distant from God; she wants to
feel his love.
As we discussed,
our New Hope Counselors are taught to respond with the A-B-C's
of Active Listening, Brainstorming Action Steps, and Closing
in Prayer.
So first,
the counselor tries to understand the woman's need by asking
her questions and listening. She empathizes with the caller
by summarizing what she's hearing and reflecting her feelings.
We call this Active Listening.
Then she
engages the caller to Brainstorm a Positive Action Step. She
asks her questions, like, "What do you think would help you
to feel closer to God? What have you tried in the past? What
other ideas come to your mind?" They help the woman to develop
a specific plan to carry out right away.
Finally,
the counselor Closes in Prayer for the woman, lifting up her
feelings and needs to God and calling on God to encourage her.
She may also offer her a referral.
In this
example of a woman wanting to feel closer to God, what boxes
in our counseling and spiritual guidance table describe the
A-B-C's of New Hope Counseling? Answer: Active Listening and
Brainstorming would be Box 2 (Spiritual Goal of increased closeness
with God and Psychological Techniques of listening and brainstorming).
Closing in Prayer would be Box 4 (Spiritual Goal of increased
closeness with God and Spiritual Technique of prayer.)
Reflection
One of the
most important questions that you can answer is, "What do I
want?" Similarly, when you're caring for someone else you always
want to tune into the desires of the heart by asking, explicitly
or implicitly, "What do you want?" This is how Jesus helped
people.
For instance,
watch this scene from Matthew 20:29-34 in the Visual Bible.
["Matthew:
Visual Bible," Matthew 20:29-34]
Do think
that Jesus knew these two men were blind? Of course he did.
It would've been obvious to anyone. So why did he ask them,
"What do you want me to do for you?" To help them express their
heart's motivation. People don't heal, grow, or change without
motivation.
If Jesus
asked you, "What do you want me to do for you?" how would you
answer? What do you want Jesus to do for you? I'll put on
some background music for you to reflect on this.
[Background
Music: "The Gospel of John," #1 3:05, #2 2:55]
Small
Group
Share what
you want from Jesus or some other issue in your life that you
need support with. Limit your sharing to a few minutes so that
everyone gets a turn.
CE
Exam Growing Souls God's Way
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