Counseling might not be your gift, but it is your responsibility. It’s easy to put it off on the “professionals”, but we’re all called to counsel one another. In fact, we are always counseling, offering advice and direction to one another. The question is whether or not we are offering good counsel! Good counseling is discipling others with gospel wisdom in the full range of human thinking, feeling, and behaving. So how do we do that?

You know the kind of book that is so good you don’t want it to end? I typically experience this with fiction, but this year there have been a few non-fiction books I have read slowly and not finished–because they are so good! Over the next few weeks, I’ll share from some of my reading in the books that I don’t want to end.

Death By Love – This is easily Mark Driscoll’s best book yet. Death By Love is a series of actual letters Mark wrote to people struggling with serious sin and suffering. Here are a few of the chapter titles:

• “Lust Is My God”
  Jesus Is Thomas’s Redemption

  “My Wife Slept with My Friend”
  Jesus Is Luke’s New Covenant Sacrifice

  “I Am a ‘Good’ Christian”
  Jesus Is David’s Gift Righteousness

  “I Molested a Child”
  Jesus Is John’s Justification

  “My Dad Used to Beat Me”
  Jesus Is Bill’s Propitiation

  “He Raped Me”
  Jesus Is Mary’s Expiation

Chapter after chapter is charged with honesty, empathy, and wisdom. Rich in practical counsel and biblical theology, this book should be required reading for all courses in Pastoral Ministry. Driscoll takes categories from systematic theology and applies them using biblical theology in a very practical way. Brilliant and grace giving. A basic outline for counseling I use was coined by David Powlision: 1) Listen to their Story 2) Empathize with their Story 3) Redemptively retell their Story. I’ll use this to frame Driscoll’s counsel for a victim of abuse:

• Empathize with Story: “I think I understand what you are trying to say. For a man to devastate his family like your father did means that his simply saying ‘sorry’ is not enough to erase the list of sins he has accrued or the damage h has done. I hope to untangle some of the conflict you are living in…”
• Listened to Story: “you spoke of building forts in the backyard and pretending you lived there instead of in the house with your father because you longed for the day you could move out and never return.”
• Redemptively Retell Story: “Bill, you must realize that not only could God’s active wrath be poured out on your father, but it just as easily could have been poured out on you…not only is your father a sinner who needs his sins propitiated, but you too are a sinner who likewise needs his sins propitiated…not only did Jesus suffer like you; in a very real sense he suffered at the hands of both you and the father at the cross…therefore, therefore you need not merely let your father of the hook because he became a Christian. Further, you need not punish him…I know that you fear forgiving your father…However, because God is sovereign and good, through that evil you have been given one of the deepest appreciations and insights of the doctrine of propitiation of anyone I have ever met.”

Free preview here. More info at ReLIT.

We all have multiple opportunities every day to give and receive forgiveness. We all sin against others and are sinned against. We all sin against God, belittling his worth, snubbing his grace. What do we do in these moments, with these sins? Throw out an “I’m Sorry” and carry on? Give ourselves a guilt trip and engage in private penance for three days? How would the gospel guide us into true forgiveness?

It’s Hard to Forgive

Jesus set up the paradigm of 77 times (Matthew 18), which was his way of saying always forgive. But forgiving and asking for forgiveness can be so hard. A lot of us tell ourselves we forgive someone without even telling that person! What we really do is avoid conflict and sweep the offense under the rug, where the lump gets bigger over time until we trip over it and blow up in anger or shut down in despair. However, Gospel progress in conflict with others will always result in a maturing of a relationship, not in slipping back into neutral or a “keep the peace” mode.

It’s Better to Forgive than Forget

Contrary to the popular saying, the gospel does not call us to “forgive and forget.” Forgiving and forgetting, is code for cheap sorrys and faking a bad memory. The reality is that sin is really hard to forget, especially when you are sinned against. Funny, you’d think our sins against others would be more memorable! All too often, when I sin against my wife, resolve to be more sensitive and kind-hearted, I end up forgetting how I offended her and repeat the offense a few weeks later! Why? Because I forgot! True forgiveness stands taller in the presence of sin. Grace shines brighter in the darkness of offense. But don’t misread me here. We should neither minimize not maximize sin, throw out cheap sorrys or berate one another with our memories. However, without the memory of sin, there is no need for forgiveness. The trick is to remember our sins, not others sins!

Forgiving One Another

The gospel calls us to press into grace by pressing into our sin. Instead of disregarding sin against another, we confess it, both to God and to the other, and tell them why we were so mean, impatient, or unkind. We ask for their forgiveness, for wounding them unnecessarily, for putting our desires above their dignity. We press into our sin in confession and repentance, but don’t stop there. We move on through into forgiveness and grace, genuinely forgiving and being forgiven, refusing to harbor resentment. Forgiving again and again with each memory. As we forgive, we absorb the cost of the offense, as Jesus absorbed the infinite cost of our sin, and communicate his grace to others. But how can we do this? Sometimes it is so hard. Tim Lane, author of Relationships: A Mess Worth Making, offers a few principles on how to absorb the cost of an offense and to live in true forgiveness:

• Choose not bring up the offense again or use it against others. The only reason to raise the offense with the offender is for the purpose of reconciliation, not vengeance. It’s not about forgetting; it’s about forgiving, reconciling, loving.
• Choose not bring the offense up to others in gossip, or malign others because of it. Where you have forgiven, rest in Christ’s forgiveness and perfect love. Resolve not to use conflict against others, but rather, to use it for others by offering grace and Christ-centered forgiveness.
• Choose not bring the offense up to yourself and dwell on it. Resolve not to replay the videotape of your own sin or others to relive every detail. Press into grace so that you don’t make the other person pay for what he or she has done.

Next time you are offended or offend, try pressing into sin  (confession and repentance) and pressing into grace (forgiveness and reconciliation). When we do, we lift Jesus up above our demands, the cross over our sin, and we can move into more grace-based, maturing relationships that display the sufficiency and beauty of Christ for everyday life. Take a minute to think of how you could apply these principles towards a situation, sin or person today. Enjoy grace and true forgiveness.

As a church planters we often reach unreached, unbelieving, and very broken people. As a result, pastoral wisdom and gospel-centered counseling quickly become an important skills. After all, the biblical office we hold is not church planter but elder-pastor. How are you cultivating pastoral wisdom? How are you growing in your capacity to shepherd your flock with wisdom, truth, and love? Are you spending time with “slow” or “challenging” people each week? Or do you gravitate to “teachable” people, neglecting the weak and hurting sheep?

Why Counsel?

Why should we spend time counseling when we could be evangelizing or preaching? Because in order to plant healthy missional churches, we must grow in gospel depth and breadth. In order to guard and guide our people well, it is imperative that church planters have a regular intake of wisdom (applied theology) from which we can counsel, disciple, train, and lead. As we mature, our sermons should deepen with pastoral application that grows from spending time with struggling sheep. The best application is mined, not from homiletical brainstorming, but from pastoral counseling. Why counsel? Counseling the church is: 1) part of our calling/office 2) critical to healthy community and mission 3) essential for insightful application 4) part of being a church that speaks the truth in love.

Growing in Pastoral Wisdom

Nothing like regular time with unchurched, newly believing, broken people will alert you to the need for gospel-centered counseling. For years I’ve been reading the materials put out by Christian Counseling Education Foundation. I’ll never forget the first time I heard David Powlison speak with such measured wisdom at the Desiring God Conference in 1999. Since then, I have read The Journal of Biblical Counseling, followed nouthetic literature, and started a certificate program in biblical counseling with CCEF. CCEF offers tremendous insight into human motivation and how the gospel applies to everything from addiction to garden variety idolatry. I highly recommend the Journal, their books, and distance education.

Westminster Bookstore carries all CCEF materials at heavy discounts and highlights Best Sellers of the Month. CCEF offers a host of articles on a whole range of counseling issues for free on their topical resource page. In addition, you can buy a CD ROM of all the JBC articles from 1977-2005. Add to these resources, the fine work of Tim Chester. See especially You Can Change, The Busy Christian’s Guide to Busyness. Tim and Steve Timmis are currently working on a Gospel-centered Life Series that will be a tremendous help to equipping us to counsel on mission. And very soon, I will be releasing a short book called Fight Club: Gospel-centered Discipleship.

Counsel on Mission

Counseling on mission is critical. If we do not counsel while we are on mission, we will fail in planting missional churches. Gospel-centered counseling is the overflow of gospel-centered church planting. If our churches aren’t founded and shephered in the gospel, then church planting will devolve into service planting or crusade speaking. Mission must be accompanied by counseling. Without counseling, churchplanting devolves into mission minus discipleship, which hardly mission at all.

The Lausanne movement is a historic expression of evangelical mission. Some of the world’s finest theologians, missiologists, and practioners have contributed to the Lausaunne movement. In a recent article, a task force reported on the role of counseling in mission. Counseling is traditionally viewed as a critical part of pastoral ministry. How might it be missional? Have you experienced missional counseling?

Also check out:

• Cape Town 2010: A Global Platform for the Arts
• Lausanne Younger Leaders Gathering West Africa

The gospel fruit from last week’s sermon is falling off the tree. Person after person has contacted me to share how powerful the message was, how they are still thinking about it, how they were called to repentance and faith. In fact, gospel fruit is dropping all over the place. Yesterday I met with a guy who ran out of our Sunday service the first time he visited because he was so freaked by the “spiritual experience.” He was jaded and cynical but appreciated the kind of Christians he worked with. Yesterday he told me that he had been walking around with his past weighing heavily upon him, feeling that he had such a great penalty to pay. Then he said: “but then I realized Somebody paid that penalty for me. I am different. People are telling me I’m different!” This fruit is not because of great preaching but because of a great Christ. However, the greatness of Christ was more plain in the dimness of my own sin, my broken past.

The power of the Gospel to reconcile our past and present sin is all too often absent from the pulpit. Preachers hide behind the facade of professionalism, while our people struggle to understand how the incarnation really makes a difference. Our churches are longing for a little Christ in thier midst that shares their failures as well as their successes. They want to know a pastor who is truly human, so human that the need for the divine shoots through the roof. We constantly say that we are an imperfect people who cling to a perfect Christ. On Sunday, people got to see my imperfections next to the glorious perfection of Jesus Christ.

I guess this post is a reminder of the centrality of the gospel in church planting. A reminder to allow the full breadth of redemption to be experienced in our own discipleship and heard by other disciples. In the end, we are simply fellow sheep in need of the Great Shepherd. Our identity is disciple but our role is pastor, and because of that we bear the great responsibility of displaying redemption from our own stories, not just the stories of the Bible.

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Powlison continues his series on Friendship Counseling. In part two he makes the point that the two key questions we should be aksing our friends are the same questions we should be asking the Bible:

• What are you facing?
• What about God is relevant to you and your situation?

He notes that the Bible is not primary systematic or biblical theology, but practical theology dealing with everyday life in everyday stories. So, he tells us to:

“Live your life within God’s Story. But the Bible itself is neither a storybook nor the grand story of Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Restoration. The Bible is some other kind of thing.” The Bible is a book communicating a multitude of ways that God intersects life. If I had to pick one descriptive term, I’d say that the Bible as a whole is practical theology happening in real time. We see and hear God revealing Himself into particular struggles and tensions of actual human lives.

Here is an example of how to do this to better counsel yourself and others.

Great article by David Powlison on how we can be friends that counsel in truth and love.

I recently met with someone who is looking for a new job and considering a move, which provoked some community-centered counsel regarding job-hunting and a move. I prefaced my comments by saying that they would be very unAmerican and unpopular. Here’s the crux of the counsel: don’t pick a location based on vocation; pick location based on community. In other words, be community-centered, not vocation-centered in making decisions about finding a new job and place to live.

Instead of sending resumes to the four winds to be blown to the city of our whim, what if we put community over personal preference in selecting a new place to live and work? What if we took the church so seriously that we made vocational and relocation decisions based on participation among a people on mission for God? Our cities, communities, churches, families, and lives would be very different.

My counsel was: “Find a gospel-centered community that you can do life and mission with, then a job, and then move there.” Now, I did provide an important caveat. Community is not sovereign; God is. So, if you aren’t getting resume or job traction in the church location you are aiming for, don’t just move there anyway. The church isn’t sovereign over the details of job offers; God is. If things don’t pan out, then you are probably aiming for the wrong community. God wants you in community and on mission elsewhere.

Tim Chester, perhaps best known in the U.S. for his book Total Church (forthcoming in U.S. by Crossway), is releasing a new book in the U.K. called You Can Change. You can Change is endorsed by Tim Keller and looks promising for equipping gospel-centered sanctification.

Here are the table of contents:

1.   What would you like to change?
2.   Why would you like to change?
3.   How are you going to change?
4.   When do you struggle?
5.   What truths do you need to turn to?
6.   What desires do you need to turn from?
7.   What stops you changing?
8.   What strategies will reinforce your faith and repentance?
9.   How can we support one another in change?
10. Are you ready for a lifetime of daily change?

You can see him discussing the book here: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=LG74hvjgY74.