Tag: BIBLICAL COUNSELING

Don't Move to Get a Job; Move to be the Church

Posted on August 27, 2008

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.

Author of Total Church has a new book

Posted on May 15, 2008

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.

Superficial Prayers?: Praying Beyond Sickness

Posted on May 12, 2008

So often our prayers and prayer requests remain generic and superficial: God help so and so, bless this, heal that, and so on. Generic, superficial prayers are heard by God, but we have to wonder if we are really “praying in the Spirit” when we maintain a generic, superficial course in prayer. He’s not a healing or blessing genie. God is set on changing us, making us into his likeness, confronting our sin, renewing our souls, strengthening our faith, deepening our joy. The Spirit specializes in “deep interior” prayers, guiding, shaping, convicting, renewing, leading to repentance and faith. In Speaking the Truth in Love, David Powlison comments our superficial prayer in sickness:

Too often pastoral prayers, prayer meetings, and prayer lists disheartened and distract the faith of God’s people. Prayer become either a dreary litany of familiar words, or a magical superstition. It either dulls our expectations of God, or hypes up fantasy hopes. Prayers for the sick can even become a breeding ground for cynicism: wouldn’t these people have gotten better anyway as nature took its course or medicine succeeded? Prayer can also become a breeding ground for bizarre obsession with health and medicine,; naming and claiming your healing…Sickness, like any other trouble, can force us to stop and face ourselves and find our Lord. I may find sins I’ve been too busy to notice: irritability, indifference, self-indulgence…Is God interested in healing any particular illness? Sometimes. Is he always interested in making us wise, holy, trusting, and living, even amid our pain, disability, and dying? Yes and amen. People learn to pray beyond the sick list when they realize what God is really all about.

How to Suffer (and to Preach Suffering)

Posted on February 26, 2008

If you have suffered or struggle to minister, counsel, or preach on suffering, Instruments in the Redeemer’s Hands by Paul Tripp has a chapter you should read. Mind you, Tripp is not dealing with the philosophical problem of evil; he is addressing the practical issues of suffering. The chapter entitled “Building Relationships By Identifying with Suffering” holds out a deeply communal, redemptive vision of suffering. Accordingly, he frames his chapter with this insight:

You are a sufferer who has been called by God to minister to others in pain. Suffering is not only the common ground of human relationships, but one of God’s most useful workrooms. (145)

Tripp goes on to develop “the humble character of personal ministry” in suffering, noting that God sends suffering people into our lives, not only so that they will change, but so that we will change too. (146) He pushes back against the spiritual professional approach of many pastors, who are inclined to dole out advice and counsel in suffering without identifying with others in suffering. I was convicted of this tendency to identify with sufferers “from above,” not from their level. When recounting stories of suffering and how God sustained me through them, I have typically pointed to God’s sufficiency and the triumph of his grace, but without confessing my struggles towards embracing that sufficiency and victory.

As a result, on Saturday night I changed the way I told/shared/preached the story of losing my best friend to suicide. I did my best to follow Tripp’s advice: “Tell your story in a way that breaks down the misconception that you are essentially different form the person you are helping” (155). And I incorporated these elements: 1) the difficult situation 2) your struggle in the midst of it, and 3) how God helped you. Some of us need to do more of 1, just telling the stories. Others need more 2, to be more honest about our struggles in suffering. And others need more 3, to look beyond the pain to embrace and tell of God’s all-sufficient grace in suffering.

This chapter helped me immensely. I hope that this post helps you.