Speak The Truth: Recent Episodes
Mike Van Dyke & Shauna Van Dyke
A podcast devoted to giving biblical truth for educating, equipping, and encouraging the local church in counseling and discipleship.
In this episode, Jeremy leads our discussion through analyzing the culture response to anxiety with a biblical lens. Jeremy discusses the dynamics of being embodied creatures responding to anxiety with a biblical lens that traverses the complex domains of being physically embodied, socially embedded, and spiritually embattled creatures with hearts that are given to worship. The complexity of these domains and the range of these domains are influencing one's response to anxiety, namely, our case study, Sally.
In this episode, Jeremy introduces the discussion with a case study about a young woman who struggles with obsessive compulsive disorder and is experiencing severe anxiety. Jeremy shares what would happen with Sally if she went through the current modern channels to receive help and then how, as a biblical counselor, this client, Sally would receive care.
In this episode, host, Mike Van Dyke is joined by special guest, Lily Park, Associate professor of biblical counseling at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary to continue their "Counseling through Proverbs" series. Lily shares her contribution, "True Joy" and how she would use it in a counseling session.
Episode Mentions:
Dr. Park’s research interests include theological anthropology, marriage and family, abuse, and cross-cultural competencies. Dr. Park is the author of “The Authority and Sufficiency of Scripture for Biblical Counseling” in The Authority and Sufficiency of Scripture (Seminary Hill Press, 2022), “Biblical Counseling, the Church, and the Academy” in Biblical Counseling and the Church (Zondervan, 2015), “Speaking the Truth in Love” in Scripture and Counseling (Zondervan, 2014), and “Family Ministry, The Priority or A Priority” in Trained in the Fear of God (Kregel Academic, 2011). She has also contributed book reviews and short articles to The Journal of Discipleship and Family Ministry. Dr. Park has been a member of the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors since 2007 and serves as a council member of the Biblical Counseling Coalition.
In this episode, host, Mike is joined by special guest, Pete Potloff to continue our Counseling through Proverbs series to discuss Pete's contribution, "Wisdom for When You've Been Wronger" from Pro. 4:20–27
Episode Callouts
Salem Heights Church
Previous Speak The Truth EP. 33 W/Pete Potloff
In this episode host, Mike Van Dyke, is joined by special guest, Jesse Pirkle to continue the counseling through the Proverbs series. Jesse shares his contribution from Pro. 7, "When Men Lack Sense". Helping men who struggle with sexual temptations.
In this episode, hosts Michael and Shauna continue in the "Counseling Through Proverbs" series with Pro. 22:4 - Seeking a Heart of Humility. They work through in-session and out-of-session, the truth about pride and the truth about humility, and how counselors can work through this resource with their counselees.
Episode Resource:
Counseling Through Proverbs
In this episode, hosts Mike and Shauna, continue the mini-series, "Counseling Through Proverbs". This episode looks at Pro. 16 - Stewardship in Our Planning, where they consider five areas counselors can encourage and empower their counselees in setting goals by considering their perspective, purpose, plan, praying, and persisting for the glory of God.
- Perspective is how we view our purpose which is the heart behind the plan that directs how we pray so we can persist for the glory of God.
Episode Resources
- Counseling Through Proverbs
- *What's Best Next: How the Gospel Transforms the Way You Get Things Done*
- How to Get Unstuck: Breaking Free from Barriers to Your Productivity
In this episode hosts, Mike and Shauna are joined by our special guest, Jesse Pirkle, Soul Care Pastor at SouthernHills Church to continue our mini-series, Counseling Through Bible Narratives Old Testament. Jesse Discusses how he uses his growth assignment of Jeremiah 2:11-13 to expose functional idolatry with counselees, both in-session, and out-of-session.
Episode Resource:
Counseling Through Bible Narratives - ABC RES
Episode Notes
In this episode, hosts Mike and Shauna are joined by special guest, Andrew Dealy from Austone Stone Counseling Center. Andrew walks through Gen. 50:15-21 applying freedom in forgiveness to a counseling session.
Episode Resources:
Counseling Through Bible Narratives Old Testament - ABC Resource
Austin Stone Counseling Center
Reforming Emotions Podcast
Episode Notes:
In this episode host, Mike is joined by special guest, Rob Perry Pastor of online at Lifepointe Church in Raleigh, NC. Rob shares his journey of pastoral ministry into biblical counseling.
Books:
Revival Start Here - Dave Clayton
Relationships: a mess worth making - Lane & Tripp
How People Change - Tripp & Lane
Biblical Counseling Basics - Jeremy Lelek
Podcasts & Websites:
Making Disciples: Robby Gallaty
Discipleship.org
Christiancounseling.com - Certification Pathway
Lifepointe Church - Raleigh
In this episode host, Mike Van Dyke is joined by special guest David Mills to discuss the role of biblical counseling in the last 25 years of his ministry. From pastoring for over 25 years to moving into chaplaincy, David shares how biblical counseling has shaped his ministry in the church and as a chaplain.
Episode Links:
Hope Church
Show Notes:
In this episode hosts, Mike and Shauna are joined by special guest, Todd Hardin to discuss his contribution to the "Counseling Through The Psalms". An ABC Resource is designed to help counselors use the psalms in a session and out of session. With Psalm 77, Todd explains how he'd use it to help counselees reorient the scenes of their story into God's story with three movements of the text, how the psalmist recites his story, then remembering God's story and his faithfulness, and then the psalmist retells his story in light of God's story. Seeing the movements of the psalm will encourage counselees to see their story through God's story.
Show Resources:
The Cry of the Soul - Dan Allender
The Cry of the Soul: How Our Emotions Reveal Our Deepest Questions About God
Soul Physicians - Bob Kellemen
Soul Physicians: A Theology of Soul Care and Spiritual Direction
Counseling through the Psalms - ABC Resource
Episode Notes:
In this episode hosts, Mike, Shauna, and Jeremy discuss how they would use this Psalm in the counseling room - both in session and as a growth assignment.
Episode References:
Counseling Through The Psalms Book
Called To Counsel 2022 Conference Registration
In this episode hosts, Mike, Shauna, and Jeremy continue their mini-series, counseling through the Psalms. A verse by verse breakdown of Psalm 19. They discuss, as shown in the text, God's general, special, and applied revelation of himself and why this matters in the counseling room.
Episode Resources Mentioned:
Counseling Through The Psalms - ABC Resource
Reformed Systematic Theology Vol. 1 - Joel Beeke
- Applied Revelation
- mentioned throughout chapters 10, 11, 12, 16, 23
- Ch. 25 - Applied Revelation for Practical Fruit
In this episode hosts, Mike & Shauna Van Dyke and Jeremy Lelek are back to kick off this mini-series, "Counseling Through the Psalms" an ABC resource written to help counselors use the psalms in session or as growth assignments. In this episode, Jeremy covers how he'd use Psalm 139 in a counseling session to help a counselee struggling with paralyzing anxiety. How God's omniscience and omnipresence can be used to navigate anxiety.
Episode Resource:
Counseling Through The Psalms
In this episode, host Mike Van Dyke is joined by special guest, Colten Taylor to share his testimony from being a practicing homosexual to following Jesus Christ. In part 2 Colten shares how he experienced God's love through his people and not in the way the cultural narrative expresses. He shares God's gracious pursuit and his consequent faith in Jesus Christ. He concludes with what his life in Christ looks like now and the work that the Holy Spirit is doing in him now.
In this episode, host Mike Van Dyke is joined by special guest, Colten Taylor to share his testimony from being a practicing homosexual to following Jesus Christ. In part 1 Colten shares the origin of his story of growing up, being sexually abused, and working through the confusion in his formative years. He navigates through the notion of being born with same-sex attraction what that meant in his experience and its physiological and psychological impact.
Episode Summary:
In this episode, host, Mike Van Dyke is joined by special guest, Adam Sandlin, founder of Covenant Biblical Counseling to discuss how he pursued licensure, being an LPC-S, and launching his biblical counseling center, Covenant Biblical Counseling.
Episode Resources:
Covenant Biblical Counseling
Redeemer Church Denton
North Texas Christian Counseling
In this episode host, Mike Van Dyke is joined with special guest, Robert n' Nate from Watermark Community Church to discuss two discipling ministries within Watermark, re|engage(marriage enrichment) and re:generation(recovery ministry), that have been fruitfully successful within Watermark and how they help equip the universal church with these two ministries. Robert n' Nate shares the history of the ministries, their nature and scope, and the pathway to help the local church be equipped with these ministries within the local church context - from building to growing the ministry, their availability in coming alongside church leaders to equip and execute these ministries. Check out these resources here at watermark resources.
Show resources:
- watermark resources.
Episode Notes:
In this episode, host Mike Van Dyke is joined by special guests, author and pastor, Robert Cheong and his wife, Karen Cheong to discuss his heart in writing his new book, "Restoration Story". We all have our own back story—our sometimes unconscious beliefs—that have been shaped by our families, relationships, and life experiences. Our stories shape the personal narratives we live out: “I am not loved.” “No one cares for me.” “I have to be better than everyone around me.” “How I look is the most important thing about me.” Our back story guides us in how we relate to God and others. But are these beliefs true? And how are they affecting our lives today? Cheong helps readers unpack their stories and learn to live out of God’s new story. Readers will discover how to retell their story out of who God is, what he’s done, and the call to love him and others. Learn how the dynamics of creation, fall, redemption, and consummation shape our present struggles, confirm our future hope, and ensure our ability to live in God’s power today. At the intersection of God’s story and your own, you’ll find that his love sustains you in your weariness, guides you in your confusion, and comforts you in your suffering. The story of his love will compel you to live for him. Restoration Story can also be used alongside Cheong’s Restore: Changing How We Live and Love Study Guide.
Episode Resources:
Restoration Story: Why Jesus Matters In A Broken World
Restore: How We Live And Love, Study Guide With Leader's Notes
Episode Notes:
In this episode, host Mike Van Dyke is joined by author, pastor, biblical counselor, special guest Chris Moles. Chris shares his genesis of entering into domestic abuse work as a pastor and how The LORD used it to develop the ministry of peaceworks and the men of peace self-paced course work. The Men of Peace Self-Paced Course is the compilation of all of Chris Moles’ past Men of Peace coaching content plus brand-new material. This course will walk men through the three-fold Men of Peace process of Information, Transformation, and Reformation, educating and guiding men who are ready to take ownership of their abusive behaviors and surrender themselves fully to the Lord in true and lasting repentance. Please be aware this course DOES NOT include a direct coaching component with Chris Moles. Instead, the Men of Peace Self-Paced Course is designed to be used within the context of an already established biblical counseling or coaching relationship, with the abusive man enlisting the discipleship and accountability support of a local counselor, pastor, or mentor. Once purchased, each course participant will have permanent access to all course materials.
Episode Resources:
chrismoles.org
Peaceworks Podcast
Men of Peace Self-Paced Course
Episode Notes:
In this episode host, Mike Van Dyke is joined with special guest, author, and counselor, Greg Wilson to discuss his new book, "When Home Hurts: A Biblical Guide For Responding Wisely To Domestic Abuse for Your Church". Greg shares his heart for writing this book, his passion for the local church to be equipped from the pastoral level to the neighbor level. This book is intended to equip pastors, church leaders, and church members to respond with the heart of God to situations of domestic abuse that occur in their local church. Prioritizing the safety of the victim at all times, Jeremy Pierre and Greg Wilson seek to help you be the kind of church leader, church member, friend, parent, sibling, or neighbor who responds wisely. We want the church to be a new normal for those grown accustomed to abuse. A home that doesn’t hurt those inside, but instead welcomes them into the tender care of the Lord.
Split into three sections, When Home Hurts begins with an overview to provide a framework for understanding abuse and the people caught up in it, before moving on to advice on how to help in the short and long terms.
This very practical, pastoral book acknowledges the reality and the horror of domestic abuse, but also the reality and power of God to heal. It will be a helpful guide to anyone who suspects abuse within their church family but is unsure how to help without making things worse.
The five appendices at the end of the book offer helpful answers to difficult questions as well as additional resources.
Section 1 – How to Understand Abuse
Understanding Your Role as Agent of God’s Love
Understanding Abuse Dynamics
Discerning Abuse Dynamics
Section 2 – How to Help in the Short Term
Caring for the Victim
Confronting the Abuser
Considering Collateral Damage
Section 3 – How to Help in the Long Term
Helping the Move from Victim to Overcomer
Helping the Move from Abuser to Servant
Leading Your Church to Respond with Wisdom and Compassion
Appendix A – FAQs in the Initial Stages
Appendix B – FAQs on Separation, Divorce, and Reunification After Abuse
Appendix C – The Authority of Scripture and Abuse Research
Appendix D – Resources
Appendix E – Care Advocate Role Description
Episode Resources:
When Home Hurts
In this episode, host Mike Van Dyke is joined with special guest, author and counselor, Darby Strickland to discuss her new book, "Is It Abuse?" A biblical guide to identifying domestic abuse and helping victims. Darby shares why she wrote the book and then discusses the robust nature in which "Is It Abuse" was written with Mike. The book was written in thirds; what is abuse and its dynamics, the different types of abuse and their distinctive's, and upholding the oppressed.
Episode Resources:
Darby's book: Is It Abuse?
Christian Counseling Education Foundation
Episode Summary:
In this episode, host Mike Van Dyke is joined by special guests Beth Broom and Eliza Huie to talk about their new venture, The Christian Trauma Healing Network(CTHN), which serves mental health professionals, pastors, and lay ministry leaders to advance Christ-centered trauma healing in the church and society. They also discuss their new podcast: Counsel For Life - engaging conversations about mental health and the Christian life.
Episode Resources:
Beth Broom's Website
Eliza Huie's Website
Christian Trauma Healing Network
Counsel For Life Podcast.
Episode Notes
What does it look like for a Christian to live a balanced life that honors God? This book offers practical guidance for renewing body and soul so that readers will be energized to engage life with fresh enthusiasm and vigor for service to God. Focusing on six key areas, including your spiritual life, physical life, community life, your work, your purpose, and how your rest, Christians gain strategies to experience transformation in how they care for themselves and others.
Episode Resources:
Book - The Whole Life: 52 Weeks of Biblical Self-Care
More about - Eliza Huie
Episode Summary:
In this episode host, Mike is joined with seasoned pastor and counselor, Garrett Higbee to discuss transforming the discipleship culture from unhealthy discipling to healthy mutual care discipling beginning with small group members and leaders(levels 1&2) to equipping coaches, pastors, and counselors.
Episode Notes:
Garrett's focus over the last few years of ministry - leader care and developing resources both in preventive care, intensive care, and disciple-making care, and leader care with pastors and elders. Helping get the leaders healthy.
Discipling continuum - intentional to intensive,
break down the equipping into the context that people live in, helping contextually and relationally.
- level 1 - mutual ministry
- level 2 - becoming a transforming leader, not a conforming leader
- level 3 - coaches, pastors, elders
Church 360 assessment
- how are we doing as a church in discipling and caring for our church?
- Leadership health assessment
- providing a coaching review - key indicators
- abiding in christ - spiritual development
- Self-care, watching your life and doctrine closely.
- How's your EQ (emotional intelligence)
2 ways subordinate pastoral staff can engage lead pastor or executive-level staff.
- Prayer
- Testimony
Episode Resources:
soulcareconsulting.com
freedom groups - 13-week recovery ministry
In this episode, host, Mike Van Dyke is joined with special guest, Jonathan Holmes to discuss his new book, "Rescue Skills: Restoring The Sexually Broken". Jonathan shares his heart in co-authoring this book; writing a book that helps the friend who's got a friend who is struggling in their sexual brokenness, helping them develop a rescue plan by being the friend who can listen well, ask the right questions, and help to execute a plan that's full of the gospel, real repentance, and killing or replacing bad desires.
Mentioned Resources:
- Rescue Skills: Restoring The Sexually Broken
- Rescue Plan: Charting a Course to Restore Prisoners of Pornography
- Counseling Couples: A Biblical and Practical Guide for Marriage Counseling
- Counseling Through The Psalms
- Counseling Through Bible Narratives
THE GOSPEL IS FOR ...
◼ Counselees who feel that the Christian life is too hard
◼ Counselees who worry they need to do more to have the assurance of salvation
◼ Counselees who don’t want to forgive
◼ Counselees who need to be reminded that they don’t have to earn God’s favor
◼ Counselees who are depressed about their lack of spiritual maturity
◼ Counselees who are suffering from the sin of others or a broken world
◼ Counselees who are losing hope
◼ Counselees who continue to make the same mistakes
◼ Counselees who feel worthless or hated
◼ Counselees who are putting too much emphasis on this life
◼ Counselees who want to continue sinning
Episode Notes:
In this episode, Mike is joined by special guest, Peter Escue to discuss the reality and implications of the gospel in the counseling room. In this episode, they discuss what is the gospel, its corollaries, and the reality of gospel drift in those seeking counseling, and how the gospel can begin to be applied to specific issues within our counselees.
Episode Resources:
email us at topics@speakthetruth.org
“Post-traumatic stress disorder, a profoundly intense response to profoundly dangerous experiences, manifests itself in fear, terrifying vulnerability, and lack of a sense of control. While these responses are often involuntary, Jeremy Lelek reminds us that they are still responses . . . and, thus, different responses are possible. Here he relates the narrative of creation, fall, and redemption to the experiences of PTSD, reminding us that the gospel speaks to our experiences with danger as part of its redemptive message. He points to the wisdom of God in our suffering and reminds us of the saving grace offered by Jesus, guiding readers to the peace and contentment found in seeking God’s glory.
Episode Resources:
PTSD: Recovering Hope Booklet
Solomon Soulcare Services
Episode Notes:
When feelings of guilt, worthlessness, or self-condemnation set in, some people seek painful release in their own flesh and blood. While cutting can bring temporary relief, it falls far short of the genuine change that is essential to true healing of the heart.
Through the direct and honest example of one young woman's story, Jeremy Lelek points those in such pain to the sufferings of Jesus Christ and the finished work of the cross as their means of hope, security, and healing. He helps them to turn from trusting their own body and blood to trusting in the body and blood of Jesus, which alone has the power to bring true freedom.
View Ponts
- Adopting a biblical view of the body.
- Acknowledge attempts to replace the gospel with systems of redemption.
- Accept what Jesus has given in his own blood and body.
- Embrace the righteousness received in Christ Jesus
Episode Resources:
Cutting Booklet
Email us at topics@speakthetruth.org
Episode Summary:
In this episode, hosts, Mike, Shauna, and Jeremy are joined by author and biblical counselor, Margaret Ashmore to discuss depression. The periods of depression that we all share can range from having a bad day to grieving the loss of a loved one. Our fallen world harbors a broad spectrum of suffering that, while never the same for each individual, has always been part of the human condition. Yet Margaret Ashmore reminds us that however difficult our circumstances, they cannot determine whether our lives are ruled by joy or by depression . . . the choices we make in light of those circumstances do. She lays before us a set of godly choices we can make in our own “dark night of the soul” to seek God’s freedom from our dominating depression.
Episode Notes:
Margaret attends Benchmark Bible Church in Denton, Texas, where she serves as director of the counseling ministry in addition to leading Bible studies for women. She is a frequent speaker for women’s retreats and conferences across the country as an outreach of her church. Margaret has always been single, considering this a gift in allowing her to freely serve the Lord in “feeding His sheep.”
- What inspired you to write this book on Depression?
- You started the book by describing the normality of depression, which might sound new to some people. Will you share with us what that means?
- After your discussion on the normality of depression, you talk about the power to choose. Tell us more about that.
- What passages of scripture do you most often use in counseling to someone struggling with depression?
- On page 33, share with us how you used an image of Elizabeth Elliot as an illustration?
- Outside of this book, is there anything else that would helpful for us to know/learn about providing biblical counseling to someone struggling with depression?
- How would a pastor or biblical counselor use this book as a resource in counseling?
Episode Resources:
Depression: The Sun Always Rises (booklet highlighted in the episode)
Depression: A Stubborn Darkness - Ed Welch
Spiritual Depression - Martin Lloyd Jones
A Path Through SufferingElizabeth Elliott
Episode Summary:
In this episode, hosts, Mike, Shauna, and Jeremy are joined by our special guest - Brad Hambrick. To discuss his booklet, God's Attributes. They discuss how a proper understanding of God is vital. However, many times what we observe from our own experiences (especially when they are difficult and painful) can affect the shape of that understanding. How do we know whether we have a true, balanced view of God?
This study looks at sixteen attributes of God, grouped under the headings of his love, essence, wisdom, and power, to help challenge your understanding. It goes on to challenge how well you rest in each attribute (have faith and comfort in it) and emulate it in the struggles and experiences of your own life. So learn, through your struggles, about the One who gives those struggles meaning.
Gospel for Real Life Series: God's Attributes - Rest For Life's Struggles:
- Learning God’s attributes is a foundational truth that all of us should teaching in counseling, so we obviously love this booklet and can be a favorite resource for every counseling session.
What stirred your heart to write it? - You start off the book with this idea of ‘From life to God’, will share more about that with us.
- You’ve created a chart ‘as a circle’ to help explain how to have a balanced view of God, with
four quadrants; Love, Essence, Wisdom & Power. Can you explain more about that? - How could the pastor or counselor use this chart as a tool in a session?
- You’ve provided in the book a weekly devotional with daily scripture readings within that
topic, why was this important to include in the book? - How would a pastor or biblical counselor use this as a resource in counseling?
Episode Resources:
Bradhambrick.com
God's Attributes - Rest For Life's Struggles - Resource booklet
In this episode, the hosts, Mike, Shauna, and Jeremy discuss with special guest, Pastor of Counseling, Brad Hambrick of The Summit Church in Durham, NC how to identify passive or aggressive self-centered spouses, what types of passive and aggressive, their stages, and strategies for interaction.
Episode Notes:
1. You write using Case Studies, Passive and Aggressive self-centered spouse, tell us why you approached the book that way?
2. Within each assessing the problem, you break it down into 3 stages. Do you want to give us a quick recap of those?
3. So you then go to mention types within the passive & aggressive self-centered spouses…share with us a bit more about that.
4. What are some strategies of interaction within these types of self-centered spouses?
5. After writing this book, is there anything else that would helpful for us to know/learn about providing biblical counseling to a self-centered spouse?
6. How would a pastor or biblical counselor use this as a resource in counseling?
Episode Resources:
Self-Centered Souse booklet
Becoming a church that cares for the abused
Bradhambrick.com
In this episode, hosts, Mike, Shauna, and Jeremy discuss with special guest, Pastor of Counseling, Brad Hambrick of The Summit Church in Durham, NC the reality of "Burnout" - resting in God's fairness. Brad argues burnout is actually a consequence of our life management, and he shows us how to create a time budget to avoid living beyond our means with the time God has provided.
- What is Burnout?
- What Causes Burnout?
- You mention motives in burnout…can you speak to that? -pride, fear & approval of man
- You suggest doing a time budget…can you share more about that?
- What are your suggestions to help prevent burnout?
- How would a pastor or biblical counselor use this as a resource in counseling?
Episode References:
Burnout: Resting In God's Fairness
www.bradhambrick.com/events - webinar call for pastors and counselors.
In this episode, the hosts, Mike, Shauna, and Jeremy are back in the studio to discuss the "Gospel For Real Life" series that will be launching over the next 6 weeks that will be super helpful and practical in the counseling room. This series includes burnout, self-centered spouses, God's attributes, depression, PTSD, and cutting - they then discuss the 2021 ABC National Conference.
Gospel Care Collective W/Jason Kovacs
R3stored Ministries W/Carl & Laura Chica
Shauna@christiancounseling.com with any questions regarding training centers
Email us at topics@speakthetruth.org with anything you'd like us to discuss.
The need in the deaf community
Statistics:
- 90% of deaf children are born to hearing parents
- 85% of mothers learn to sign and about 2% of fathers learn to sign
- so most don't learn to communicate in their heart language(sign language).
- The deaf is considered an unreached people group, so less than 2% of the deaf community are believers in America.
- 70 Million deaf and hard of hearing people in the world.
- Fall of 2020 a bible was translated into the heart language(sign language)
- Sunshine Interpreters
- Deaf Millennial Project
- Deaf Bible Society
- Deaf Missions
- Door International
- Booklet Summary
- Anxiety: Anatomy and Cure presents God’s prescription for victory in anxiety. Worry, doubt, and fear get the best of us all sometimes. Anxiety, like any other negative emotion, is a twisted version of something positive from God. Since we live in a fallen world, we may never have full victory over anxiety on this side of heaven. However, Bob Kellemen counsels that we can have victory in our anxieties—we can learn to use anxiety when it strikes and avoid the temptation to sin. In this biblical applicational study, Bob lays out a proper Christian view of anxiety from Creation to Fall to Redemption to Consummation. Along the way, he helps us apply the gospel to our daily lives and reclaim anxiety for what it should be—a vigilance to motivate us to do God’s work.
- Purchase Anxiety: Anatomy and Cure
To learn more about the books, including free resources and sample chapters, people can visit Bob’s RPM Ministries website: www.rpmministries.org.
Also, RPM Ministries has it's own secure, user-friendly RPM Ministries Book Store (https://rpmministries.org/store/) where people can order either book individually for 35% off, or they can purchase the two books together for 40% off.
About Bob Kellemen:
Bob Kellemen, Th.M., Ph.D.: Dr. Kellemen is Academic Dean, Dean of Students, and Professor of Biblical Counseling at Faith Bible Seminary in Lafayette, Indiana. Bob is also the Founder and CEO of RPM Ministries through which he speaks, writes, and consults on biblical counseling and Christian living. Dr. Kellemen served as the founding Executive Director of the Biblical Counseling Coalition. For seventeen years, Bob was the founding Chairman of and Professor in the MA in Christian Counseling and Discipleship department at Capital Bible Seminary in Lanham, MD. Bob has pastored four churches and equipped biblical counselors in each church. Bob and his wife, Shirley, have been married for thirty-nine years; they have two adult children, Josh and Marie, and three granddaughters. Dr. Kellemen is the author of twenty books including Gospel-Centered Marriage Counseling and Gospel-Centered Family Counseling.
Two-Book Series Information
On September 15, 2020, Baker Books released Dr. Bob Kellemen’s 19th and 20th books—a two-book series on marriage and family counseling:
- Gospel-Centered Marriage Counseling: An Equipping Guide for Pastors and Counselors
- Gospel-Centered Family Counseling: An Equipping Guide for Pastors and Counselors
To learn more about the books, including free resources and sample chapters, people can visit Bob’s RPM Ministries website: www.rpmministries.org.
Also, RPM Ministries has it's own secure, user-friendly RPM Ministries Book Store (https://rpmministries.org/store/) where people can order either book individually for 35% off, or they can purchase the two books together for 40% off.
About Bob Kellemen:
Bob Kellemen, Th.M., Ph.D.: Dr. Kellemen is Academic Dean, Dean of Students, and Professor of Biblical Counseling at Faith Bible Seminary in Lafayette, Indiana. Bob is also the Founder and CEO of RPM Ministries through which he speaks, writes, and consults on biblical counseling and Christian living. Dr. Kellemen served as the founding Executive Director of the Biblical Counseling Coalition. For seventeen years, Bob was the founding Chairman of and Professor in the MA in Christian Counseling and Discipleship department at Capital Bible Seminary in Lanham, MD. Bob has pastored four churches and equipped biblical counselors in each church. Bob and his wife, Shirley, have been married for thirty-nine years; they have two adult children, Josh and Marie, and three granddaughters. Dr. Kellemen is the author of twenty books including Gospel-Centered Marriage Counseling and Gospel-Centered Family Counseling.
Biblical Concepualization of OCD 300.3
Presence of obsessions, compulsions, or both:
Obsessions are conceptualized by the following:
Fallen World—There is empirical evidence that obsessions are strongly influenced by factors associated with living in a fallen world (i.e., brain structure, physical, emotional, or sexual abuse at a young age).
Fear—Obsessions within this diagnosis are typically associated with perceived and potentially dreadful outcomes. For example, becoming contaminated by germs or unbiblical ideas about being condemned by God.
Deception—Obsessions are products of a deceptive heart (Jeremiah 17:9), and are not rooted in actual, objective reality.
Self-Focus—Since obsessions create significant distress and anxiety, they will often contribute to an excessive and extreme form of self-focus wherein the vast amount of a person’s cognitive activity and life is centered on his/her subjective reality.
Presence of obsessions, compulsions, or both:
Compulsions are conceptualized by the following:
Control—Unlike obsessions (which are involuntary), compulsions are learned behaviors that are an attempt to control one’s sense of anxiety or distress as well as perceived threats or dreadful outcomes.
Deception—Compulsions “feel” uncontrollable, but this is simply another agonizing deception of the heart that is associated with this particular diagnosis. Additionally, compulsions ultimately do not effectively treat the haunting obsessions that create distress in people.
Folly—Defined as a lack of normal prudence and foresight (especially in reference to God). When an individual follows his/her own folly it turns his/her world upside down(Proverbs 19:3).
Counsel may increase fear/anger/distress:
When being counseled or treated, counselees are confronted with new ways of seeing and experiencing, and this may manifest increased fear and anger.
DSM 5 Criteria for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder 300.3
Presence of obsessions, compulsions, or both:
- Obsessions are defined by (1) and (2)
Recurrent and persistent thoughts, urges, or images that are experienced, at some time during the disturbance, as intrusive and unwanted, and that in most individuals cause marked anxiety or distress.
The individual attempts to ignore or suppress such thoughts, urges, or images, or to neutralize them with some other thought or action (i.e., by performing a compulsion).
- Compulsions are defined by (1) and (2)
Repetitive behaviors (e.g., hand washing, ordering, checking) or mental acts (e.g., praying, counting, repeating words silently) that the individual feels driven to perform in response to an obsession or according to rules that must be applied rigidly.
The behaviors or mental acts are aimed at preventing or reducing anxiety or distress, or preventing some dreaded event or situation…clearly excessive.
B. Presence of obsessions, compulsions, or both:
Compulsions are defined by (1) and (2)
Repetitive behaviors (e.g., hand washing, ordering, checking) or mental acts (e.g., praying, counting, repeating words silently) that the individual feels driven to perform in response to an obsession or according to rules that must be applied rigidly.
The behaviors or mental acts are aimed at preventing or reducing anxiety or distress, or preventing some dreaded event or situation…clearly excessive.
This was a podcast we did earlier this year to begin the conversation regarding the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorder with an important disclaimer. In order to re-engage the conversation of counseling people who have been highly psychologized, we wanted to review this episode to set up our episode next week regarding (OCD | Obsessive Compulsive Disorder).
Here are the notes from earlier this year on this episode. Stay tuned next week as we continue in our "unpacking diagnoses" mini series: unpacking OCD.
The disclaimer is to help pastors, biblical counselors, and lay leaders to engage the culture with this material.
– Understanding the DSM and its terms
– Not feeling intimidated by labels
– Diagnostic damnation - the label becomes the person’s identity
– Everyone has a worldview, a lense, a conceptual lens in which they view everything
– Secular psychology pushes, what does my theory say - so our theory informs our methodology
– The DSM is the bible of Psychiatry
– when we encounter these labels, we’re not counseling them, we're counseling the heart - according to scripture
In this episode, host, Mike Van Dyke sits down with Pastor and Biblical Counselor, Lee Lewis to discuss establishing mutual soul care in the local church - bringing soul care into the life and culture of the local church. They discuss the process of evaluating the culture in a church - it's care culture and discipleship culture. And asking questions that may reveal being a Sunday heavy church. Is it time to change the model of our churches? Is the current model producing disciples that are equipped to love as Christ called us to in order to show the world that we are His disciples? Episode Resources: www.soulcareconsulting.com Material: Level 1 - Transforming Mutual Care. Level 2 - Transforming Small Group Leadership
Episode Notes:
Trauma-Induced Anxiety
The effects of sin
Identifying gospel gaps in the anxious heart
Concern and trouble are sinful, it's when it goes beyond that to worry and anxiety
What we do with worry either leads to trust or anxiety. And depending on where that trust is, depends on when something turns into full-blown anxiety.
Conditioned Anxiety - when one blows right past care and concern into anxiety.
Then anxious heart always puts God on trial and questions His character.
Episode Resouces:
www.bethmariebroom.com
Episode Notes:
- what are the psalms
- how would you use it in the counseling session
- After the session for homework
- The Psalms naturally model for us a Godwardness to our prayers, thinking, suffering, and pain.
- What life is about the bible is about, and what the bible is about is what life most needs to be about.
Resources:
Counseling Through The Psalms - ABCRes
Episode Notes:
- In this episode, the hosts, Mike, Shauna, and Jeremy are joined with Author, Elyse Fitzpatrick to discuss her Home: How Heaven and the New Earth Satisfy Our Deepest Longings. And then they discuss her newest book, Worthy: Celebrating the Value of Women.
Episode Resources
- Worthy
- Home
- Sheep Among Wolves
- Elyse's Podcast - Worthy
Episode Notes:
- ABC's aim through the certification pathway to help equip the local church - a pastor in helping shepherd the local church - but also the professional to help better apply the bible in their practice.
- Our pathway provides a foundational process in which to grow while allowing one to practically apply the truth as one learns; so our methodology creates the ability to cultivate a biblical counseling paradigm in the local church.
- The certification parameter creates a culture of accountability and provides a pathway to becoming equipped in how to apply the gospel of Jesus Christ to everyday life.
- Level 1 Certification Objectives
- Develop a biblical philosophy of the Christian life that includes active involvement in a community of believers.
- Develop a biblical philosophy of counseling that emphasizes the call of all believers to take part in the work of counseling and discipleship.
- Understand the basic meaning of biblical counseling.
- Acquire a basic understanding of the general and specific methods of biblical counseling.
- Cover various counseling-related issues that include depression, anger, anxiety, addiction, and sexuality.
- Level 2 Certification Objectives
- Develop basic practical skills in the personal ministry of God’s word with people. These basic skills include careful listening, helping people open up, conveying compassion, grace, and mercy, and guiding constructive ministry conversations.
- Develop more advanced skills in the personal ministry of God’s word with people. These more advanced skills include responding patiently to difficult ministry conversations, discerning counseling problems from within a biblical worldview, helping people understand and apply the gospel of Jesus Christ in daily life, and more.
- Grow in Christian maturity as a minister of the gospel. That is, learn to be humble, repentant, and dependent upon the Holy Spirit in heart and life while ministering to others.
- Broaden your general knowledge of Scripture as it relates to life and struggles while also broadening the strategic and careful application of the Scripture to specific people and their situations.
- Learn how to depend on the Holy Spirit during the process of change.
- Develop a genuine love for others, and active, daily prayer life.
- Level 3 Certification Objectives
- Specialized training
Episode Resources:
- shauna@christiancounseling.com for more information about ways to connect with training centers
- Exercise - excerpt from the monthly (August) EquipU piece:
- Exercise has wonderful potential to positively impact one’s mental state in various ways. It is also important to note that while not emphasized in Western culture, exercise at root, is a spiritual activity. It is a spiritual activity because one’s motives for doing anything, including exercise, are ultimately anchored in what an individual is worshipping.
- 1 Cor. 10:31 - "Whatever you do" "do all" "to the glory of God"
- Creating a purpose statement - placing God at the center of why you do a particular activity/exercise, etc.
- Gal. 5:16-17 - competing desires
- Matt. 6:21 - what does the person value
- Eph. 4:22-24 - deceitful desires and what they can produce
- The physical and emotional benefits of exercising
- Endorphin release - improving sleep quality, mood and cognitive function
- Neurotropic release - learning ability
- Adrenal functioning - improving mod, and ability to cope with stress
- Habituation
In this episode, the hosts, Mike, Shauna, and Jeremy discuss how this ABC EquipU Resource can be used as homework in helping our counselee's see their story's hardships, sufferings, and subsequent trauma through the larger Redemptive Narrative of God. The application from the exercise with the counselee would be; Individual lives are like a sentence in a much bigger story. If people interpret reality based on their own subjective story, then they will miss the glorious story of God and His gracious, continual, and progressive work in the lives of His children. If people want to understand their suffering, their struggles, their sin, the process of change, the means to change, and the purpose for change, they must embed, and then interpret their individual stories within the context of God’s divine and redemptive narrative. Only then, does any of it have meaning, significance, and purpose.
Previous EquipU Episodes:
- Ep. 64 - Heart of the Matter Part2 "Put On"
- Ep. 56 - Heart of the Matter Part1 "Put Off"
Please email us at topics@speakthetruth.org with any questions or topics you'd like us to discuss.
Episode Summary:
In this episode, the hosts, Mike & Shauna, are joined in studio with special guest, Ronnie Mills Church planter of Kingdom Chapel in North Fort Worth to discuss church planting and biblical counseling; creating biblical counseling in the DNA of a new church plant.
Episode Notes:
- As a podcast devoted to biblical truth for counseling & discipleship for the counselor and local church, we wanted to invite our friend, Ronnie Mills,
- Pastor of Kingdom Chapel North Fort Worth
- Baptist Missionary Association of Texas help Ronnie launch out in their church plant
- Kingdom Chapel is located Alliance Christian Academy
- Biblical counseling training has greatly improved his discipleship efforts and his preaching.
- Biblical counseling has already begun to be rooted in the DNA of the church, so we can raise up leaders through discipleship and biblical counseling to strengthen the body, and keep it healthy.
- Email Speak The Truth about getting a biblical counseling ministry started in your church; topics@speakthetruth.org
- 5 Resolves for soul care
- God has called me
- God has gone before me
- Pastor now - shepherd now
- Stay relative to “us”. .....
- Raise leaders - we can’t do this on our own.
- The hardest thing about church planting is putting yourself out there.
- Fear of man becomes a huge struggle for putting yourself out there as leaders.
Episode Resources:
- Kingdom Chapel - North Fort Worth
- Missionary Baptist Association of Texas
- Truth Renewed Biblical Counseling
- Association of Biblical Counselors
- Alliance Christian Academy
- Exemplary Husband - Stewart Scott
This episode was from last year(EP.29); hosts, Michael & Shauna, have a special guest Pastor, Andy Swart discussing; launching a biblical counseling ministry within his established church. Intentionally raising up lay leaders who love people and know God's Word to do the work of the ministry within their own body - cultivating Saints for Soul Care - the purpose of "one-anothering" in the local church. Episode Notes Moving from Planting (Metro Church) to an already established church (The Mount). Creating an environment that allows people to struggle, starting from the platform. Truth Renewed isn’t a replacement for the church regarding counseling, but an overflow of care. Truth Renewed is a training center to help equip church leaders to become biblical counselors and launch biblical counseling in the local church. Trident of ministry; robust theology, organization strategy, counsel and care. In the same way, we raise up leaders to make Sunday happen, we need to raise up care leaders for the rest of the week - where ministry lives. Don’t stop plowing, it takes time to bring life change and equipping the saints. Trust the process of sanctification. Find those in your congregation who are gifted in caring for others, they’re serious about God’s Word and the process of transformation, and scholarship them. Find a line item in your budget to cultivate the saints in soul care. The posture of a pastor should be a leader of learning. Sunday morning is to edify the saints. Email us on any topics; topics@speakthetruth.org Reach out to Shauna if you’d like to start a biblical counseling ministry @ christiancounseling.com
Episode Resources: The Mount Church Metro Church Rage Ministries Instruments in the Redeemer's Hand's Christiancounseling.com Information about training your lay leaders as biblical counselors or becoming a training center, email Shauna, Shauna@christiancounseling.com
Episode Notes:
- Trey gives his perspective on the statement, #BlackLivesMatter
-
BlackLivesMatter was the first organization to speak up about how they felt about the mistreatment of people of color - the church didn't step up and say something needs to be done.
- The evangelical church didn't step up and speak out against these injustices
- I am for the statement, but I don't support the mission or values of the organization.
-
Episode Resources:
- Books recommended by Trey
- Frederick Douglass: A Prophet of Freedom
- The New Jim Crow
- White Metropolis
- Oneness Embrace
- Free At Last
- The Next Evangelicalism
- Divided By Faith
Episode Notes:
- Over 80% of churches are homogenous churches; White churches, Black churches, Hispanic churches, Asian churches, etc.
- Protesting without deconstructing doesn't tare down the walls of systemic racism
- We need to research what is system racism or institutional racism and find ways to deconstruct it in our spheres of influence. Be intentional in cultivating relationships with those who don't look like us, etc.
Episode Resources:
- The Well Church: https://www.thewellchurchkeller.org/whoarewe
- Specs Movement: http://www.thespecsmovement.com/
A Few Points:
- There isn’t really anything available that speaks directly to laypeople, church leaders who could use it as a resource., user friendly, helpful as soon as you pick it up.
- Using this book for leadership development would be extremely useful.
- Fieldstone grew outside of the church.
- Pastors move from scripture to life and counselors are trying to move from life to scripture. -
- For pastors who are preaching week to week; if you’re trying to move from Scripture to life, all counseling is, is moving from life to scripture.
- Don’t counsel alone, bring others in with you. Reduplicate yourselves.
- An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Promote preventative ministries.
Resources From Episode"
- Park Side church
- Fieldstone Counseling
- Biblical Counseling Coalition
- Counsel for Couples
Greg Wilson discusses the nature and scope of “Domestic Violence”, defined and explained.
The church hasn’t done well in this category of ministry.
- Desecrating the image of God in another person. Where man has perverted the dominion that God gave man to rule and subdue the earth, but in man’s sinful state, he corruptly exerts power through violence.
- Definition: the desecration of the image of God through patterns of intentionally misusing power overtly or covertly in words or actions to gratify self.
- We need to engender a little more fear in the church to reveal the reality and frequency of it.
- Indicators of possible abuse
- Broadly, dominates control of emotional liberty, limiting relationships, finances, elements of control.
- Gaslighting - convincing the other spouse that they’re crazy, and thus gaining control over the other person. Colloquially, crazy-making.
- Triangulating tactics towards the counselor in counseling done through the perpetrator in counseling, so domestic abuse is happening in real-time in the counseling session.
- Covert abuse.
- In domestic abuse cases, the counselor, if not careful, can sound like the abuser by telling the victim what they need to do.
- Safety planning;
- Short term plans
- Long term plans
- In counseling, we need to help to rescue the oppressed, God did!
- In the church, we need to be rescuing the oppressed, not encouraging them to stay in that situation.
- Church; care before you correct these domestic abuse cases.
Episode References:
- Soul Care Associates
- Brad HamBrick
- Chris Moles
- Darby Strickland
- Association of Biblical Counselors
- The Village Church
Show Notes:
“Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. He is like a tree planted by the water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit.” Jeremiah 17:7-8
The Heart of the Matter (Put On) Series is intended for use upon thoroughly working through the Put Off portion of this series. It is designed to help you facilitate a process with your counselees wherein they are given the opportunity to prayerfully examine Scripture as it pertains to divine truth concerning their beliefs, desires, and behaviors. Below is a brief explanation of each part of this series, and each handout’s purpose within the counseling process:
Biblical Thoughts About My Situation and Others:
Continuing to use the heart log counselees will be instructed to identify statements on these handouts that are relevant to their current situation. These thoughts are reasoned from biblical truth, and counselees should be encouraged to dispose of deceptive thoughts (identified in the “Put Off” portion of this series), and embrace thoughts more aligned with statements on this handout. Again, dissonance may occur, and it is important to notify counselees that this is a normal part of the process. The heart’s tendency to deceive does not evaporate simply because someone begins to wage war against lies. A helpful exercise along with the Heart Log might be to have them journal why dissonance remains or why they continue to lean towards believing deception over truth.
Biblical Thoughts About Self:
Unfortunately many Christians deeply embrace condemning thoughts about themselves. Such thoughts minimize the beauty of the Gospel while blinding people to their deepest identities as brought forth in the Bible. This handout provides just a few statements that are most true about your counselee (assuming he/she has placed faith in the finished work of Jesus). Work through each of these statements with your counselee. Allow them to wrestle with each statement, and have them examine why they will not (or feel they cannot) embrace these gifts from our Lord. Make sure that as they assimilate these thoughts (by God’s grace) that you make these thoughts about the kindness and love of God so that pride and self-centeredness do not sabotage the intent of this exercise. Maybe have them write prayers of gratitude to God for his amazing grace.
Biblical Thoughts to Believe (in Faith) About My Situations and Others:
While my situation is challenging, God is faithful to effectively help and strengthen me (Ps. 46:1-3).
There is no situation too difficult for the Lord to resolve, and I will seek to glorify him in seeking resolution. Ultimately, I will seek to trust God’s purposes in Him either resolving or not resolving this issue (1 Corinthians 10:31; Proverbs 16:9).
My situation feels like it has destroyed my life, but as long as I live I have the freedom to respond to my situation in a way that shapes and matures me so that I become more and more complete as God’s instrument of grace (James 1:1-4).
My pain influences me to feel God is absent, but that cannot true. He is actually my refuge always present to help me in difficulty. Jesus actually lives to constantly intercede for me! (Psalm 46:1; Hebrews 6:23-25)
Rejection can be extremely painful, but I have experienced it before and was able to persevere. I survived! If I feel it’s intolerable, maybe I am putting too much trust in people while not earnestly trusting God. Jesus does not condemn or reject me in this struggle, but deeply relates to and sympathizes with me in the pain of rejection (Jeremiah 17:5-9; John 19:15; Hebrews 4:15).
Disapproval can be difficult, but fearing people is a trap that destroys. Believing that I need approval from someone in order to thrive is not true. Exercising faith in God as my sufficient helper is the antidote to my fear (Proverbs 25:29; Hebrews 13:6).
People don’t necessarily cause my feelings and responses (though they do influence), but often people reveal things in my heart that I need to examine. It is nice to be noticed, but demanding it as a “must” could be revealing idolatry and deceptive desires in my heart (Colossians 3:5).
Episode Resource:
Christian Counseling - Heart of the Matter Counseling Resource
Episode Summary: Curtis takes time to Demystify PTSD by removing the D out of it. It’s not an abnormal reaction to normal life, but it’s really a normal response to really extreme and difficult circumstances. PTSD is severely misunderstood, and in this episode, Curtis offers a robust understanding of the nature and scope of PTSD.
Episode Notes: How do we demystify PTSD?
- With the Counselee, helping them understand what’s going on physiologically and spiritually as far as what they're facing because the body naturally responds to trauma, and the physiological implications of fight or flight that is associated with fear.
- This isn’t just a military issue.
- First responders experience a lot of trauma, as well as familial experiences and events.
- People respond to trauma differently, and there are a lot of factors that play into manifestations of trauma.
- Pre traumatic factors involve a lot around how one grew up, experiences, core beliefs, worldview, etc. All of these factors play into the way someone responds to suffering, hardship, and trauma.
- Peri Traumatic - how are you responding to suffering, what was actually going on in the event itself, what happened to me, was it something I did, who was involved, etc.
- Where to start with a PTSD case, first develop trust. Going into time with humility, and ask good questions.
- Ways for churches to best minister to those struggling with PTSD
- Disassociation, removing yourself from reality, and entering back into a traumatic scenario.
Show Resource Mentions:
- Biblical Counseling Coalition
- 15:14 Podcast
- Mighty Oaks Warrior Program
- Demystifying PTSD
- Garrett Higbee
Episode Notes
Answers to Shauna's questions of who'd we like to sit down with over a cup of coffee
- Mike - Jeff Durbin
- Shauna - John Piper / Ben Shapiro
- Jeremy - James K. A. Smith / Jordan Peterson
Topics & Questions Answered
- Grief?
- grieving the loss of a child or a child losing a parent
- Books on grief & loss
- Bob Kellemen - God's healing for life's losses: to find hope when you're hurting
- Paul Tautges - A small book for the hearting heart: meditations on loss, grief, and healing
- Paul Tautges - Comfort those who grieve
- Rejection?
- Can a woman lead out in a church ministry with a vision for launching and cultivating a biblical counseling ministry in the local church?
- Respond to some feedback we received regarding EMDR
Show Notes:
Paul Tripp discusses his heart behind his recent book release on suffering, “Suffering: gospel hope when life doesn’t make sense”, which was largely due to his own recent experiences in suffering through an acute renal failure. Listen as Paul shares the nature of suffering and our response to it. "Tweetable Tripp one-liners" from the episode
- Suffering is spiritual warfare
- Suffering isn’t neutral, we never come to suffering empty; we don’t suffer the thing your suffering, you suffer the way your suffering the thing your suffering.
- We have a dark ability to trouble our own trouble.
- Our bad theology is making a mess of our suffering.
- God doesn’t need us to be healthy to use us; that’s a human way of thinking.
- The move of grace is not from dependence to independence, but the move of grace is from independence to dependence.
- We’re afraid to be honest and transparent because we don’t believe the gospel.
- As Christians, we should be able to be the most honest community on the earth.
- As Christians, we struggle with believing the now-ism of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
- As Christians, we need to stop having cosmetic relationships.
- God makes his invisible grace visible by sending people of grace to give grace to people who need grace, that’s how it works, modeling that incarnational living.
- Our weakness is God’s workroom.
Episode Resource Links:
- Paul Tripp Ministries - New Morning Mercies
- Suffering: Gospel Hope When Life Doesn't Make Sense
Show notes:
The cultural view of depression
- Treats it like a disease, attributing it or reducing it to a chemical imbalance or a genetic disposition. These aren’t invalid, but it causes a quick diagnosis so it can be treated quickly. It can almost promise a remedy, which scripturally speaking, is much deeper, its more of a heart problem that has physiological and emotional implications. Therefore, culture has a very superficial view and resolution to depression, very much consistent with the medical model. This isn’t bad, its just incomplete and a truncated resolution because it doesn’t deal with the heart of a person which is where the root of depression is planted.
- Medication implications - they don’t necessarily fix the problem, but ultimately mask the problem and often times creates new symptoms. As biblical counselors, we wouldn’t counsel clients to stop taking meds, but to seek their medical professional.
- Placebo testing with depression medications demonstrated that the prospect of hope helped tremendously with those struggling with depression. If a placebo provided hope imagine what real hope can do for those depressed; the gospel provides a living hope to the hopeless.
General & Biblical Notes on Depression:
- Depression is a progression; when unbelief goes isolated, and it's allowed to reign and nothing else is pressing in on that like community groups, discipleship, etc. it's very likely one can slip into a bout of depression.
- Paul’s teaching on suffering is helpful. Gal. 6.1-5.
- Imagine our community group leaders who respond in a Gal. 6.1-5 way?
- Learning from depression - learning to preach the gospel to ourselves and having others in our lives to speak into them.
- The gospel gap - gospel truth. Learning to orient our hearts in the place of sorrow.
- Learning to abide in Christ
- Gospel Community is so necessary for those struggling with depression.
Show Resource Notes:
- Soul Care Consulting
- Journal for biblical counseling
- Martin Lloyd Jones - Spiritual Depression
- Ed Welch - Stubborn Darkness
Episode Notes:
-
What is EMDR Therapy
-
Developed by Psychologist Francine Shapiro, EMDR stands for Eye Movement Reprocessing and Desensitization. It focuses on how memory is stored in the brain and how that impacts experience. It is a successful evidenced-based method for treating trauma.
-
How is it used
-
EMDR uses dual attention stimulation (eye movements, tapping, or rhythmic audio sounds) to activate the brain’s orienting response, allowing you to access adaptive information and attach it to the memory of trauma. “EMDR connects the ‘here and now’ parts of your brain to the ‘then and there’ trauma parts until your brain says I'm ok.
-
Is EMDR biblical
-
To ask if EMDR is biblical may not be the right question if you are hoping to find the Scripture that speaks of it. The better question may be, “Is it unbiblical?” To that the answer is easy. –No. Nothing in the practice of EMDR goes against Scripture. When done by a
biblical counselor, it is best understood that EMDR is applying neuroscience to biblical counseling. -
Scriptures and the EMDR process
-
Psalm 139:14- The complexities of the brain are the Lord’s handiwork.
- John 16:13- Speaks of the Spirit’s role to guide us in truth. Believing clients often find the truth of Scripture plays a key role in the EMDR process.
- Jeremiah 33:6- Reminds us that healing is connected to truth.
- John 8:32- Truth has the power to set us free from what binds.
- 2 Corinthians 10:5- Calls us to take thoughts captive.
- Isaiah 61:1-3- Gives a picture of the healing that is ours.
-
Psalm 24:1- All things belong to the Lord, including methods of care and healing.
-
Who should consider EMDR
-
If you've been impacted by trauma
-
Trauma is defined as the emotional shock following a deeply distressing or disturbing experience. Trauma overwhelms the senses and hijacks normal processing. Traumatic experiences cover a broad range. Some include personal involvement where something happened to you. Others include something that happened to someone with you. Situations can also be traumatic due to the personal significance and impact on your life. Trauma results in an overwhelming sense of fear, feelings of helplessness, and loss of control. PTSD and CPTSD are clinical diagnoses given to people who are dealing with the continual impact of trauma. However, you do not need a diagnosis for EMDR to be helpful in processing your experience.
-
If you feel "stuck"
-
EMDR is extremely helpful to people who feel stuck in their struggle. If negative self-talk, catastrophizing, feeling continually overwhelmed, or feelings of hopelessness are part of your regular life, reprocessing target events and memories with EMDR can help. If your life seems centered around the negative experiences of your past and traditional talk-therapy has not fully helped you move forward, EMDR may be exactly what is needed.
-
Is EMDR safe
-
Yes. Because EMDR is non-invasive and client-led, there is little concern surrounding the process or impact of the therapy. Below are supporting facts as well as things to consider:
- The client remains fully coherent and focused during the process.
- The client sets the pace and can decide if they need to stop at any time.
- When done properly, EMDR has the least susceptibility to suggestion or manipulation than do other therapies.
- EMDR should only be done by a professionally trained therapist.
- While EMDR is considered safe, not everyone is a good candidate for this therapy. Consult with a trained professional to determine if it is right for you.
Episode Resources:
- Elizahuie.com
- Mclean Bible Church
- CCEF
Eliza's Books
- Raising Teens in a hyper-sexualized world
- Raising kids in a screen saturated world
Episode Notes:
- After 8 or 9 minutes of riffing about being in lockdown with each other, the discussion starts about using assessments in the counseling room and with the local church for leadership development.
- ABC has a resource page with the assessments broken down into categories such as:
- Anger
- Marriage
- Sex
- Intimacy
- bitterness
- Money
- Spiritual Life
- Substance Abuse
- Parenting
- Adultery
- Domestic Abuse
- Womanhood, etc.
- Besides providing excellent training for certifying biblical counselors, ABC is also dedicated to providing, through membership, counselors with enough resources to help.
- You can print out one of the resources and hand them right to the client.
- ABC membership is really a resource hub
- The assessments help gather data quickly with a Likert Scale
Episode Resources:
- Association of Biblical Counselors Membership
General Notes:
- Discuss Stewart Scott's new book, "31 Ways to be A One-Another Christian
- How Mike uses it as a pastor to encourage group leaders to be more relationally intentional with their groups and then being able to use it as a more formative leadership developing piece.
- Also, as a counselor, being able to use it as a form of data gathering, where the counselor is being forward about the relational dynamic of church engagement. As most counselees are pretty infrequent in attending church and even more infrequent with the communal life of their church.
- Using the book as a homework assignment to help counselees meditate on the verses, their explanations, maybe think of their own illustration, and then work to apply it by asking specific questions that center around the actions of the verse, etc.
Episode Resources:
- 31 Ways to be A One Another Christian - Stuart Scott
- Biblical Counseling Coalition
Episode Notes:
- The Heart of the Matter: designed to help facilitate a process with our counselees to help with the opportunity of examining their hearts. Drawn from Psalm 26.2
- Heart log (helpful in assisting counselees to identify various aspects of their hearts
- begin to identify our theirs through logging
- A situation
- Their emotion
- Their thoughts and beliefs
- Their desires and wants
- Their subsequent behaviors and habits
- begin to identify our theirs through logging
- Emotion Wheel
- Emotions are often smoke alarms of the soul that alert us to problems
- Using the exercises to reveal deceptive patterns of thoughts, desires, behaviors, etc.
- Deceptive thoughts about situations and others
- Deceptive thoughts about self
- Deceptive desires
- Level of desire
- Sinful behaviors or habits
- Heart log (helpful in assisting counselees to identify various aspects of their hearts
- This series is intended to diagnose what is going on within the counselee. The next part of the series will be about "Put On", where this series is about "Put Off"
Episode Resources:
- Books
- A Theology of Christian Counseling - Jay Adams.
- Links
- http://feelingswheel.com/
Episode Quotes:
- Situation is just a context that exposes the heart. - Jeremy Lelek.
- Idolatry is when you give yourself permission not to love God or someone else because you didn't get what you wanted. - Jeremy Lelek.
- Habits shape the heart - Christian History.
Episode Notes
Interview with Lee Lewis (was in our 10th podcast on depression)
Pastor at Radiant Church in Austin - https://www.radiantaustin.com/
- www.soulcareconsulting.com
- 12 stone counseling - Garret Higbee
- https://www.twelvestones.org/
- Soulcare Consulting
- Creating a ministry of soul care
- Build a culture of care not a side avenue of care
- What would that process look like for a church considering implementing this culture of care
- 360 evaluation interview process
- Evaluate what's already happening in the church, find holes, and then provide a road map.
- The road map is tailored to the size of the church, the resources they have available, which serves as a playbook to implement a process of healthy discipleship and culture of care.
- Tag Line: "equipping churches for intentional life on life ministry to the intensive care needs."
- Resources
- level 1 - small group study
- Freedom groups - Gal. 5 13 weeks
- Resources
- 360 evaluation interview process
- Reach out to soul care consulting at:
- info@soulcareconsulting.com
- Influential books Lee has read
- Instrument's in the Redeemer's hand -Paul Tripp
- Desiring God - John Piper
- Knowing God - J. I. Packer
- All Things for the Good - Thomas Watson
- Book of Psalms
Episode Notes:
- Faith
- God will give you everything you need to complete the work, task, job, etc. that he assigned you to do - not according to your ability, but his ability to work through you.
- Faith isn't in your ability to do something, but your faith in God giving the work to you. God has given you the assignement; he has called you to do this and he will give you everything you need in order to do this, not because of your own ability, but because of his ability through you. - Shauna Van Dyke
- Heb. 12
- The faith in knowing that we have a loving father who is using times like these a means to healing our souls. - Jeremy Lelek
- hardship is usually the primary means that produces faith in us. Mike Van Dyke
- There is an active and passive reality to faith. Mike Van Dyke
Email us at topics@speakthetruth.net
COVID-19 Anxiety & Fear: P2
Phil. 4:4-9
- 3 fold plan for responding to COVID-19
- Praying
- Thinking biblically
- And living biblically
Anxiety - "its a feeling of worry, nervousness, uneasiness, or distress over a real or a perceived threat." - Shauna Van Dyke
Helpful Resources
- COVID - Anxiety Article
Episode Notes:
- The hosts start riffing about how COVID-19 has impacted everyone in some measure and trying to find a new normal.
- Please pray for Jeremy's wife, Lynne as she continues to fight on the front lines here in Fort Worth.
- Proverbs 12.25 - without a good word ( a word of real hope), how do those without Christ navigate this?
- There is no neutrality, there has to be something stronger, like faith, to combat the anxiety where it replaces the anxious heart and thoughts.
- because there is no neutrality in the heart of man, if there is no object of faith stronger than the object of anxiety to cast that out then how can one manage - legitimately.
- Rom. 8.35-39 - God's promises are objects of faith to cast out the objects of fear and anxiety.
- Worry assumes the allusion of control on things we aren't in control over. - David Powlison
- 1 Pet. 5.6-10
- Phil 4.8-9
Episode Notes:
"We, in biblical counseling, we do acknowledge that our story shapes our heart. Our story does have a shaping impact on the struggles that we might be dealing with." -Jeremy Lelek, Speak The Truth, EP. 51 Unpacking Diagnoses: Paranoid Personality Disorder (importance of data gathering - context added)
DSM Criteria:
- Pervasive distrust and suspiciousness of others such that their motives are interpreted as malevolent, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by four (or more) of the following: • Suspects, without sufficient basis, that others are exploiting, harming, or deceiving him/her. • Is preoccupied with unjustified doubts about the loyalty or trustworthiness of friends/associates. • Is reluctant to confide in others because of unwarranted fear that the information will be used maliciously against him/her. • Persistently bears grudges, i.e., is unforgiving of insults, injuries, remarks, or events. • Perceives attacks on his/her character or reputation that are not apparent to others and is quick to react angrily or to counterattack. • Has recurrent suspicions, without justification, regarding fidelity of spouse or sexual partner.
Biblical Explanation:
- The Bible is very clear in stating: “The fear of man brings a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord shall be safe” (Proverbs 29:25). Additionally, Paul attributes evil suspicion and strife to those who do not “consent to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness…” (I Timothy 6:3- 5). With no fear of the Lord in their hearts, these individuals may engage in (Romans 3:18): • Devising wicked schemes in their hearts (Proverbs 6:18) • Having feet quick to rush into evil (Proverbs 6:14) • Bearing false witness (Proverbs 6:19) • Pouring out filthy lies (Proverbs 6:19) • Stirring up dissension (Proverbs 6:19) • Grumbling against others (James 5:9) • Having mouths full of cursing and bitterness (Romans 3:14) • Fearing man and not God (people will see, hurt, or reject me, Welch, 2000) (Proverbs 25:29; Romans 3:18) • Slanderous accusations (Proverbs 10:18) • Allowing a “root of bitterness” to spring forth which defiles many (Romans 12:15) • Bearing grudges (Leviticus 19:18)
Resources From Episode:
When People Are Big And God Is Small - Ed Welch
Episode Notes:
DSM-IV Criteria for “Personality Disorder (general)”
- Enduring pattern of inner experience or behavior that deviates markedly from the expectations of the individual’s culture including the areas of
- • Cognition • Affectivity • Interpersonal functioning • Impulsive control
- The pattern is enduring and inflexible as well as pervasive across a broad range of personal and social situations
- Enduring pattern leads to clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.
- The pattern is stable and of long duration and its onset can be traced back to at least adolescence or early adulthood.
- Pattern is not accounted for by another mental disorder.
- Pattern is not due to direct physiological effects of a substance. American Psychiatric Association: Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, Fourth Edition, Text Revision. Washington, D.C.: American Psychiatric Association, 2000.
Biblical Explanation for: “Personality Disorder (general)”
- The so-called “Personality Disorders” (i.e. paranoid, narcissistic, etc.) are simply descriptions of long-term behavioral, emotional, interpersonal, and thought patterns developed by an individual over a period of time.
- The Bible clearly articulates the influence of depravity and sin on a person’s behavior, thinking, and feeling. Therefore the influence of the “law of sin” must be a focal point for individuals citing these labels (Ephesians 2:3).
- Following the flesh always leads to further corruption, death, and darkness (Ephesians 4:22-24, Romans 8:5).
- Adams (1979), citing II Peter 2:14, discusses the idea of “habituation” in which sinful patterns spawn (and reinforce) sinful patterns (p. 243).
- Powlison (1996) highlights the fact that people don’t “have” disorders, they “do” what the so-called “diagnoses” (to the left) describe (p. 3). This is especially so, it seems, as it relates to “Personality Disorders”. This is an imperative conceptualization that will shape one’s approach when dealing with such individuals.
Episode Resources:
James K.A. Smith - You Are What You Love
Episode Notes
- DSM CRITERIA
Hyperactivity • Often fidgets with hands or feet or squirms in seat. • Often leaves seat in classroom or in other situations in which remaining seated is expected. • Often runs about or climbs excessively in situations in which it is inappropriate • Often has difficulty playing or engaging in leisure activities quietly • Is often “on the go” or often acts as if “driven by a motor” • Often talks excessively
Impulsivity • Often blurts out answers before questions have been completed • Often has difficulty awaiting turn • Often interrupts or intrudes on others (e.g. butts into conversations or games)
BIBLICAL EXPLANATION
- BIBLICAL DESCRIPTORS
Hyperactivity • Lack of self-control • Struggles with an anxious heart • Disrespect for authority • Low view of obedience • Fatigue due to lack of rest • Personal Weakness • Rebellion • Selfishness
Impulsivity • Quick to speak, slow to listen • An unrepentant heart • Impatience • Disrespectful • Self-centered or selfish
Tweetable: "children that typically stand out under the diagnoses of this umbrella once they enter into a school system are young boys because boys are wired to active and once they get in the confines of a classroom for the first time, they're going to run into some struggles that our culture has decided to label as a disease." Jeremy Lelek - Speak The Truth Podcast EP. 49 Unpacking Diagnoses: ADHD Part 2
Episode Mentions - Resources:
Am I just My Brain - Sharon Dirckx
- Psychiatric explanation of ADHD by DSM-IV-TR
- Inattention (6 symptoms that persisted at least six months)
- Often fails to give close attention to details or makes careless mistakes in schoolwork, or other activities • Often has difficulty sustaining attention in tasks or play activities • Often does not seem to listen when spoken to directly • Often does not follow through with instructions, and fails to finish school work, chores, or duties in the workplace • Often has difficulty organizing tasks and activities • Often loses things necessary for tasks or activities (e.g. toys, assignments, pencils, books, or tools). • Is often easily distracted by extraneous stimuli • Is often forgetful in daily activities
- Hyper activity
- Impulsivity
- Biblical explanation
- Spiritual issues that could be contributing
- Inattention (Potential heart issues) • Depravity/Folly/Law of Sin • Personal weakness (spiritual/physical) • Self-centeredness or selfishness • Disrespect for authority • Lack of consideration for others • Habit of laziness • Lack of understanding regarding the importance of obeying authority figures • Failure to grasp the significance of worshipping God in “whatever you do” (I Corinthians 10:31) • An anxious heart • Craving for attention • Lover of pleasure • Conscious rebellion • Confusion • Anger
DSM-IV Criteria for DSM-IV-TR Criteria for “Manic Episode” “Manic Episode”
1. A distinct period of abnormally and persistently elevated, expansive, or irritable mood, lasting at least 1 week.
2. Inflated self-esteem or grandiosity
3. More talkative than usual or pressures to keep talking.
4. Flight of ideas or subjective experience that thoughts are racing.
5. Distractibility
6. Increase in goal-directed activity (either socially, at work or school, or sexual activity).
7. Excessive involvement in pleasurable activities that have a high potential for painful consequences (e.g. engaging in unrestrained buying sprees, sexual indiscretions, or foolish business investments). American Psychiatric Association: Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, Fourth Edition, Text Revision. Washington, D.C.: American Psychiatric Association, 2000.
Biblical Explanation for Biblical Explanation for
“Manic Episode”
Following are biblical descriptors that more accurately describe the spiritual issues that foster behavior and thinking:
• Anger/Fits of Rage
• Pride
• Anxiety
• Selfish Ambition
• Fear
• Self-Control
• Drunkenness
• Sexual Immorality/Adultery
• Foolishness/Folly
• Idolatry such as:
Control
Significance
Pleasure
Acceptance
Approval
Security
Power
Resources Mention:
Elyse Fitzpatrick & Laura Hendrickson: Will Medicine Stop the Pain?: Finding God's Healing for Depression, Anxiety, and Other Troubling Emotions
Episode Notes
DSM-IV Criteria for DSM-IV-TR Criteria for “Manic Episode” “Major Depressive Episode”
-
Depressed mood most of the day, nearly every day, as indicated by either subjective report (feels sad or empty) or observations made by others.
-
Markedly diminished interest or pleasure in all, or almost all, activities most of the day, nearly every day.
-
Significant weight loss when not dieting or substantial weight gain.
-
Insomnia or hypersomnia nearly every day.
-
Fatigue or loss of energy every day.
-
Feelings of worthlessness or excessive or inappropriate guilt (which may be delusional) nearly every day.
-
Diminished ability to think or concentrate, or indecisiveness, nearly every day.
-
Recurrent thoughts of death...recurrent suicidal ideation without a specific plan, or a suicide attempt or a specific plan of attempting suicide
American Psychiatric Association: Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, Fourth Edition, Text Revision. Washington, D.C.: American Psychiatric Association, 2000.
Biblical Explanation for Biblical Explanation for
“Manic Episode” “Major Depressive Episode”
Following are biblical descriptors that more accurately describe the spiritual issues that foster behavior and thinking:
• Depression
• Hopelessness
• Worry
• Selfishness
• Double-Minded
• Misplaced Trust
• Pride
• Depravity/Sin
• Grief
• Idolatry such as:
Peace at all Cost Significance
Symptom Relief Security
Control
If you're a member of ABC, The unpacking diagnoses forms and handouts are in the back office at christiancounseling.com
The disclaimer is to help pastors, biblical counselors, and lay leaders to engage the culture with this material.
– Understanding the DSM and its terms
– Not feeling intimidated by labels
– Diagnostic damnation - the label becomes the person’s identity
– Everyone has a worldview, a lense, a conceptual lens in which they view everything
– Secular psychology pushes, what does my theory say - so our theory informs our methodology
– The DSM is the bible of Psychiatry
– when we encounter these labels, we’re not counseling them, we're counseling the heart - according to scripture
Episode Notes:
◎ There will be 4 pre-conference sessions
◎ John Henderson (Author Of The Equipped To Counsel Curriculum)
◎ Elise Fitzpatrick - Author of numerous books
◎ Lee Lewis
◎ Panel Discussion
◎ Conference Theme
◎ The Kingdom is at hand - Mk. 1:15
◎ Whats the location we find ourselves counseling, its in the Kingdom of God.
◎ Counseling with eternity in mind.
◎ There are 7 Tracks and each track has 8 sessions
◎ Introduction To Biblical Counsleing
◎ Addictions
◎ Anxiety
◎ Depression
◎ Domestic Abuse
◎ Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
◎ Marriage
register at www.calledtocounsel.com
Episode Notes:
◎ Not doing life with one another is all too often the case with most of the believers.
◎ Heb. 10:23-25
◎ Are there believers in our life that have the right to examine our life; when we’re with counselee’s, we want to gather enough data to make sure we know what the reality is of our counselee’s relational church-life.
◎ we need people in our lives who will speak to what we need to hear rather than what we want to hear.
◎ we need to encourage our counselee’s to find someone who can come into the counseling room with them if those they choose will walk with them outside the counseling room.
◎ being persecuted isn’t always provoked by others, but it's saying no to things of this world that don't promote spiritual growth.
◎ What do our counselee’s need to say no to so they’ll be spiritually fit to promote their relationships, both vertically and horizontally.
ABC Conference Clip
Welcome to Speak The Truth, and before we get into our next episode, I’d like to share with you the 2020 Called To Counsel National Conference brought to you by Association of Biblical Counselors - The conference kicks off April 23-25 at Doxology Bible Church located in Fort Worth, TX. This year's specialized tracks include -
• Introduction to Biblical Counseling
• Depression
• Domestic Abuse
• Addictions
• Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
• Marriage
• Anxiety
Registration is open, register today at
calledtocounsel.com
Episode Notes:
The Lord’s Prayer
◎ “And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard with their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. Pray then like this:
◎ Our father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
◎ Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
◎ And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
◎ God Is:
◎ Father
◎ King
◎ Provider
◎ Forgiver
◎ Deliverer
◎ A.C.T.S. Acronym
◎ Adoration
◎ Confession
◎ Thanksgiving
◎ Supplication
Episode Resources:
Prayer of Jesus - Hank Hanegraaff
The Lord's Prayer - Thomas Watson
Episode Notes:
◎ The church is struggling in helping their congregations with spiritual disciplines.
◎ Helping our people how to study scripture, practice meditating, having a praying life, and the relational aspects of being a follower with accountable relationships.
◎ Prayer quote, “To be a Christian without prayer is no more possible than to be alive without breathing.” Martin Luther.
◎ Spiritual disciplines grow from duty, as a discipline, to a matter of devotion…..to the point where you dont feel right when the disciplines aren’t practiced.
◎ Many people come to counseling with a desire for practicing spiritual disciplines, but they don’t have any direction. So they don’t practice much as a family, so leading the home as men are called to do, doesn’t happen outside of going to church.
Gen Z Perspective on being Christian in the culture - their culture.
◎ Our two sons, Dustin (18), Jaxson (13), give their perspective of being Christian in their context.
◎ Their perspective on youth group night, their experience and thoughts on what’s talked about verses not talked about, what's missing from the youth context, etc.
Episode Notes:
◎ Growing up between both households felt like two different worlds.
◎ Having one strong side towards the faith and having the other side nonexistent was difficult.
◎ In encouraging the church to help with families in blended families, I would focus on the youth and talk more about what our struggles are.
Episode Notes:
Principles 11-14:
-
False gods. Principle: you are parenting a worshiper, so it's important to remember that what rules your child’s heart will control their behavior.
-
Control. Principle: the goal of parenting is not control of behavior, but rather heart and life change.
-
Rest. Principle: It only rests in God’s presence and grace that will make you a joyful and patient parent.
-
Mercy. Principle: No parent gives mercy better than one who is convinced that they desperately need it themselves.
Remember to email us topics at topics@speakthetruth.org
Also, please leave us a review and rate the podcast.....Thank you!
Episode Resources:
On the Road with Saint Augustine: A Real-World Spirituality for Restless Hearts - James K.A. Smith
Principles 6 - 10:
-
Process - Principle: you must be committed as a parent to long-view parenting because change is a process and not an event.
-
Lost - Principle: As a parent you’re not dealing just with bad behavior, but a condition that causes bad behavior.
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Authority - Principle: one of the foundational heart issues in the life of every child is authority. Teaching and modeling the protective beauty of authority is one of the foundations of good parenting.
-
Foolishness - Principle: the foolishness inside your children is more dangerous to them than the tempation outside of them. Only God’s grace has the power to rescue fools.
-
Character - Principle: not all of the wrong your children do is a direct rebellion to authority; much of the wrong is a result of a lack of character.
Email us at topics@speakthetruth.org with any topics you'd like us to discuss!!
Episode Resources:
Association of Biblical Counselors - Resources
Episode Notes:
First 5 Principles
-
Calling - Principle: Nothing is more important in your life than being one of God’s tools to form a human soul. The Why.
-
Grace - Principle: God never calls you to a task without giving you what you need to do it. He never sends you without going with you. The How.
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Lelek Quote “God’s grace is more committed to their transformation and good than we will ever be.”
-
Law - Principle: Your children need God’s law, but you cannot ask the law to do what only grace can accomplish.
-
Inability - Principle: Recognize what you are unable to do is essential to good parenting.
-
Identity - Principle: If you are not resting as a parent in your identity in Christ, you will look for identity in your children.
Episode Resources:
Parenting: 14 Gospel Principles That Can Radically Change Your Family - Paul David Tripp
- The Cultural and Moral Crisis: Terrorist Identity
In their book, The Terrorist Identity, Michael P. Arena and Bruce Arrigo (Arrigo is a Professor of Crime, Law, and Society at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte) share their research on the social variables that influence what they call the terrorist identity. They are considering this issue through the lens of Social Identity Theory (a theory that only considers the Biological and Psychosocial strata). Regarding what they refer to as the martyr-identity developed by many terrorists they write:
Perhaps the most poignant illustration of the role that significant others plays with respect to instilling the martyr identity within extremist militants is observable in a photo in Hebron in 2002. The photograph featured the gunman’s infant son dressed in military fatigues complete with a suicide bomber’s harness. Although not all significant others in a fledgling martyr’s life are supportive of such an identity, classmates, teachers, fellow recruits, parents, and family members serve to repeatedly remind some of their shaheed path, obligation, and destiny. Indeed, the social martyr and the extrinsic gratification one receives from significant others causes one to become more committed to this identity. This heightened and intensified commitment increases the identity salience and its proclivity to be activated in a variety of situations (p. 149). (maybe mention the idea of the identity that is “on-line”).
Summary: Sadly, while these authors offer helpful insight, they also view such people as socially constructed machines prepared to activate a specific identity in particular situations. I find this heartbreaking. But, in reference to our current inquiry, we must ask the question: Within the realm of what Transpersonal Psychologist, Ken Wilber, refers to as Flatland, or what I’m referring to as the domains of the biological and psychosocial, on what basis does anyone have the right to strip this young Muslim man from self-identifying as a martyr, finding purpose in that identity, and then carrying out the impulses brought forth by this identity? The materialist idea that the ethics of right and wrong required to judge this young man’s actions are effectively cultivated by culture falls short here. If I immersed myself with this individual for 30 days, it would become profoundly clear that his culture is unquestionably shaping him with an ethic specific to and reasonably prescribed by his culture. If I witnessed his little brother mutilated by an American drone missile and the social response and reinforcements on his identity that such tragedy evoked, then of course his actions are reasonable. According to social theory, who could deny him of this identity and on what basis? Therefore, operating from his self-identity, the idea that it is good and right to kill self and others is sufficiently in accordance with his socially constructed self. To attempt to apply the label of deviant to his identity and actions, within the realm of Flatland, is inconsistent. Who is right? Is anyone right? How do we know?
Isolated in the biological and psychosocial domains, we are left to either reside in what Harvard philosopher, Charles Taylor, describes as the “self-delusion”—a place where we assume all morals are on the same level. In this delusion, we are required to place the self-identity (and the actions pursuant to that identity) of this young terrorist on the same ethical level as our own. Tragically, we must submit to the reality of nihilism. Otherwise, we will need to reconsider the notion that self and culture are sufficient reference points for fully understanding identity and morality.
- The Empirical Crisis: Limits Cited in the Literature
The final limit of self-identity that I will propose is acknowledged by experts in the field. While considering this issue from the lay-level our culture may assume that the case for self-identity is closed, however, a cursory reading of the literature would indicate otherwise. Consider three experts on the matter:
Dr. Daphna Oyserman, Kristen Elmore and George Smith (2012) of the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan state the following:
A rich array of social science theories assumes that the self matters for life choices and behavior, but a similarly robust body of evidence that this so has yet to be assembled. The theory-evidence gap means that, to date, self and identity theories may or may not provide robust models of what self and identity do and how they function…given a large number of publications evoking the self and identity as explanatory factors, failing to attend to the theory evidence gap means that the field as a whole has not made as much progress as might be hoped in understanding self and identity as mental constructs and as forces for action…At worst, the self may not matter at all.
Dr. Jeffery Jensen Arnett of Clark University offers another limitation in the Oxford Handbook of Identity Development (2015). He notes regarding adolescent development research:
…the vast majority of the research on adolescents so far has been conducted in the United States and Canada, and Western Europe. What I have called the ‘neglected 95%’—the vast human population that lives outside the United States—has been almost entirely neglected by research on adolescent identity development.
Finally, Dr. Michael Gerson of California Lutheran University points out the following:
The self and identity have an extensive history in the psychoanalytic literature, as well as general psychology and sociology, and have received renewed attention in the neuroscience literature…Furthermore, these terms figure prominently in discussions of adolescent crises and conflicts, wherein self and identity represent significant distinctions regarding how one knows one’s self or how one is known to others. Neither term, however, has consistent usage in the psychological literature, despite the fact that they appear in tens of thousands of citations.
Citing Westin and Heim, Gerson then concurs with them “that self is a construct suffering from identity confusion.
Summary: Considering the plethora of studies within the literature in the area of identity, we may conclude that many insightful advances have transpired. However, a final conceptual understanding of identity and self-identity are far from resolved. According to just three experts cited above, much more will be required to prove what the various theories in the field purport in their theoretical supposition. We are limited in our empirical development.
- Beyond the Bio-Psychosocial—The Spiritual Order: Johnson explains of this order, the spiritual stratum has to do with the ‘things above’ (Col. 3:2) or the realities in the heavenly places. This order points us to the conclusion of St. Augustine in his Confessions: “Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee!
- A biblical understanding of people and identity does not exclude any of the previous orders discussed in this presentation. We believe the Bible acknowledges the importance of the biological, the psychosocial as well as the ethical. However, I want to submit the idea that the Bible brings resolution to the crises I have previously outlined since it reveals the spiritual. As Christian philosopher, Francis Schaeffer, once taught us, Scripture brings much freedom to the human being, but it also brings Form.
- Self as Created
- Genesis
- “For you formed me in my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.” Psalm 139:13-14
- Created in the image of God
- Every person in this room is crowned with God’s glory.
- We are part of a bigger story.
- Self as Fallen
- Humanity is in a state of sin. While sin may be defined in various ways, Tim Keller in his book, The Reason for God, draws from Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard and defines sin as the following:
Sin is: in despair, not wanting to be oneself before God. Faith is: that the self in being itself and wanting to be itself is grounded transparently in God….Sin is seeking to become oneself, to get an identity, apart from God.
- While people find identity in many things, if God is not the ultimate Person in whom we find our identity, this may lead to instability.
- Identity ultimately rooted in work—becoming a workaholic, daily worries about performance, and uncertainty due to lack of job security. Jobs and careers eventually come to an end.
- Identity ultimately rooted in the country—panic when country and culture begin to change in ways you may not favor.
- Identity rooted in appearance—preoccupation with clothing, physique, or looks. The aging process dispels the safety and longevity of this identity.
- Self as Called—Jesus, through his death upon the Cross and His resurrection from the grave has made possible a way to restore and transform our deepest identity. The call to place faith and therefore your identity in a loving, faithful, kind, stable Source is for anyone in this room and is made possible through the finished work of Jesus Christ upon the Cross + nothing (Schaeffer).
- Self as Christ’s—We don’t have to clean up or work our way into God’s favor. All we must do is know the Gospel and place faith in the Redeemer of that Gospel—Jesus. Upon doing so, our need to scavenge this world for sources of self that will always prove futile will no longer be necessary. In Christ, we are given a perfect identity, for in union with Him, whatever is true of him is now true of us.
- In Christ—
- We are valuable.
- We are of great worth.
- We are eternally loved.
- We are royalty.
- We are accepted.
- We belong.
- We are treasured.
- We are Cherished.
- Not only are these given to us upon placing faith in Jesus, but more importantly we are privileged to know God forevermore, while also taking part in the divine process of transformation wherein we are progressively transformed into the image of glory as found in the person of Jesus Christ.
If we refuse this profoundly gracious offer, I fear we have left a situation Jean-Paul Sarte so eloquently describes. I will close with this:
He “finds it extremely embarrassing that God does not exist, for there disappears with Him all possibility of finding values in an intelligible heaven. There can no longer be any good a priori since there is no infinite and perfect consciousness to think it. It is nowhere written that 'the good' exists, that one must be honest or not lie since we are now upon the plane where there are only men. Dostoevsky once wrote, "If God did not exist, everything would be permitted"; and that, for existentialism, is the starting point. Everything is indeed permitted if God does not exist, and man is in consequence forlorn, for he cannot find anything to depend upon either within or without himself. He discovers forthwith that he is without excuse. For if indeed existence precedes essence, one will never be able to explain one's action by reference to a given and specific human nature; in other words, there is no determinism — man is free, man is freedom. Nor, on the other hand, if God does not exist, are we provided with any values or commands that could legitimize our behavior. Thus we have neither behind us, nor before us in a luminous realm of values, any means of justification or excuse. That is what I mean when I say that man in condemned to be free. Condemned because he did not create himself, yet is nevertheless at liberty, and from the moment that he is thrown into the world he is responsible for everything that he does. (353)
Episode Resources:
Man Rampant - Doug Wilson
Episode Notes:
- What do I, as a Christian, believe about Self-Identity, and are there limits?
- Orders of Meaning (Johnson, Foundations of Soul Care, 2007).
The Biological Order: “...the platform for all higher psychological functioning” (Johnson, p. 336).
- Genetic determinants (i.e., height, eye color, male/female)
- Pre-natal development
- Neuronal maturation
- Neuronal structures
- Brain-structures
The Psychosocial Order: By psychosocial order, we are referring to the immaterial dynamic structures that originate in social interaction (Johnson, p. 337).
- Sensations
- Perceptions
- Stimulus-Responses
- Imaginations
- Concepts
- Schemas
Summary:
- It is these two strata that sociological and psychological research on human nature, identity, and self has exclusively focused.
- Logical positivism dismisses anything that cannot be measured or empirically validated through the Scientific Method. Therefore, the sciences of the self are limited to these two strata.
- The self becomes the ultimate reference point.
- Limits to Self-Identity As I See Them (these 1st two strata are informative)
- The Ontological Crisis—a crisis in my sense of being.
- If all that exists is the Biological and Psychosocial strata then there can be no claim of an actual self. Who you are and who I am are merely mental constructions formulated and organized through our neural networks as we engage in our social environments. When I, Jeremy Lelek, was born, I did not possess a self. I was simply a human with the potential to become a self. There was no inner “I” to discover or an inner “I” knowable by God, rather, who I am today is a complete cognitive construction. In other words, existence precedes essence. If this sounds far-fetched, consider the conclusions of the experts.
- Dr. Daphna Oyserman, Kristen Elmore, and George Smith of the Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan wrote, “Self and identity theories converge in asserting that self and identity are mental constructs, that is, something represented in memory” (p.75)...They also assert that the assumption of a stable self is “belied by the malleability, context-sensitivity, and dynamic construction of the self as a mental construct. Identities are not fixed markers people assume them to be but are instead dynamically constructed in the moment” (p. 70).
- Sheldon Stryker, Indiana University, Bloomingtonwrites, Identities are self-cognitions tied to roles and, through roles, to positions in organized social relationships.
- Steven Hitlin, University of Iowawrites, The self is a socially constructed product of symbolic actors interacting with social environments.
- Bruce Hood, Professor of Developmental Psychology, the University of Bristol and former Research Fellow at Cambridge Universitywrites, This core self, wandering down the path of development, enduring things that life throws at us is, however, the illusion. Like every other aspect of human development, the emergence of the self is epigenetic—an interaction of the genes in the environment (p. 114).
Summary: If self is an illusion, then this leaves us all in a very uncertain predicament. If, as the famed psychologist, William James has said, we have as many selves as the people with whom we interact, and if we are continually forced to reconstruct ourselves based on cultural or contextual situations, and if we are simply material beings driven by natural selection, then we exist in the reality that we are mere cogs in a machine genetically motivated by ultimate survival. We are destined to exist in an illusion as though it ultimately matters.
- The Existential Crisis—The Crisis of Stability and Meaning
- Self-Identity is innately egocentric and individualistic and tends to follow the individualization thesis which, according to Dr. Rob Whitley in the Harvard Review of Psychiatry, “posits that people in post-modern societies are becoming increasingly detached and disembedded from traditional institutions, including extended family, religious congregations, trade unions, and local communities. These ‘mediating structures’ are posited to provide fellowship, identity, and meaning to life.
- While Dr. Whitley mentions some benefits to the post-modern ethos, such as new freedoms for formerly restricted groups, his article cites various experts in the fields of sociology, philosophy and psychology who articulate grave concerns regarding the collision of post-modernism and egocentrism. These concerns include:
- The emergence of the idea of the “empty self” “devoid of meaningful content and connections, a self that is filled up by consumerism and other activities specific to postmodernity.
- A diminished capacity to securely navigate risk and unpredictability leading to a sense of despair.
- Rise of substance abuse, personality disorders, and associated para-suicide in Western societies.
- Acts of self-harm as a means to fill the “empty self”
- Developing anorexia and bulimia as a means to forge a distinctive identity.
- Whitley concludes that in the West especially, “…individuals must engage in constant self-interrogation vis-à-vis day-to-day living to ensure that their current social roles and identities are commensurate with wider values and appropriate changing contexts” (p. 356).
Summary: It seems that one element of the new age in which people are seeking identity within the biological and psychosocial strata exclusively is that many of them are struggling to find a genuine sense of meaning and a secure sense of self. As I read through various articles citing similar concerns as mentioned above the words of the celebrated French existential philosopher, Jean Paul Sarte, came to mind: “No finite point has meaning without an infinite reference point.” Or T.S. Eliot’s chilling poem, Hollow Men, in which he penned:
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Shape without form, shade without color,
Paralyzed force, gesture without motion;…
- The 3rd Crisis brings us into Dr. Johnson’s Ethical Order—What are our values?
- The Psychological Crisis—What is my epistemology?
- If Self-Identity is simply a mental construct, then by what standard do I judge my constructs as being true or false, accurate or inaccurate? How do I know what I know? Is society my standard? Is self my standard? How do I know either of these are correct? This not only creates a problem for the individual person, but it creates tension for the fields of psychiatry, psychology, and sociology as well. For example, the ethics of psychology and counseling encourage what is called a value-neutral stance when working with others. Bringing one’s personal value judgments into the process of therapy would be unethical. Let’s consider the psychological struggle this creates for the individual as well as the practitioner seeking to help him/her.
- Body Dysmorphic Disorder: (DSM-5)
- Preoccupation with one or more perceived defects or flaws in physical appearance that are not observable by others.
- Typical Cognitive Constructs for individuals cited with this diagnosis:
- “I’m ugly.”
- “I’m ugly, therefore I’m unacceptable.”
- This person self-identifies as ugly and unacceptable. On what basis does she determine the accuracy of her statements?
- For the psychologist who might be treating this young lady, on what basis does she stand to ask the client to consider other possibilities? On what basis does the clinician stand to challenge this person’s accepted self-identity?
- What about the individual who self-identifies as “Trans-Gender” and is seeking sexual reassignment? A common cognitive construct cited in the literature for such individuals is:
- I am a female trapped inside a male body.
- This person who is genetically a male self-identifies as a woman. The same question may be posed as was posited previously: On what basis does this individual determine the accuracy of the statements being made.
- Likewise, for the psychologist who might be treating this young man, on what basis does the clinician stand to affirm that the client’s constructs are valid and accurate? On what basis does the psychologist stand to assess that one person’s self-identity is not accurate and the other person’s is absolutely accurate?
Summary: Left with the Biological and the Psychosocial spheres exclusively, these issues become very complicated if one is seeking to remain consistent. The individuals above have no clear epistemological base to judge their self-identifying constructs. If we say that the marker of accuracy for their particular beliefs is how each construct makes the person feel, then we are forced to rely on an aspect of our nature that is not always the most reliable—our emotions. The person who self-identifies as ugly and the person who self-identifies as transgender are both experiencing emotional disturbance as a result of their beliefs. My profession would encourage that I work to help the person who self-identifies as ugly to integrate a different construct (i.e., I’m pretty, I’m acceptable), however, my profession would also encourage me to help the person self-identifying as trans-gender to accept his or her belief, and if desired, pursue sexual reassignment in order to make the body and mental construct congruent. Basically, my profession encourages me to challenge the construct for which there is no empirical, quantitative support from which I could draw in order to challenge (i.e., I’m ugly), yet the construct for which there is quantitative, empirical evidence (i.e., genetics), my profession recommends embracing (i.e., I am a female trapped in a male body). Furthermore, if the defining variables are how one’s mental constructs disturb one’s emotional state, then what are we to do with the person diagnosed with Narcissistic Personality Disorder whose self-identity of “I’m superior” and “I’m invincible” creates no emotional disturbance at all, yet qualifies the individual as being disordered. Is this biased? Is it consistent? More importantly, how do we know?
Episode Resources:
Foundations For Soul Care - Eric Johnson
Pete’s Pastoral Journey
◎ Corban University
- Western Baptist College
◎ Being a pastor was about preaching, or so he thought.
◎ Has been involved within a lot of ministry groups.
◎ Biblical Counseling
◎ the staff went through the equipped to counsel
◎ They also went through Self-Confrontation
◎ Learning to apply the word/counseling to the hurt of man
◎ Using Self-Confrontation and equipped to counsel as resources - systematically, and practically
◎ Biblical Counseling has really helped him as a pastor/shepherd
◎ If I was bringing in any staff, I would have them go through some sort of regimented curriculum of biblical counseling, especially pastors/teachers because it's more than just teaching, it's caring for souls.
◎ come in and earn the trust of the sheep.
◎ His pastor poured into him and discipled him.
◎ Having a heart for the people, it's not just teaching the people.
◎ It’s the work of the ministry before its the teaching of the ministry.
Episode Resources:
- Corban University
- Western Seminary
- Made To Minster
- Salem Heights Church
- Journey started as homework components that were created as counseling was happening.
- Application questions
- Theological concepts that continued to come up regardless of the format
- Drawing out charts with those who were being counseled, turning that into charts that could be reproducible.
- The counselor can actually use the book with those receiving biblical counseling - starting with the gospel and building on the gospel with theological tracks.
- Establishing the fundamentals with the counselee’s; who is God, what do they think about God, do they know how scripture reveals God.
- Each chapter has reflective questions that can be used with the counselee that interacts the material.
- The resource was written to bring someone along; a lay leader can use this resource with someone in the faith, at work, or someone who is beginning biblical counseling.
- The counselee’s use this book by reading the chapter as a homework assignment, talk about it, how it may have applied to the counselee’s life, and then answer the reflective questions, and then discuss them in the next session.
- It helps the counselee notice when they lean back into a man-centered perspective instead of a God-centered perspective.
Episode Resources:
Journey: A Path To Biblical Change - Laura Chica
Made To Minister Website - Resources
Experience Bible Studies - Emily Dempster & Julie Bernard
Episode Notes:
– Made to minister Regional Conference W/Carl & Laura Chica from Salem Heights Church.
– The Unfortunate Reality of Oregon’s mental illness epidemic among children and adolesence; they have the highest rate of suiscide attempts, depression, and anxiety in the country and don’t have the help they need to meet the need with licensed professional counselors.
– Most folks are having to wait several weeks to receive help, so they’ve bee working
– Suicidality; 4 pepople above the national average
– 1,800/kids per national helath professional vs. Oregon’s average 10k/kids per national health professional
– One of our children has walked through mental illness, so it has prepared us for what God had brought to us as the church.
– Their church need began to be known among the community to where they were receiving a great response for real help that the state and state sponosored help wasn’t able to provide help to the extent they were able to provide.
– Over n’ Over again, they noticed the church and the church commiunity was able to provide a sense of purpose and help, namely Christ, that people were able to experience real hope and life change.
– Most of those who struggle with mental illness isolate themselves, but the biblical community of the church helps provide a loving accontablity.
– Made To Minister is “made” to come along someone who needs help, ministering. The state isn’t able to accomplish that in of iteself.
– One of the struggles is that, historically, the church has reduced mental illness/struggles is that it can be resolved with more reading of scripture, prayer, etc. So we’ve drawn attention to the physiological reality of the implications of mental illness.
– The millenial generation has been labeled the therapy generation; they’re open to emotional struggles. They’re saying that 51% of them have addmitted to losing a job because of emotional dispositions and supposed mental illnesses.
– Join us to help minister -
Episode Resources
- Made To Minister's - Website
- Journey - A Path To Biblical Change
Episode Notes:
– Salem Heights, Lead Pastor, Justin Greene,
– Carl Chica, Pastor of pastoral care & counseling
– Bringing biblical counseling in their local church context, origin, and development of biblical counseling in their church; the impact in the local church and in the community at large.
– The ministry started to happen naturally; given the need and just starting counseling as the need came.
– It began small but had a quick and immediate impact within the body, so they started equipping the lay leaders in their church.
– Being a light in a dark place like Oregon where the need is so great.
– Be Bold - Street Ministry going back into the streets that they were delivered from.
– Identifying leaders; observing those who were responding richly to the Word of God, who do people go to when they're having problems, etc.
– Having a person aside from you so we don’t isolate - having a person walking alongside the struggling.
– They hired a pastor to build the counseling ministry.
– What’s the need? Determining the need determines the process and decision of the counseling ministry.
– We’re working together, it's an “in tandem” approach.
– Pursue discipleship, be available to others; leaders don’t have to wait, serve now.
– Pastor’s don’t have to be territorial, they just need to be available.
– Paul needed a Barnabas, so find them, and cultivate them, and launch them out in your church.
Episode Resources:
Made To Minister Website & Resources
Salem Heights Church
Email Questions To: topics@speakthetruth.net
- Episode Notes
- Moving from Planting (Metro Church) to an already established church (The Mount).
- Creating an environment that allows people to struggle, starting from the platform.
- Truth Renewed isn’t a replacement for the church regarding counseling, but an overflow of care.
- Truth Renewed is a training center to help equip church leaders to become biblical counselors and launch biblical counseling in the local church.
- Trident of ministry; robust theology, organization strategy, counsel and care.
- In the same way, we raise up leaders to make Sunday happen, we need to raise up care leaders for the rest of the week - where ministry lives.
- Don’t stop plowing, it takes time to bring life change and equipping the saints.
- Trust the process of sanctification.
- Find those in your congregation who are gifted in caring for others, they’re serious about God’s Word and the process of transformation, and scholarship them.
- Find a line item in your budget to cultivate the saints in soul care.
- The posture of a pastor should be a leader of learning.
- Sunday morning is to edify the saints.
- Email us on any topics; topics@speakthetruth.org
- Reach out to Shauna if you’d like to start a biblical counseling ministry @ christiancounseling.com
Episode Resources:
- The Mount Church
- Metro Church
- Rage Ministries
- Instruments in the Redeemer's Hand's
- Christiancounseling.com
- Information about training your lay leaders as biblical counselors or becoming a training center, email Shauna, Shauna@christiancounseling.com
Six Scriptural Truths that we need to focus on:
- Gal. 1.10 - Trusting in the LORD. What we trust is where our fear comes from.
- Faith is the willingness to look foolish.
- Humility - it’s not about me, but the work that God is accomplishing through me.
- James 3.13-18 - Wisdom from above, anything else is demonic.
- Jn 20.21 - Peace in the Father’s Will.
- Ezk. 2: 1-6: God’s will over man’s; we’ve been called into this co-prophets of God’s gospel - man won’t hear it all the time, but God has given us the “go-and-make” call, the gospel is prophetic!
- Col. 3.15-17 - Thankfulness
- Pro. 29.25 - Safty
Episode Notes:
- As a podcast devoted to biblical truth for counseling & discipleship for the counselor and local church, we wanted to invite our friend, Ronnie Mills,
- Pastor of Kingdom Chapel North Fort Worth
- Baptist Missionary Association of Texas help Ronnie launch out in their church plant
- Kingdom Chapel is located Alliance Christian Academy
- Biblical counseling training has greatly improved his discipleship efforts and his preaching.
- Biblical counseling has already begun to be rooted in the DNA of the church, so we can raise up leaders through discipleship and biblical counseling to strengthen the body, and keep it healthy.
- Email Speak The Truth about getting a biblical counseling ministry started in your church; topics@speakthetruth.org
- 5 Resolves for soul care
- God has called me
- God has gone before me
- Pastor now - shepherd now
- Stay relative to “us”. .....
- Raise leaders - we can’t do this on our own.
- The hardest thing about church planting is putting yourself out there.
- Fear of man becomes a huge struggle for putting yourself out there as leaders.
Episode Resources:
- Kingdom Chapel - North Fort Worth
- Missionary Baptist Association of Texas
- Truth Renewed Biblical Counseling
- Association of Biblical Counselors
- Alliance Christian Academy
- Exemplary Husband - Stewart Scott
Episode Notes:
◎ Scriptural examples: Jer. 17.5 - a powerful diagnostic
◎ living a cursed life when we anchor our lives in the flesh of our selves and others; living life in our own way.
◎ Ps. 1
◎ a thriving fruitful tree even in a time of drought.
◎ Where does he place the location of the problem?
◎ How much change would be established if he changed his routines?
◎ Does he understand his own anger?
◎ Proverbs, Psalms, etc. speak to the nature of anger; who’s is the object of his anger?
◎ Jer. 17.9-10; human nature demonstrates the nature of the heart, how is he examining his heart and the result of anger?
Episode Notes:
◎ Andy reports being angry all the time
◎ Things we would address with Andy based on the summary of his behavior and his own perspective on life
◎ what does he think is going on
◎ what does he really get angry about
◎ Does Andy have a victim mindset?
◎ Was he motivated by his dad’s approval?
◎ What is uninteresting about God
◎ Does he consider himself as a Christian?
◎ More discussion around his understanding of God.
◎ How does he understand his own anger?
◎ What does Andy think his problem is?
Episode Notes:
Marks from Joseph Pipa's book - The LORD's Day
◎ Scriptures: Isa 58:13-14; The purpose of the Sabbath -
◎ pg. 13; 17 (Rev. 1.10)
Original Intent Gen. 2.1-3;
◎ The market day of the Soul Exod. 20.9-11;
◎ pg. 42; 44-45;
First Day Sabbath Heb. 4.9-10
Ex. 20:8-15: In the same way the 7th commandment speaks to the ordinance of marriage - the creational mandate - by not committing adultery, and the 8th structures the creation ordinance of work.
Episode Resources:
Joseph Pipa - The Lord's Day
James K. A. SMITH - HOW NOT TO BE SECULAR
James Taylor - Secular Age
Episode Notes:
◎ Self-Care: how to avoid burnout.
◎ Going beyond our Sunday services and quite times to ensure we’re investing in our soul’s with God’s Word.
◎ Psalm 73.26, not Psalm. 76.13, there is no verse 13.
◎ 26 My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. (Ps. 73.26)
◎ Establishing a rhythm of rest at least one day of the week.
◎ Physically, Spiritually, Intellectually, Emotionally
◎ Ps. 46.10
◎ A way to prevent taking things home is resting in the theological doctrine of God’s sovereignty - realizing God’s care and concern for those that we’re counseling.
◎ How do I work through the burden for them and their circumstances and be ok with how my circumstances are not nearly as difficult
◎ Taking those thoughts captive when we begin to feel guilty that our lives aren’t “as bad as others who suffer more”.
◎ Counseling will invariably stir up our own stuff.
◎ Who’s in our life to speak into our life when we get stirred?
◎ Physically, we need to be far more intentional with being active and creating a healthier diet.
◎ Planning is the most important part of self-care.
Episode Resources:
Call the sabbath a delight - Walter J. Chantry
The Lord’s Day - Joseph A. Pipa, JR.
Instruments In the redeemer’s hands - Paul Tripp
Episode Notes:
◎ How would you dig into some of the particulars that they’re struggling with that affecting their sex life and ultimately, their marital life?
◎ how they’re day-to-day grind is affecting their marriage, sexually, emotionally, and intellectually. that they’ve become so horizontally focused that they’ve lost sight of the vertical importance to their horizontal.
◎ Defining the Why of what we do.
◎ Do they see how they're destroying one another?
◎ How can they incarnate a merciful spirit?
◎ Identify the schema of their belief…go to those hurtful places and their beliefs of one another, that reinforces their spirit of justice.
◎ Fill in the blank statements that reveal their primary schema, and begin to offer ways to tweak their thinking.
◎ 1 Pet. 2.16-23; a text to demonstrate our call to good regardless of what’s being done to us.
◎ Working through the biblical category of removing and replacing.
Episode Resources:
◎ Sex and the supremacy of Christ
◎ Sexual Sanity (men)
◎ Sexual Sanity (women)
◎ Christiancounseling.com
◎ Speakthetruth.org
Episode Notes:
– Marital Case study
– Doing a thorough assessment of their sexual backgrounds, what they’ve experienced personally, what they’ve observed by their parents or familial context, etc.
– Are there emotional, physical, or psychological issues that are affecting the there sex life, frequency, duration, etc.
– What’s going on in their hearts?
– Be quicker to focus on the vertical than the horizontal in their marriage.
Episode Notes:
◎ Self Forgiveness: Can you forgive yourself?
◎ In order to have forgiveness, there needs to be an offender and a victim.
◎ People who use this statement are really dealing with something, but this isn't a correct articulation or rendering of what one is working out.
◎ 2 Cor. 7.8-10 is a text that does speak to grief; worldly grief vs. godly grief.
◎ Godly grief produces life and worldly grief produces death.
◎ they need to move through worldly grief, over sin, to godly grief over sin to life and freedom.
◎ We cannot remove or renounce God’s judgment, and pronounce ourselves as judge….we need to humble ourselves and let God be God.
◎ It’s not self-forgiveness, but rather, receiving the full measure of grace that Christ accomplished on the cross.
◎ It's not self-forgiveness, but embracing God’s grace.
◎ Self-forgiveness is emotively based.
◎ The object of godly grief was not to alleviate the grief, but that it would produce something beautiful in a person, an effort to change one’s life.
Episode Resources
- Piper Audio from DesiringGod
- Gospel Coalition Article
- Robert D. Jones Book - I can't forgive myself
◎ The counselor and their counseling methods
◎ How to’s
◎ the time away from the counseling room is where the majority of our method is drawn for homework.
◎ the extent of homework is contingent upon the counselee; every counselee is different therefore, the amount or frequency of any homework is based on the nature of the situation and the person working through it.
◎ ABC offers a variety of "homework helps" for counselors and their counselee’s.
◎ The heart of the matter series; practical sheet - heart log - where the counselee captures the situation, their emotions, thoughts, desires, and behaviors.
◎ Often times, our homework given is based on reorienting someone’s way they interact with scripture.
◎ Watch out for those “Sunday School” answers, help your counselee wrestle by engaging with the scriptures in a way that incites their hearts and their situation.
Episode Resources:
- Christian Counseling - counseling homework helps
Episode summary:
In this episode, the hosts discuss cultivating some counseling methods with the analogy of a farmer, which as biblical counselors we're taking God's Word and sowing it with our counselee's, and the importance of being encouraged through engaging our peers with prayer, and God's Word.
Episode Notes:
- Discussion based on Ch. 13 of Jeremy’s new book, “biblical counseling basics”
- As Counselor’s we’re bringing access to a myriad of identities; we could be an ambassador for another kingdom, we could be being used as an instrument of mercy and grace.
- Biblical counseling is a process of learned dependency.
- We're farmers in those moments in counseling; it's God who brings the harvest in someone's life and how he chooses to use the seeds we plant as biblical counselors.
- As biblical counselors, we have something that even the most renown scholar in psychology doesn't have, we have the Holy Spirit. And he is even more committed to the people we counsel, so we don't need to be doubtful in our ability.
- As a farmer, we're focusing more on the scriptures than the skills.
Episode Notes:
- A biblical anthropology rooted in the gospel completely rewires human psychology from the way we think and to our affections.
- In counseling, we’re not trying to better the old man, but rather, we’re trying to cultivate the new man.
- Humanism’s anthropology is to try and better the old man, which cannot accomplish what it sets out to do.
- Gospel driven counseling is set to cultivate the new man as described by scripture.
- Loyalty war that rages within, the fight for worship. The flesh is set on worshiping creation and self, where the spirit is set on having us worship God.
- The Holy Spirit is at work in us to transform our desires, and to set them upon The LORD.
- The hierarchy of needs model is a passive heart approach, but a biblical model says the heart will elevate an appropriate desire to an inappropriate level rendering them even sinful.
Episode Resources:
Ed Welch
Paul Tripp
St. Augustin
Martin Luther
James K. A. Smith You Are What You Love
Johnathan Edwards - The Freedom of the will
Abraham Maslow - Hierarchy of needs
Episode Notes:
- The Imago Dei; we are made in God’s image, and we’re to be imaging(mirroring)who God is in order to bring him glory.
- There is no Imago Dei in humanistic thought, it's just the id, superego, etc. that there is nothing inherently wrong with man, its just the impact and influence of his environment.
- The “S” word; sin isn’t even a category in humanism.
- A scenario of adultery would be blamed on something in the brain, some disorder, manic episode of bipolar, etc, but wouldn’t be looked at as sin.
- In biblical counseling, we’re to go beyond just reducing sin to behaviors, but we want to acknowledge its a spiritual disease that still has influence on what we’re thinking, feeling, and ultimately act.
- Jesus points out the real problem with our hearts, our propensity to try and serve two masters - we will functionally love the one and hate the other. Masters of our flesh and pursuing our desires, or pursuing God and his will.
- There are huge differences between these worldview’s; even the category of forgiveness is is lost in translation.
- Humanism would treat forgiveness as an emotional process, not a moral command like a biblical worldview would treat forgiveness.
- A biblical worldview would say, forgiveness is the bases to work on my anger verses the humanistic view of process through your emotion and then forgive.
Episode Notes:
- Establishing both views; secular worldview on anthropology and a biblical worldview of anthropology.
- Humanism began to take an overt stance in psychology by Abraham Maslow, founder of humanistic psychology.
- Humanism has man at the center of everything.
- Egocentrism unfortunately has crept into the evangelical church with its ear tickling.
- Symptom alleviation, better circumstances, etc.
- Darwinian evolution had a huge impact on psychology.
- The world started from primordial soup, and over billions of years, we evolved from fish to philosophers - being factious.
- Freud - psychosexual development - all our human development has a foundation in our sexuality.
- Id - darker side, tempted us, superego - our conscience, ego - the mediator
- Our view of human nature drives our diagnostic framework.
- Carl Rogers believed - non directional approach, given a positive direction, the client would find their potential and flourish.
- Our view of human nature not only tells us what’s wrong but also provides a prescription to make things right.
- Alfred Kinsey - father of propagating the sexual revolution.
Show Resources:
- Biblical Counseling Basics - Jeremy Lelek
Show Notes: Resisting big God theology in counseling: Is the Holy Spirit a gentlemen?
- Is the Holy Spirit a gentlemen, would he ever impose himself when believers aren’t ready?
- Does scripture teach this idea?
- Phil. 2
- The New Testament, Galatians 5 for example, demonstrates that these two natures are against one another. One is of the flesh and one is of the spirit.
- The flesh produces flesh, one will not come to god when they’re ready.
Show Resources:
- The Cost of Discipleship - Dietrich Bonhoeffer
- Chosen By God - R.C. Sproul
- The illusion of a gentleman god - monergism article
Show Notes:
The Holy Spirit in counseling.
- How does the Holy Spirit apply what Christ accomplished? He is the one who brings change, real change. Not behavioral modification, etc.
- John 14:15-17
- The Spirit is the one who brings about change, His timing.
- Who is the Holy Spirit
- He regenerates God's people(jn. 3.5; Titus 3.5)
- He produces conviction of sin(Jn. 16.8)
- He reveals truth through God’s Word(Jn. 16.13)
- See the rest: pg. 122 of biblical counseling basics; its roots, beliefs, and future.
- The third person of the trinity, the Holy Spirit has claimed the terrain of human flourishing. Pg.122
- How can we apply this to the local church?
- The Holy Spirit is more committed to the process of change for an individual than we can accomplish. In other words, we don’t possess the power to make someone change, that is, and can only be accomplished by the Spirit of God.
- God uses three change agents; people, circumstances, and spiritual disciplines.
- Be public with our weaknesses
Show Resources Mentioned:
When God Weeps - Joni Eareckson Tada
Joni's talk from the 2017 Called to Counsel Conference - Video
Show Summary:
Our co-host, Jeremy launches right into a question that speaks to the tensions that exist within the christian community with psychology and theology. Eric provides a robust response that captures the reality of differing worldview’s within psychology, but provides a persuasive wholistic response for Christians to do their research and take back psychology. Faith and science are not opposed to one another. However, psychology needs to be taken back by rendering it into biblical categories instead of humanistic categories - a must listen!
Jeremy’s question: tensions that exists within the christian community with psychology and theology?
- Every worldview has a view of psychology.
- Modern psychology was borne within the naturalistic worldview.
- Modern psychology’s naturalism leaves out
- God (creator)
- Redemption ( the hope of man) we can’t self-actualize in a way that glorifies God, we’re dependent on him. It’s always going to be truncated and distorted with its conclusions.
- As christians, we need to be doing our own research within our worldview.
- Center of modern therapy
- Self(anthropocentric) - its the religious system
- Center of Biblical counseling
- Christ is the center (christocentric)
- Made in the image of God
- Created us for himself
- Human flourishing is dependence on God through Christ by the Spirit.
- Christ is the center (christocentric)
- The topic of autonomy in modern psychology
- Autonomy is an illusion - biblically speaking
- According to a humanistic worldview, autonomy is a goal of leaving the past, forging myself, choosing to be what one wants to be.
- Sanctification in his book
- Soul-brain
- Underscores the intimacy of the immaterial and material unity and reality of our soul and brain - neuropsychology.
- God working with us the way we are - our need to surrender our body to righteousness.
- Soul-brain
- Biopsychosocial damage
- Weakness - condition that’s less than God’s design. Whether it’s biologically given, it can be experienced in the implications of living in a fallen world, dysfunctional families, traumatic experiences, etc.
- We are made for communal living with God and experiencing his love.
Resources sites in the episode:
God & Soul Care - Eric Johnson
Foundations For Soul Care - Eric Johnson
Show notes:
Cultural view of depression
- Treats it like a disease, attributing it or reducing it to a chemical imbalance or a genetic disposition. These aren’t invalid, but it causes a quick diagnosis so it can be treated quickly. It can almost promise a remedy, which scripturally speaking, is much deeper, its more of a heart problem that has physiological and emotional implications. Therefore, culture has a very superficial view and resolution to depression, very much consistent with the medical model. This isn’t bad, its just incomplete and a truncated resolution because it doesn’t deal with the heart of a person which is where the root of depression is planted.
- Medication implications - they don’t necessarily fix the problem, but ultimately mask the problem and often times creates new symptoms. As biblical counselors, we wouldn’t counsel clients to stop taking meds, but to seek their medical professional.
- Placebo testing with depression medications demonstrated that the prospect of hope helped tremendously with those struggling with depression. If a placebo provided hope imagine what real hope can do for those depressed; the gospel provides a living hope to the hopeless.
General & Biblical Notes on Depression:
- Depression is a progression; when unbelief goes isolated, and it's allowed to reign and nothing else is pressing in on that like community groups, discipleship, etc. its very likely one can slip into a bout of depression.
- Paul’s teaching on suffering is helpful. Gal. 6.1-5.
- Imagine our community group leaders who respond in a Gal. 6.1-5 way?
- Learning from depression - learning to preach the gospel to ourselves and having others in our lives to speak into them.
- The gospel gap - gospel truth. Learning to orient our hearts in the place of sorrow.
- Learning to abide in Christ
- Gospel Community is so necessary for those struggling with depression.
Show Resource Notes:
- Soul Care Consulting
- Journal for biblical counseling
- Martin Lloyd Jones - Spiritual Depression
- Ed Welch - Stubborn Darkness
Episode Summary:
Curtis takes time to Demystify PTSD by removing the D out of it. It’s not an abnormal reaction to normal life, but it’s really a normal response to really extreme and difficult circumstances. PTSD is severely misunderstood, and in this episode Curtis offers a robust understanding to the nature and scope of PTSD.
Episode Notes:
How do we demystify PTSD?
- With the Counselee, helping them understand what’s going on physiologically and spiritually as far as what they're facing because the body naturally responds to trauma, and the physiological implications of fight or flight that is associated with fear.
- This isn’t just a military issue.
- First responders experience a lot of trauma, as well as familial experiences and events.
- People respond to trauma differently, and there are a lot of factors that play into manifestations of trauma.
- Pre traumatic factors involves a lot around how one grew up, experiences, core beliefs, worldview, etc. All of these factors play into the way someone responds to suffering, hardship, and trauma.
- Peri Traumatic - how are you responding to suffering, what was actually going on in the event itself, what happened to me, was it something I did, who was involved, etc.
- Where to start with a PTSD case, first develop trust. Going into the time with humility, and ask good questions.
- Ways for churches to best minister to those struggling with PTSD
- Disassociation, removing yourself from reality and entering back into a traumatic scenario.
Show Resource Mentions:
- Biblical Counseling Coalition
- 15:14 Podcast
- Mighty Oaks Warrior Program
- Demystifying PTSD
- Garrett Higbee
Jonathan discusses his heart behind his book, "Counsel for Couples: A Biblical and Practical Guide for Marriage Counseling", and as a pastor and biblical counselor, discusses the need for the local church to have marriage counseling available in the local church. He expresses the urgency for the local church to have a "culture of care" and to promote preventative ministries. This book is unique because it could be used for lay leaders, church leaders, and leadership development....A must have resource!
A Few Points:
- There isn’t really anything available that speaks directly to lay people, church leaders who could use it as a resource., user friendly, helpful as soon as you pick it up.
- Using this book for leadership development would be extremely useful.
- Fieldstone grew outside of the church.
- Pastors move from scripture to life and counselors are trying to move from life to scripture. -
- For pastors who are preaching week to week; if you’re trying to move from Scripture to life, all counseling is, is moving from life to scripture.
- Don’t counsel alone, bring others in with you. Reduplicate yourselves.
- An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Promote preventative ministries.
Resources From Episode"
- Park Side church
- Fieldstone Counseling
- Biblical Counseling Coalition
- Counsel for Couples
Greg Wilson discusses the nature and scope of “Domestic Violence”, defined and explained.
The church hasn’t done well in this category of ministry.
- Desecrating the image of God in another person. Where man has perverted the dominion that God gave man to rule and subdue the earth, but in man’s sinful state, he corruptly exerts power through violence.
- Definition: the desecration of the image of God through patterns of intentionally misusing power overtly or covertly in words or actions to gratify self.
- We need to engender a little more fear in the church to reveal the reality and frequency of it.
- Indicators of possible abuse
- Broadly, dominates control of emotional liberty, limiting relationships, finances, elements of control.
- Gas lighting - convincing the other spouse that they’re crazy, and thus gaining control over the other person. Colloquially, crazy making.
- Triangulating tactics towards the counselor in counseling done through the perpetrator in counseling, so domestic abuse is happening in real time in the counseling session.
- Covert abuse.
- In domestic abuse cases, the counselor, if not careful, can sound like the abuser by telling the victim what they need to do.
- Safety planing;
- Short term plans
- Long term plans
- In counseling, we need to help rescuing the oppressed, God did!
- In the church, we need to be rescuing the oppressed, not encouraging the them to stay in that situation.
- Church; care before you correct on these domestic abuse cases.
Episode References:
- Soul Care Associates
- Brad HamBrick
- Chris Moles
- Darby Strickland
- Association of Biblical Counselors
- The Village Church
Show Notes:
Paul Tripp discusses his heart behind his recent book release on suffering, “Suffering: gospel hope when life doesn’t make sense”, which was largely due to his own recent experiences in suffering through acute renal failure. Listen as Paul shares the nature of suffering and our response to it.
"Tweetable Tripp one-liners" from the episode
- Suffering is spiritual warfare
- Suffering isn’t neutral, we never come to suffering empty; we don’t suffer the thing your suffering, you suffer the way your suffering the thing your suffering.
- We have a dark ability to trouble our own trouble.
- Our bad theology is making a mess of our suffering.
- God doesn’t need us to be healthy to use us; that’s a human way of thinking.
- The move of grace is not from dependency to independency, but the move of grace is from independence to dependence.
- We’re afraid to be honest and transparent because we don’t believe the gospel.
- As Christians, we should be able to be the most honest community on the on the earth.
- As christians we struggle with believing the now-ism of the goepl of Jesus Christ.
- As christians, we need to stop having cosmetic relationships.
- God makes his invisible grace visible by sending people of grace to give grace to people who need grace, that’s how it works, modeling that incarnational living.
- Our weakness is God’s workroom.
Episode Resource Links:
- Paul Tripp Ministries - New Morning Mercies
- Paul Tripp App
Show Resources:
- John Frame : Systematic Theology An Introduction to the Christian Faith
- Tim Challies - Visual Theology
- Extravagant Grace
- Biblical Counseling Basics
Episode Notes:
As believers, we’re counseling from a very different location than the secular person. The secular world counsels to the ego, a man-centered location. Whereas, the believer is being counseled from a theocentric perspective, a God-centered perspective on life. In order to know ourselves, we must know the God of scripture. We cannot truly know ourselves, unless we know God. Hence, being made is God’s image, Gen. 1.26-27.
A right understanding of this helps us to think through reasoning our circumstances from God downward to us instead of reasoning upward to God. Our theology matters when we begin to ask questions to interpret the why behind our pain and suffering. In other words, the Omni’s of God’s attributes; his omnipresence, omnipotence, and omniscience, has everything to do with our circumstances and response.
Show References:
- Jeremy Lelek’s book: Biblical Counseling Basics
- Colossians 1.13; Deuteronomy 29:29; Proverbs 3:5-6
- St. Augustine: The City of God
- Eric Johnson's God & Soul Care: The Therapeutic Resources of the Christian Faith
- John Calvin: Institutes of the Christian Religion
- A.W. Tozer: knowing God
- Jay Adams: Competent to Counsel
- David Powlison - Christian Counseling Education Foundation
- Thomas Brooks: Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices
Show Description:
Jeremy concludes the discussion regarding biblical counseling and its implications on the local church. He demonstrates from Ephesians 4:11-16, that equipping the Saints for the work of the ministry has immediate implications on the church’s ability to equip the believers for one another ministry even to the extent of intensive discipleship, which is biblical counseling.
Is there a difference between discipleship and counseling?
We’re convinced that there isn’t much difference in terms of the believers responsibility to minister to one another. Discipleship can be viewed categorically; there is intentional discipleship, leading believers to know God’s Word, growing in their knowledge and grace of God. And then intensive discipleship and corrective discipleship, where it’s issue specific or topically specific. Then corrective, where sin is involved towards God and one another. All of this is in the scope biblical counseling and discipleship.
Jeremy in the urgency to one another well with our brothers and sisters in Christ, reminds us that if we’re not barring their burdens, they’re getting help from the secular world that isn’t producing gospel-centered responses to what they're going through. Our culture is overly psychologized and if we’re continuing in our passivity and not being intentional with our neighbor, we’re not presenting a gospel that really saves. Like Eph. 4:14, modern psychology has a doctrine, and it’s humanistic. Look at the self-help section in book stores or literary genres online, it's “me-istic”. Let's push to get biblical counseling back in our local church!!
Show References:
- Jeremy's Book: Biblical Counseling Basics: its Roots, beliefs, and future
- Quote Cited: “genuine biblical counseling cannot be effectively practice in isolation from the church.” pg.167
- Scripture focus: Ephesians 4:11-14
- Paul Tripp: Your Walk with God is a Community Project
- Society Life Magazine: Everyday Counselor Piece
- Robby Gallaty: Replicate Ministries
- Association of Biblical Counselors: Equipped To Counsel
In this episode, Jeremy provides a distinction between “Christian counseling”, and Biblical Counseling, their theories and methodologies. And then an historical survey of soul care from the time of St. Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, The Puritans acute knowledge and awareness of soul care, to Martin Luther, and through the modernist movement that pioneered the scope of modern psychology as we know it today, and then provides the state of urgency for the local church today.
Episode Links:
Jeremy Lelek's Book - Biblical Counseling Basics
St Augustine - brief autobiography
Thomas Aquinas - brief autobiography
Martin Luther - Bondage of the will
Richard Baxter - The Christian Directory
Modernist Movement: Wilhelm Wundt, Sigmund Frued, Carl Rogers
David Powlison - 2nd Generation Biblical Counseling Movement (please pray for David, he has cancer)
Paul Tripp - 2nd Generation Biblical Counseling Movement
Instruments in The Redeemer's Hands: Love, Know, Speak, Do
In this episode, our hosts take time to introduce themselves; their personal lives, ministry lives, and church lives. They share their journey’s of following Jesus and how The LORD has used their lives to impact others.
Mike & Shauna talk about their early years of marriage and struggles, work and career paths, and God's Sovereign plan in their lives. The founding of Truth Renewed Ministries.
Jeremy shares God's early hand in bringing about his family, his pathway for his profession as a licensed professional counselor and founder of Metroplex Counseling & Association of Biblical counselors.
The Hosts talk a little about the current climate of biblical counseling and the local church's need to respond proactively to the need of their people and realizing this a gospel issue, and therefore, a discipling issue.
In this episode, one of the hosts', Mike Van Dyke, reveals who will be co-hosting with him to provide a weekly podcast to edify the local church in biblical counseling and discipleship. Speak The Truth will consist of three host; Mike & Shauna Van Dyke, founders of Truth Renewed Ministries, a biblical counseling ministry. And they'll be joined with co-host, Jeremy Lelek, President of Association of Biblical counselors and Metroplex Counseling. In this trailer, Mike shares what the nature of the podcast will be, and encourages the local church to stay tuned as they begin to bring weekly podcast for the edification of the local church.
This is a show intro/outro, please stay tuned for more to come. Our regular hosts will be Mike Van Dyke, Shauna Van Dyke, Founders of Truth Renewed Ministries, and Jeremy Lelek, President and Founder of Association of Biblical Counselors.