Total Church review chapter 8

There is little doubt that pastoral care has more and more moved into the arena of the professional counselor. There is a great deal of intimidation and even projected condemnation when pastors attempt to do counsel or worse yet encourage small group leaders to wade into the lives of their members. A certain aura of self proclaimed success is projected by the professional field that is just not reality. Most people are not helped aside from healthy strong relationships outside of the counseling sessions. At the end of the day the people who are helped often are set free more because of the relationships which grow strong walking together through crisis, than they are from the counseling. I agree with the comments at the bottom of page 128 that as "people are encouraged to define themselves as victims" and "are encouraged to seek out professional counseling", they "become disinclined to depend on each other in the normal routine of relationships". I also love the bold statement on page 129 "It is our conviction that the gospel word and gospel community do not fail us when it comes to pastoral care." We are often paralyzed by our speculation of the worse case scenarios of failure if we attempt to deal with people's problems. Our concern is misplaced. Professional counseling fails just as frequently as other methods of help and with just as horrible consequences. Recent reports by the Center of Disease Control and Prevention, which performs the government studies for suicide, state that suicide among Hispanics is half as much as the general public and the study indicates that the reasons are, religious teaching that suicide is a sin and the closeness of their family units.

Another point that I see being made on page 129 under the chapter heading "The Sufficient Gospel Word", is concerning the supposed dichotomy between teaching the Bible and counseling. To think that a sermon is a generic safe means of addressing people's need through scripture but that personal counseling using the scripture is crossing a line of safety, is to say that the Bible is not sufficient. If we truly believe that Jesus is the answer to social as well as personal issues, then He is sufficient for the needs of crisis. In every personal crisis transformation is the solution and transformation always occurs through application of the scripture through interpersonal relationships. II Peter 1:3-4 is true and has been made available to all who are in Christ. Two books I would highly recommend on this concept are "How People Change" by Timothy Lane and Paul Tripp and also "The Peace Making Pastor" by Alfred Poirier. Both books should be required reading for all pastors. They also deal with the God ordained ability or pastoral gifting promised as an unction from the Holy Spirit to all those who are called Christians.

On page 133 is a powerful statement of truth that when I turn in on myself, I am turning away from God!!! From the first full paragraph on page 133 through the end of the chapter I highlighted pretty much all of it and covered the pages with asterisks. It is vital that we deeply imprint into our hearts and minds the principles of relationship before we enter crisis or we will through our fallen nature drift into a place of dark loneliness purposely isolating ourselves from the only true help we have which is community. Because of our fallen nature we fall towards self pity and only want sympathy when in crisis. We absolutely do not want the confrontation of truth even though that may be our best help. Other than physical need, when people came to Jesus with crisis, most often, he addressed the issues with challenges concerning heart. The 4 keys for life changing truth about God on page 138 are tremendous applications for addressing issues in each others lives and really are true points of consideration when dealing with each others issues.