There are people who profess the Gospel that have deep rooted problems in their lives that may include suffering from mental and physical abuse, betrayal of love ones, alcohol fetal syndrome, ADD, a deep rooted sin they a are struggling with, harm they did to somebody else. Moral decay isn’t the only problem Pastors are dealing with.
Anger Management is a deep rooted problem a christian friend of mine has been struggling with. Biblically shaking the Demons that have a stronghold in peoples lives is becoming overwhelming.
Some people who are suffering from health issues like sleep apnea (which is a major sleep disorder) can cloud ones mind and they become easily irratated, paranoid and struggle to make good decisions, because of lack of oxygen to the brain.
A lot of mental issues can be resolved if we can embrace Matt. 6:12 “forgive us our debt as we forgive our debtors”. Living with the burden of not being forgiven or not forgiving others, for some can be difficult.
Many Pastors may have the Biblical discernment in helping many of these people through their deep rooted problems but lack the time. As the need for counseling is growing and individually these people require and absorb so much time and they still have the rest of the flock to attend to..
There may be many Biblically sound Christian Counselors willing to minster and “serve” a few hours a week that many Churches aren’t tapping into.
Are Pastors from different churches willing to help offer less equipped churches some assistance of their couseling staff? A young Pastor out of Seminary may lack the ability to identify a Biblical Solution because they are unable to identify the problem. Their gift may strictly be Expository Preaching but may lack counseling and life experience.
Churches need to openly assist each other through this problem. Otherwise we will see a continued trend of Pastors sending their flock to expensive secular psychologists who more than likely won’t use any biblical principles.
It seems to me maybe one of the biggest problems we are seeing, is a recognizable amount of conflicting Doctrine in Christian Churches that are seperating Christians rather than uniting them. They are more consumed with Doctrine Methodology that is spreading confusion and Church splits. This is making inexperienced Pastors increasingly shorthanded in helping provide biblical guidance to their sheep who struggle coping with their mental pain.
paulspassingthoughts said, on April 9, 2012 at 9:37 PM
David,
Interesting perspective, but infighting is necessary to prevent troubled people from being sent to pastors who will tell them the answer to their problem is gospel contemplationism. And If Jesus decides to do something, He will, and if He doesn’t, oh well, it stinks to be you. Piper says as much in “When We Don’t Desire God” (I think that’s the title–been a couple of years since I read it).
Furthermore, the vast majority of Christian counselors of our day simply tell counselees that there is nothing they can do about their situation–that would be “legalism.”
Lastly, the church has no excuse because Jay Adams has done most of the heavy lifting for the church in this area. And the Apostle Paul told the Christians at Rome that he was confident that they were full of goodness and able to counsel each other. Pastors have no stinking excuse; they should be qualified to counsel and so should the sheep under their leadership.
Moreover, Adams’ biblical counseling movement emerged at the same time as the present-day New Calvinist progressive justification movement(1970). The latter relentlessly persecuted Adams, and that’s why we have the condition you describe today. The biblical counseling movement was well on its way to equipping the church to be “full of goodness and able to counsel each other.”
David M. Adams said, on April 10, 2012 at 12:38 PM
Paul,
Legalism practiced in Churches as you describe, is what I was describing. The Hyper movement in my opinion will continue to exacerbate the problem, if they choose to counsel behind a methodology that is pampered with legalism. Some of the infighting is a result of misdirected and insenitve leading of inexperienced and unqualified Pastors when it comes to their Hyper-counseling methods.
Some of these Hyper-Pastors take an abusive and aggresive approach with scriptures in counseling, all in the name of their version of how “Truth” should be delivered. In some cases the people after their intial and only visit of their counseling session, leave more burdened than when they first walked in.
Maybe I didn’t express my views clearly enough, because I don’t at all want to trivialize the reality and practice of abusive counseling that is going on in some churches within the Hyper movement. You are correct in your excessment that there is no excuse for allowing abusive methodologies being the catalyst, for bad counseling.
You have raised an important reality going on in churches that I don’t read enough about within Christian publications. The concerns you raised about the destruction these Methodologies are creating need to come out.
I do feel there are some churches with Pastors that have Biblical Discernment that don’t have enough hours in the day to offer the kind of counseling needed in some of their Congregations, which is why I suggested that these Pastors could present a challenge to Christian counselors in serving in some capacity.
Strife is an unfortunate reality that is happening within different Christian Churches comsumed with Methodology and is unexcusable. This strife is creating more confusion among the many different congregations that is making counseling less effective.
Paul's Passing Thoughts 
There are people who profess the Gospel that have deep rooted problems in their lives that may include suffering from mental and physical abuse, betrayal of love ones, alcohol fetal syndrome, ADD, a deep rooted sin they a are struggling with, harm they did to somebody else. Moral decay isn’t the only problem Pastors are dealing with.
Anger Management is a deep rooted problem a christian friend of mine has been struggling with. Biblically shaking the Demons that have a stronghold in peoples lives is becoming overwhelming.
Some people who are suffering from health issues like sleep apnea (which is a major sleep disorder) can cloud ones mind and they become easily irratated, paranoid and struggle to make good decisions, because of lack of oxygen to the brain.
A lot of mental issues can be resolved if we can embrace Matt. 6:12 “forgive us our debt as we forgive our debtors”. Living with the burden of not being forgiven or not forgiving others, for some can be difficult.
Many Pastors may have the Biblical discernment in helping many of these people through their deep rooted problems but lack the time. As the need for counseling is growing and individually these people require and absorb so much time and they still have the rest of the flock to attend to..
There may be many Biblically sound Christian Counselors willing to minster and “serve” a few hours a week that many Churches aren’t tapping into.
Are Pastors from different churches willing to help offer less equipped churches some assistance of their couseling staff? A young Pastor out of Seminary may lack the ability to identify a Biblical Solution because they are unable to identify the problem. Their gift may strictly be Expository Preaching but may lack counseling and life experience.
Churches need to openly assist each other through this problem. Otherwise we will see a continued trend of Pastors sending their flock to expensive secular psychologists who more than likely won’t use any biblical principles.
It seems to me maybe one of the biggest problems we are seeing, is a recognizable amount of conflicting Doctrine in Christian Churches that are seperating Christians rather than uniting them. They are more consumed with Doctrine Methodology that is spreading confusion and Church splits. This is making inexperienced Pastors increasingly shorthanded in helping provide biblical guidance to their sheep who struggle coping with their mental pain.
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David,
Interesting perspective, but infighting is necessary to prevent troubled people from being sent to pastors who will tell them the answer to their problem is gospel contemplationism. And If Jesus decides to do something, He will, and if He doesn’t, oh well, it stinks to be you. Piper says as much in “When We Don’t Desire God” (I think that’s the title–been a couple of years since I read it).
Furthermore, the vast majority of Christian counselors of our day simply tell counselees that there is nothing they can do about their situation–that would be “legalism.”
Lastly, the church has no excuse because Jay Adams has done most of the heavy lifting for the church in this area. And the Apostle Paul told the Christians at Rome that he was confident that they were full of goodness and able to counsel each other. Pastors have no stinking excuse; they should be qualified to counsel and so should the sheep under their leadership.
Moreover, Adams’ biblical counseling movement emerged at the same time as the present-day New Calvinist progressive justification movement(1970). The latter relentlessly persecuted Adams, and that’s why we have the condition you describe today. The biblical counseling movement was well on its way to equipping the church to be “full of goodness and able to counsel each other.”
paul
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Paul,
Legalism practiced in Churches as you describe, is what I was describing. The Hyper movement in my opinion will continue to exacerbate the problem, if they choose to counsel behind a methodology that is pampered with legalism. Some of the infighting is a result of misdirected and insenitve leading of inexperienced and unqualified Pastors when it comes to their Hyper-counseling methods.
Some of these Hyper-Pastors take an abusive and aggresive approach with scriptures in counseling, all in the name of their version of how “Truth” should be delivered. In some cases the people after their intial and only visit of their counseling session, leave more burdened than when they first walked in.
Maybe I didn’t express my views clearly enough, because I don’t at all want to trivialize the reality and practice of abusive counseling that is going on in some churches within the Hyper movement. You are correct in your excessment that there is no excuse for allowing abusive methodologies being the catalyst, for bad counseling.
You have raised an important reality going on in churches that I don’t read enough about within Christian publications. The concerns you raised about the destruction these Methodologies are creating need to come out.
I do feel there are some churches with Pastors that have Biblical Discernment that don’t have enough hours in the day to offer the kind of counseling needed in some of their Congregations, which is why I suggested that these Pastors could present a challenge to Christian counselors in serving in some capacity.
Strife is an unfortunate reality that is happening within different Christian Churches comsumed with Methodology and is unexcusable. This strife is creating more confusion among the many different congregations that is making counseling less effective.
David
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