Biblical Counseling and the Church: God's Care Through God's People

by Bob Kellemen, Paul Tripp Narrated by Milton Bagby

Overview

As people face addictions, deal with loss and grief, and seek help in restoring broken relationships, where can they turn for counsel and assistance? The local church has been uniquely blessed with the gift of the gospel and is able to offer hope and counsel that no other institution on earth can.

In Biblical Counseling and the Church, Bob Kellemen and Kevin Carson have assembled over twenty respected ministry leaders who examine the relationship between counseling and the church. This comprehensive resource, part of the Biblical Counseling Coalition series, helps leaders and counselors develop a vision that goes beyond being a church with a biblical counseling ministry to becoming a church of biblical counseling--a church culture that is saturated by "one-another" ministry.

Divided into five parts, Biblical Counseling and the Church will help church leaders:*

• Unite the pulpit ministry of preaching the Word with the personal ministry of the Word in counseling
• Offer practical and theological training to equip counselors
• Launch and lead a counseling ministry, regardless of the size of your church
• Bring together the relational focus of small group ministry with the ministry of care and counseling
• Better understand the relationship between biblical counseling, church discipline, and conflict resolution

Learn how to use counseling in outreach through "missional" biblical counseling--moving biblical counseling beyond the doors of the church and into the world.

Accompanying figures, tables, appendixes, and bibliography are available in the audiobook companion PDF download.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940175397506
Publisher:	Zondervan
Publication date:	02/15/2022
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

Biblical Counseling and the Church

God's Care Through God's People

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By Bob Kellemen, Kevin Carson

ZONDERVAN

Copyright © 2015 Biblical Counseling Coalition
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-310-52062-7

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CHAPTER 1

A CHURCH OF BIBLICAL COUNSELING

BRAD BIGNEY AND STEVE VIARS

Followers of Jesus Christ love the word church and everything it entails. Do you remember in Matthew 16, when Peter makes that marvelous declaration that Jesus is the Messiah and Son of the living God? Immediately after that, what does Jesus promise to him? Jesus says that He will build His church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it (Matt. 16:18).

Of all the topics Jesus could have chosen to discuss at that pivotal moment, He emphasized the birth and development of His church. The word He chose to use there, ecclesia, literally means "called out ones." This is how Jesus describes His church, the body He would create and develop after His death, burial, and resurrection. The church was of critical importance to the Lord and, for that reason, it is of critical importance to us as well.

LOVING THE CHURCH

As the New Testament unfolds, we see that the church plays the central role in all that happens. When the resurrected Christ promises His followers that something tremendous is going to happen a few days after His ascension, shortly thereafter the church is miraculously born. Thousands of people from many nations place their faith in Jesus Christ and become transformed proof of Jesus' promise. This new entity is so Spirit-filled that some detractors accuse these early believers of turning the world upside down with their teaching (Acts 17:6 kjv). The apostle Paul goes so far as to call this new community "the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of the truth" (1 Tim. 3:15 esv). We love the church because our Lord is mediating His work through this unique group of people.

Many of us also love the church because some of our most wonderful experiences occur among God's people. We love gathering together and worshiping our Savior with our brothers and sisters in Christ, and we have powerful memories of doing so over the years. We think back to all the times the Word of God was proclaimed in a way that resulted in encouragement, conviction, comfort, and dramatic life change. We have developed deep and abiding friendships as we have served shoulder to shoulder. The church is not a perfect institution. After all, it is made up of imperfect people like you and me. But it is a community that many of us hold near and dear.

We (Brad and Steve) love that we have been called to pastor two of Jesus' churches. We would not trade this adventure for anything the world has to offer. But we don't just want to serve Jesus — we want to serve Him well. We want our churches to fit the biblical pattern and accomplish the goals articulated for us in the Word of God. One passage that has been especially helpful is Ephesians 4:12 – 16. After spending three chapters unpacking and explaining the gospel indicatives — who we are in Christ — the apostle directs our attention in the second half of the book to the gospel imperatives. He shows us how we are to live in the power and strength of our resurrected Savior.

In chapter 4 of his letter to the Ephesians, Paul includes a delightful passage describing the local church. The theme is spiritual growth, or what we theologically refer to as the doctrine of progressive sanctification. Paul is clear that this growth is not just the growth of individuals, but the growth of the entire local church. This suggests that soul care is not just something limited to a few people to do; it is something the entire church is called to do. This "soul care" includes counseling and discipleship, and these must permeate every facet of ministry. They should be part of the church's DNA. This is what God wants us to develop in our congregations — not just churches that have counseling centers, but churches that are counseling centers.

WHERE SHEPHERDS/TEACHERS EMBRACE THEIR ROLE AS EQUIPPERS SEVEN DAYS A WEEK

If you want to see Ephesians 4:11 – 16 at work in your local church, as a pastor you need to understand that your role is bigger than just preaching and teaching every week. Ephesians 4:11 says that Christ gave the church some to be shepherds as well as teachers. Sadly, most seminaries focus almost exclusively on homiletics and exegesis, essential teaching functions, but they neglect the tasks of shepherding and equipping others in counseling or soul care. Too often the training for the shepherd/ equipper is reduced to a single class titled "Practical Theology," where they learn to marry and bury people. But where is the practical training in how to shepherd people through the various struggles of life?

For the past twenty years, I've (Brad) invested my life in training godly disciples who can handle life effectively by handling God's Word accurately. That is a broader and, I think, more biblical goal than just saying, "I want to preach and teach faithfully through the Bible so that I can feed my people the right spiritual food." Preaching is important and necessary. But it's not the total package of ministry that Paul writes about in Ephesians 4:11 – 16.

The ministry that a pastor does from Monday through Saturday is just as important as what he does each Sunday in preaching. And if a pastor or leader is gripped by Ephesians 4:11 – 16, they will value the time they have counseling one-on-one with people throughout the week, spending time with other church leaders, equipping them and showing them how to actually use God's Word to help a real person with a real problem. These are pastors who look for every opportunity to take a regular "business" meeting with staff, deacons, elders, trustees, or board members and to infuse it with an element of showing leaders how to help real people with real problems, using God's Word.

In America, a pastor is typically viewed as the lead vision-caster — a biblically glorified CEO of a corporation with a mission. But Ephesians 4:11 – 16 calls us to fight against the pressures of this world and the expectations of the "corporate" American church that try to squeeze us into the mold of CEO, holding us captive to the pulpit. Standing behind the pulpit is important, but there are many times when we do our most effective ministry seated at a kitchen table or sitting in the living room with our people.

John Piper reflects the tension we feel to specialize as simply professional preaching "machines" when he says:

We pastors are being killed by the professionalizing of the pastoral ministry. The mentality of the professional is not the mentality of the prophet. It is not the mentality of the slave of Christ. Professionalism has nothing to do with the essence and heart of the Christian ministry. The more professional we long to be, the more spiritual death we will leave in our wake.

He goes on to say, "The world sets the agenda of the professional man; God sets the agenda of the spiritual man." And that agenda can be seen clearly in Ephesians 4:11 – 16. May God give us a revival of those who seek to live out "shepherd" as well as "teacher" to the glory of God!

WHERE CHURCH MEMBERS LOVE BEING EQUIPPED FOR THE WORK OF SERVICE

The word "equip" in Ephesians 4:12 (NIV) is a Greek word that connotes making something fit or preparing something fully through training and discipline. It also communicates the idea of mending or restoring. Many of the people who come into the church are crushed by the struggles and pains of life and the effects of sin, and they will need mending and restoring, but that's not the end game. Ephesians 4:12 calls us to go further and equip those who have been mended to do ministry! Pastors should know that we're not looking for spectators, people to fill the pews. We don't need fans, and the church is not a Christian cruise ship, focused on how comfortable we can make our people. Ephesians 4:12 calls us to equip people to do ministry because the church is a battleship, on a mission, engaged in a spiritual war. Bill Hull recognizes this problem when he writes:

The evangelical church has become weak, flabby, and too dependent on artificial means that can only simulate real spiritual power. Churches are too little like training centers to shape up the saints. ... The average Christian resides in the comfort zone of "I pay the pastor to preach, administrate, and counsel. ... I am the consumer, he is the retailer. ... I have the needs, he meets them ... that's what I pay for."

Ephesians 4:12 flies in the face of this consumer Christianity. There's a marvelous chain of events spelled out in 4:12 (ESV), with three prepositions that unpack God's plan for what church ministry should look like. And it all begins with the little word "to." Paul calls pastors "to equip the saints."

A shepherd/teacher is called not only to do ministry but to help others learn how to do it! This is why whenever I counsel someone, I have someone else who sits in with me to observe and learn how to do it. It's why I have an apprentice in the small group I lead so that I can eventually birth my group to him. It's why I meet with "young eagles" in our church who show interest in full-time ministry. It's why I trained eight godly couples to do all of our premarital counseling — instead of doing it myself. It's why I started a men's and women's leadership development ministry, where we select men and women to spend a year reading good books, memorizing Scripture, and discussing theology and practical ministry concerns, so that they can go to the next level in their ability to do ministry.

Pastors and leaders in the church are called to equip God's people "for the work of the ministry" (Eph. 4:12 esv). Notice here, who is supposed to actually do the work of ministry? Ephesians 4:12 tells us the answer — "the saints." Paul doesn't say anything here about Bible college training or special calling or giftedness. There are no diplomas mentioned in Ephesians 4:12. Ministry is the work of the church, the everyday saints, and not just those with a special calling or professional training.

And what's the end result of doing things this way? Paul says that this ministry is for "building up the body of Christ" (Eph. 4:12 ESV). The church grows strong as people engage in ministry. It grows healthy and matures and it stops looking so anemic and sickly. Some of God's people, sitting in Bible-believing churches, have been objects of God's mercy and love for years. Maybe it's time for them to become an instrument of God's love in the lives of others around them! But they cannot do it alone. They will need pastors/teachers who are committed to showing them how.

WHERE THE BODY OF CHRIST IS BEING BUILT UP

Churches that are biblical counseling centers are constantly looking for ways to comfort those who are suffering and to confront and correct those who are sinning. Consider the way many churches deal with suffering. Somewhere along the line, the American church bought into the notion that Christians shouldn't be real and honest about their feelings. We've been told that we should tape plastic smiles over our broken hearts. We've bought into the lie that big boys don't cry and that followers of Jesus Christ should not be authentic about how and why we are hurting. Is it any wonder that some people say that they feel more comfortable pouring out their problems at a bar than at a church?

The Scripture paints a markedly different picture of the church for us. The only way a Christian will get serious about growing and maturing as a follower of Christ is by being honest and speaking the truth. We need to tell people when we are knocked down, when we fall apart, when sin captures our heart. And the most natural place in the entire world for this to occur is at the church. Imagine the power unleashed if fellow sufferers lock arms and go to the throne of grace together. Our focus is on our perfect Savior, not the painted false perfection we show to others. God's grace, experienced alongside others, enables us to be authentic about our hurts.

This affects every facet of local church ministry. Small groups and adult Bible fellowships should be places where men and women can suffer together. The body of Christ is built up because the men and women in a church family openly acknowledge their pain, hurts, and struggles. There is mutual edification. This is biblical counseling!

The same is true during those times when we struggle with sin. In moments of honesty, we must admit our need and our struggle. There needs to be a willingness to be vulnerable about where we are failing. Friendships in the church family include being honest about the ways we still need to grow.

My (Steve) mentor Bill Goode taught me that this level of authenticity needs to be modeled at the level of the top leadership. Bill would say to our pastors and deacons, "Men, if we want the members of our church to grow spiritually, we have to grow spiritually." One of the qualifying questions we ask potential leaders is how they would respond if they thought one of our pastors was sinning in some way. Would they contact that pastor and talk with him? If the answer is no, we cannot consider them for a position of leadership in our church.

In our pastors' and deacons' meetings, we regularly split up into accountability groups and talk about specific ways we need to change. During these times we are counseling one another as church leaders. Such conversations over time become a natural part of what we do in our meetings.

We believe that this type of counseling should extend to every person in our church family. Each church member is assigned to a deacon's care group, and that deacon in turn contacts the men and women in his care group. A significant percentage of our leaders have received biblical counseling training, and their conversations with the people in their care groups often have the feel of an informal counseling session. For situations that are more intense, more formal biblical counseling ministry is also available. But even when that is necessary, it does not feel awkward or out of place because there is a sense in which every person in our church is being counseled in some way. Counseling is normal and natural, embedded in the culture of our church.

WHERE THE FOCUS IS MATURITY IN CHRIST

One of the biggest mistakes people make with biblical counseling is to boil it down to nothing more than naming a sin and sharing a Bible verse that commands you to stop what you are doing. Biblical counseling is more than simplistic answers. Biblical counseling is not person-centered or problem-centered, but Christ-centered.

Ephesians 4:13 tells us the goal of counseling: "Until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ" (ESV). Good biblical counselors understand that we're doing more than just fixing a problem; we're making a disciple. A problem may have brought the counselee in, but the scope of counseling is bigger than just fixing a problem. We want to see the counselee become more like Christ — thinking more like Christ, following harder after Christ, and making choices that please Christ.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Biblical Counseling and the Church by Bob Kellemen, Kevin Carson. Copyright © 2015 Biblical Counseling Coalition. Excerpted by permission of ZONDERVAN.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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