Equipping Counselors For Your Church: Conclusion

May 18, 2012 in Biblical Counseling, Books, Practical Theology with 0 Comments

[You're finishing this review series because Bob Kellemen at RPM Ministries sent me a review copy of Equipping Counselors For Your Church!]

Wednesday, we looked at the first two “laps” in Bob’s book, Envisioning and Enlisting.

Yesterday, we covered laps 3 and 4, Equipping and Empowering.

Today, I just have some summary thoughts on the book as a whole. In many ways, it is a book that is outside of my usual stream of reading. Not that I haven’t reviewed my fair share of practical books here, but few of them qualify as a legit “how-to manual” the way this one does. As such, my review has been slightly different since I am not actively implementing the ideas from it just yet.

While I can’t testify to how Bob’s work here plays out in actual application, I can testify that his book is conversational in tone and extremely well organized in presentation. Though only one of the four sections is focused on “Equipping,” the whole book is an extended exercise in equipping pastors with the necessary tools to build a Christ-centered counseling ministry in their church.

Like I said yesterday though, there is some crossover in the initial section (Envisioning) which could be applied to other ministry launches. Whether its a counseling ministry or an adult education ministry, or even a youth ministry, it really ought to have a MVP-C statement formulated for it (or something awfully similar). More than likely, over the summer, I’ll try to frame a MVP-C statement for the blog, as well as for my teaching job. And since much of what Bob says about actually equipping counselors could be used in just routine discipleship (though there is no pure “routine” dimension to discipleship), I may re-appropriate it for the mentoring relationships I have. Because of this, I think Bob’s book is a worthwhile addition to any pastor’s library, regardless of how close a counseling ministry is on the horizon.

That being said though, I think every church ought to have a counseling ministry. Every church might not be ready for a full-blown counseling team, but every church should have sound biblical counseling woven into their congregation’s DNA. Toward that end, every church planter ought to pick up a copy of this book and start thinking of how from square one he can establishing the foundation for a community of informal counselors. Once the church has grown to the point that it needs a formal counseling ministry, it won’t be hard to find the initial pre-equipped team members.

As for me, I’m going to probably re-read over Bob’s book this summer, looking toward personal application rather than a blog review. This means it probably won’t be the last time you hear me talk about Equipping Counselors For Your Church. Though I hadn’t really thought of it before reading the book, when Bob shared how he started fresh out of seminary at a high school and the genesis of the ideas in his book were first fleshed out there, it made me think how there might be applications for me in my teaching role. Since I just thought of it, I don’t have a lot of details figured out, but I may start thinking how I might create a community of competent counselors within the high school. I had initially been thinking of this book as having applications at church, but really, I can’t do anything toward that end until our pastor catches the vision (not that he hasn’t, but there’s not a drive toward going down this road just yet). As the Bible teacher at school though starting this fall, I think I’m in the position to change the culture of the school from within.

In the end, if you are in a position of ministry, I would highly recommend Bob’s book. Even if you’re not, you may benefit from the core section on equipping since it covers the basics of theology, godly relationships, and growing in Christlikeness. Primarily though this is a book for pastors, and hopefully, more and more of them will read and implement the ideas in this book if they’re not already!

Equipping Counselors For Your Church: Equipping and Empowering

May 17, 2012 in Biblical Counseling, Books, Practical Theology with 0 Comments

Yesterday, we started into Equipping Counselors For Your Church by looking at the opening two sections, Envisioning and Enlisting. In Bob’s race metaphor, those are the first two laps, so today we’ll look at the final two: Equipping and Empowering. This is more my particular niche, so after the good reminders from Bob about the need to develop an MVP-C statement, I was ready to dive into his thoughts on the actual equipping process.

Equipping Godly Ministers For Ministry

Much like Bob, “coaching and equipping are in my blood, in my DNA.” I’m still somewhat socially awkward when it comes to the former, but I’m well equipped for the latter (so I can focus on growing in the former). Anyway, in this section the focus is on the 4C’s of equipping (176):

  • Biblical Content/Conviction: head/knowing – how to change lives with Christ’s changeless truth
  • Christlike Character: heart/being – how to reflect Christ
  • Counseling Competence: hands/doing – how to care like Christ
  • Christian Community: home/loving – how to grow together in Christ

Chapter 7 is dedicated to explaining how these 4C’s provide the counseling training goals and objectives. Chapters 8 and 9 then shift the focus to actual curriculum development. One advantage of Bob’s approach here is that he doesn’t dictate a one-size fits all model. Rather, after spending considerable time fleshing out the goals and objectives, these two chapters are more aimed at helping you think through how you might develop curriculum for your own specific context. As he says, “Based on your gift-mix, your specific church, and your unique community, use these categories as a guide for designing the particular materials, content, and lesson plans that are the right fit for your trainees” (202). Chapter 10 then gives advice on particular strategies and methods when it comes to the actual equipping process.  As in the earlier sections, there are a number of appendices to help you along the journey. Continue Reading…

Equipping Counselors For Your Church: Envisioning and Enlisting

May 16, 2012 in Biblical Counseling, Books, Practical Theology with 0 Comments

A while back, Bob Kellemen, who heads up RPM Ministries, sent me a copy of his latest book Equipping Counselors For Your Church. Monday’s review of The Biblical Counseling Movement was a kind of setup for this mini-series since Bob stands in line with the biblical counseling movement and is the Executive Director for the Biblical Counseling Coalition. This book is mainly a “how-to” manual for churches who are already on board with the movement, or at least have leadership on board. Because of that, the specific audience who will find this book most useful are lead pastors or people in my situation who have at least somewhat of a say in how the ministry of the church develops. If you’re not in a position of leadership though, this is a great book to recommend to someone who is.

As Bob tells us in the opening pages,

My purpose in writing Equipping Counselors For Your Church is to assist leaders like you in equipping people confidently, wisely, lovingly, and biblically. I want this book to be like a personal conversation with your private consultant – coming alongside you, walking step-by-step, hand-in-hand, to equip you to fulfill your Ephesians 4:11-16 calling to empower the body of Christ to change lives with Christ’s changeless truth (19).

Additionally, Bob’s secondary purpose is “to launch a revolution in every-member ministry.” As he continues,

 This book’s 4E Ministry Training Stategy offers a twenty-first century, best practice manual for Christ-centered, church-based, comprehensive, compassionate, and culturally informed mobilization of the priesthood of all believers. It assists churches to become places not simply with biblical counseling ministries, but of biblical counseling (20).

In other words, the first objective is to create a climate of counselors. Only then would it be a good idea to move on to a formal counseling ministry within the church. Continue Reading…

The Drama of Doctrine: The Script

May 15, 2012 in Methodology, Philosophy, Theology with 0 Comments

[This post is part of The Drama of Doctrine review series]

Recently, we started our way through Kevin Vanhoozer’s The Drama of Doctrine. Last post, we looked at the drama, and this week we’re turning to the script. As Vanhoozer himself admits, this is the most technical part of the book, and because of that, some readers may be better served reading only the final chapter of this section (as well as the previous section, see xiii). However, we’ll work our briefly through each chapter and I’ll try my best to give you the gist of it.

Word and Church

In this chapter, Vanhoozer explores the canon of Scripture as a covenant document. “The Bible is both the authoritative version of the drama of redemption and the authoritative script for the church’s ongoing life,” he says (115). A script though must be played out, and that is of course where things get tricky. Vanhoozer hopes to navigate the choppy waters, and does so by pointing to the role the Spirit, tradition, church, and canonical text play in all of this. This chapter focuses mainly on the the issues surrounding the latter. As he eventually concludes, “the canon – the final form of ‘Holy Scripture’ – is the answer to both the problem of where to locate authority in the church and to the problem of how to preserve the identity of the gospel in the process of transmitting it” (141). He fleshes this out a bit further and then presses on toward the role tradition must play.

Scripture and Tradition

Essentially, chapter 5 “rethinks the Scripture/tradition relationship in terms of the categories ‘script’ and ‘performance’” (152). This leads to differentiating between “sola” Scriptura and “solo” Scriptura, the former being much more preferable than the latter. Using “performance” as a metaphor for interpreting Scripture, Vanhoozer details the differing approaches before concluding that “the canon is at once a divine/human performance that calls for further performance (faith seeking practical understanding) in the church” (180). In other words, we are to “perform” the script(ures) by interpreting and applying them, and in doing so, we are interpreting God’s “performance” after him. “Faithful performance responds to the author’s direction with creativity and obedience, continuing the same (ipse) communicative action into new contexts,” Vanhoozer says (185).

Jesus, Spirit, Church

In opening chapter 6, Vanhoozer tells us that “theology is first and foremost about understanding the drama of redemption, and only then about our participattion in the divine word-deed and deed-words” (187). Because of this, the Scripture/tradition relationship must be viewed within a theo-dramatic context. Looking first to Jesus, Vanhoozer sees the church following his “preeminent performance.” Explaining he says, “The Son ‘performs’ what God the Father scripted, making God known in human form. The Son is also at the center of the Spirit’s performance in Scripture, for the Spirit’s work is ultimately to minister Christ.” Following this, Vanhoozer spends this chapter explaining the interface of Jesus, the Spirit, and the life of the church. “The gospel is God’s drama in which the church participates through witness and worship,” Vanhoozer points out (193).  We are to seek Jesus’ understanding of the canonical Scriptures (195) and in doing so we are guided by the spirit. This is because “In the final analysis the supreme theological warrant for sola Scriptura can only be solus Christus” (197). This then leads Vanhoozer back into a discussion of tradition and canon, and a look into the role the rule of faith plays. As he ultimately concludes, “as a work of the Spirit, tradition plays the role of the moon to the Scripture’s sun: what light, and authority, tradition bears, it does so by virtue of reflecting the light of the Son that shines forth from the canon” (210).

The Work of the Spirit in the Practices of the Canon

In the final chapter on the script, Vanhoozer declares that “canonical-linguistic theology means being instructed by, being apprenticed to, and participating in the communicative practices that comprise the Scriptures” (211).  Working off the dramatic metaphor, “to perform Scripture is thus to participate in those divinely commissioned communicative practices that together bear the theo-drama along” (212). This means being involved in “canonical practices,” which are “Spirit-directed, rule-governed social communicative activities done to some covenantal end” (217). “To participate in the canonical practices is thus to participate in what God is doing in Scripture and to be caught up into the economy of divine revelation and redemption,” Vanhoozer tells us (219). These practices are “of Christ” in two senses: “they are about him” and “they are Christ’s own practices” (221). Vanhoozer hones in specifically on the practice of “sola Scriptura” and concludes that practicing it “means to participate in the canonical practices that form, inform, and transform our speaking, thinking, and living – practices that the Spirit uses to conform us to the image of God in Christ.” (237).

There is much, much more that I could say. Hopefully though, this gives you the flavor of Vanhoozer’s work in this section. Sooner rather than later, we’ll continue on to the next section and find out what a “dramaturge” is, and just what “dramaturgy” might entail in the life of the church.

The Biblical Counseling Movement: History and Context

May 14, 2012 in Biblical Counseling, Navigating Christian Culture, Practical Theology, Scientific Apologetics with 0 Comments

[You're reading this review of The Biblical Counseling Movement: History and Context because I asked New Growth Press for a review copy and they said yes!]

On first glance, I imagine many readers would find this book either immediately attractive or immediately repulsive. The reasons for this are either you’re a) interested in biblical counseling so the title grabs you or b) you’ve had a bad experience with someone promoting “nouthetic” counseling and decided you wanted to have nothing to do with the biblical counseling movement (or possibly c, you’re more of a fan of integrating the best of psychology with the best of theology and think biblical counseling is naive approach).

Readers in the former camp might after further examination decide they’re not interested in the book because it’s a history of the movement, not a practical how-to manual. It would probably be hard to coax readers with bad biblical counseling experiences to devote 350 pages of their life to gaining a new perspective, and integrationists might have already decided biblical counseling is not the intellectually respectable way to go. If so, that doesn’t leave many potential readers for David Powlison’s book detailing the formation of the biblical counseling movement.

That would certainly be a shame though, because it is a very valuable read for a number of people (especially the people in groups A-C above). I don’t usually detail who I think the audience of a book is (or should be), but in this case, I’m going to make an exception. Using my aforementioned imagination (see first line), I don’t see this book flying off the shelves to be rabidly consumed by Christian readers. It probably will never come to that, but this book could certainly work its way onto a few more shelves, and beyond groups I’ve mentioned, there are two more types of readers who will find this book a good read. Continue Reading…

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