Tank Johnson and Historical Spiritual Care

Tank Johnson and Historical Spiritual Care

Those who read my Blog and my books know my conviction that history is relevant today. Even more, they/you know my conviction that the history of spiritual care is relevant to how we relate to one another today.

Today, I’m going to prove it.

The Bears’ Crisis

Most of my readers will be unaware of the “crisis” with the Chicago Bears’ football team brought on by one of their best players, Tank Johnson. A week ago, police raided Johnson’s home, finding a cache of firearms. Booked and released on bond, he awaits a trial. It is America: Johnson is innocent until proven guilty/convicted in a court of law.

Problems mounted and tragedy ensued two days later when Johnson’s body guard was murdered in a shooting at a local Chicago bar.

You ask, “How in the world does this relate to the history of soul care???”

Keep reading.

Tanking Tank?

The debate in Chicago sports pages now is whether or not Tank should be tanked by the Bears. Some say that the Bears should get Tank some help and get him back on the team. Others say that the Bears are embarrassing (emBEARrassing, perhaps?) themselves by keeping him around.

In fact, ever-bitter and biting Chicago Tribune columnist, Rick Morrissey, lampoons the Bears and questions the integrity of their head coach (Lovie Smith) and general manager (Jerry Angelo). Here’s what Morrissey has to say:

“I’d like to say Tank Johnson should have been sent packing by now, but I’m afraid he would take that to mean he should pack some heat. Why Johnson isn’t already a former Bear is a complete mystery, unless it’s that the organization likes being embarrassed, disrespected or played for a fool by its players. Or unless it’s that coach Lovie Smith has sold his soul for a chance to win a Super Bowl. . . . If Smith is concerned the rest of the team will think he has deserted Johnson if he waives him, then he has no concept of right and wrong. He should be very concerned right now that his team and his city believe he has no spine. If Johnson does play again this season, it will show exactly how far Smith will go to win games. . . . I see an opportunity for Smith and general manager Jerry Angelo to show they have trace levels of principles” (Chicago Tribune, http://chicagosports.chicagotribune.com/sports/columnists/cs-061216morrissey,1,3518618.column?coll=cs-bears-headlines accessed December 19, 2006).

Don’t get me started on the arrogance of Morrissey daring to question whether Smith has “trace levels of principles.” And don’t get me started on Morrissey totally misunderstanding the little matter of Unions, Contracts, and Procedures, not to mention that little issue of “innocent until proven guilty.” Because, moving in those directions would move this Blog to the Sports’ page and off the “Truth for Life” Blog page.

How History Replies to Tank’s Story

But do get me started thinking with you about how the history of soul care and spiritual direction might offer some guidance in this debate over how a team (organization, family, friends) might want to respond to an issue like this.

Those who would follow only the soul care (sustaining and healing) side of historic spiritual care, would insists that Tank Johnson should not be tanked. He should be cuddled, coddled, encouraged, grieved with, and rehabilitated.

Those who would follow only the spiritual direction (reconciling and guiding) side of historic spiritual care, would, like Morrissey, call for Tank’s instant removal from the team. He should be confronted, busted, exposed, exhorted, and released.

However, those who follow both the soul care and the spiritual direction side of historic spiritual car, would, like Lovie Smith and Jerry Angelo, attempt to sustain, heal, reconcile, and guide Tank Johnson. They, like Tank’s friends on the Bears, are grieving with Johnson over the death of his friend. They are recognizing also that they have a social, family, organizational responsibility to “get Tank help.” They are not “winking at his problems” nor “excusing his sins.” However, they see him as a human being who is messed up and causing messes and needs healing.

At the same time, people like Lovie Smith, Jerry Angelo, and Johnson’s Bears’ teammates, also understand that Johnson needs to be disciplined. And, he has been. He has been deactivated from his livelihood. Further discipline, within the confines of NFL Union contractual obligations, are being discussed and considered. He certainly is being confronted, both publicly and privately. He is also being guided; he is being given the sort of counsel, direction, and advice necessary to clean up his life. He has been told in no uncertain terms what right behavior and wrong behavior is in his specific situation. The law has been laid down; he has been told what is acceptable and unacceptable activity.

I am not an apologist for the Chicago Bears’ organization, nor for Lovie Smith or Jerry Angelo. That’s not my point. Nor am I claiming that they are somehow consciously following historic sustaining, healing, reconciling, and guiding. Of course not.

I am saying, that we can map their response, and the responses suggested by others, such as the serpent-tongued Morrissey, using the GPS of sustaining, healing, reconciling, and guiding.

Every encounter with another human being involves some combination of sustaining, healing, reconciling, and guiding. The question always is, “What is the most effective combination and implementation of each in a given situation?”

Yep, Tank Johnson and the Church Fathers do relate. Yep, history is relevant today. Yep, the history of soul care and spiritual direction do help us to make wise people decisions today.

"If"

"If"

Amy Carmichael (1868-1951) ministered as a missionary in India for over fifty years, writing thirty-five books. Perhaps her most "famous" and powerful book was the concise "If." In "If," Amy asks brief questions about our spiritual life and personal relationships, then asks whether our lives are reflecting Calvary love.

In studying "If" for my book on the history of women's soul care, I saw a number of striking examples of sustaining, healing, reconciling, and guiding. I share just a few snippets and samplers with you to whet your appetite.

Sustaining Ifs

"If I have not compassion on my fellow-servant, even as my Lord had pity on me, then I know nothing of Calvary love."

"If I sympathize weakly with weakness, and say to one who is turning back from the cross, 'Pity thyself'; if I refuse such a one the sympathy that braces and the brave heartening word of comradeship, then I know nothing of Calvary love."

These are powerful challenges. I am asking myself, "Do I sympathize weakly with the weaknesses of others, or do I weep deeply with those who weep?" "Do I empower others to have a brave heart through spiritual comradeship, or do I shrink away from them and their struggles?"

Healing Ifs

"There are times when something comes into our lives which is charged with love in such a way that it seems to open the Eternal to us for a moment, or at least some of the Eternal Things, and the greatest of these is love."

"If the care of a soul (or a community) be entrusted to me, and I consent to subject it to weakening influences, because the voice of the world--my immediate Christian world--fills my ears, then I know nothing of Calvary love."

I am asking myself, "Am I listening to and speaking the voice of the Eternal Word, or am I listening to and speaking the voice of earthly things?"

Reconciling Ifs

"If I am perturbed by the reproach and misundertanding that may follow action taken taken for the good of souls for whom I must give an account; if I cannot commit the matter and go on in peace and in silence, remembering Gethsemane and the cross, then I know noting of Calvary love."

"If I am afraid to speak the truth, lest I lose affection, or lest the one concerned should say, 'You do not understand,' or because I fear to lose my reputation for kindness; if I put my own good name before the other's highest good, then I know nothing of Calvary love."

I am asking myself, "Do I have the courage to confront my brother or sister in love or am I blunting the truth out of selfish fear and thus refusing to speak the truth in love?"

Guiding Ifs

"If I do not look with eyes of hope on all in whom there is even a faint beginning, as our Lord did, when, just after His disciples had wrangled about which of them should be accounted the greatest, He softened His rebuke with those heart-melting words, 'Ye are they which have continued with Me in My temptations,' then I know nothing of Calvary love."

"If I have not the patience of my Saviour with souls who grow slowly; if I know little of travail (a sharp and painful thing) till Christ be formed fully in them, then I know nothing of Calvary love."

I am asking myself, "Do I see the buried image of God in my spiritual friends and patiently fan into flame the gifts of God in them, or do I impatiently believe the worse about my spiritual friends?"

Counsels of Perfection

Some have "accused" Amy Carmichael of being guilty of "counsels of perfection" with these "if/then" statements. That is, they think that she was being too hard on herself and her readers; driving them to perfectionistic Christianity.

I disagree. I would call them counsel of perfections in the same sense that the Apostle Paul used the word "perfection" to mean "the pursuit of Christ-like maturity."

Amy was passionate about pursuing Christ-like maturity personally and about helping those to whom she ministered to do the same. Am I?

If not, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

My Story of Spiritual Friendship

My Story of Spiritual Friendship

In many ways, I entered the ministry of spiritual friendship "kicking and screaming." In fact, I entered the "people-helping" field in that resistive fashion.

Three decades ago, I entered seminary on the typical pastoral track of preaching the Word. Unfortunately, that track often meant, and meant in my case at the time, that I would preach the Word from the pulpit, but then stay comfortably far enough away from using the Word personally with individuals.

Christ's Plans

Christ had other plans. And He does work, as they say, work in mysterious ways. My older brother, an agnostic at the time, learned that I needed money to pay for seminary (what a novel need). He said, "Bob, you're going to be a pastor-person. Pastor-persons work with people. Why not work at the local psychiatric inpatient unit?"

The rest, as they say, is history. But quite a jagged, ragged, criss-crossing history.

Four years of work on a "psych unit" altered the course of my life ministry. However, it took another trail of tears to move me from "psychological people helping" to spiritual friendship.

During the last of my four years in seminary, "counsel wars" erupted between rival factions at the seminary. They debated the proper way to offer Christian counseling (though their debates were far less "Christian" than one might have hoped).

I kept thinking during these debates, battles, skirmishes, and wars, "But no one is talking about what happened for 2,000 years before the advent of the modern Christian counseling movement!" That question, once again, altered the course of my life's ministry.

Spiritual Trek and Sovereign Stumbling

Starting then, and continuing for over a quarter-century (and still continuing), I began examining the history of spiritual friendship. I sovereignly stumbled upon the twin concepts of soul care and spiritual direction and the four core spiritual care concepts identified as "sustaining, healing, reconciling, and guiding." Once alerted to their existence, I found them everywhere in every "model" of people helping. Together, they offer a "balanced," comprehensive, and comprehendible approach to helping people spiritually.

Sustaining

Working with these historic spiritual friendship motifs, I developed a thread or theme for each. Sustaining: "It's normal to hurt." It highlights biblical care through empathic connection, soul-to-soul, with another image bearer. I picture it as "climbing in the casket," the macabre image reminding me to enter the death-like separation and despairing soul situations of my directees.

Healing

The thread of healing calls out: "It's possible to hope." If sustaining climbs in the casket, then healing "celebrates the empty tomb." Healing is scriptural care through encouraging communion, soul-to-soul, with another human being. It works with the Spirit of God to shepherd people to move beyond the suffering to a place of healing hope.

Reconciling

The theme of reconciling expresses the human cry for redemption: "It's horrible to sin, but wonderful to be forgiven." It "speaks the truth in love." Reconciling is spiritual friendship through exposing the awfulness of sin and the separation that it brings, while always remembering that where "sin abounds, grace superabounds."

Guiding

The motif of guiding, perhaps most often associated in people's minds with spiritual direction, says "It's supernatural to mature." Every directee is ultimately motivated by the desire, the passion, for spiritual growth. What promotes such growth? Not what, but Who?

God.

He supernaturally works within the human soul. The work of the director is summarized by the image of "fanning into flame the gift of God." The directee, already in the process of sustaining, healing, and reconciling, has all that he or she needs to live the spiritual life. Those gifts simply need to be fanned into flame.

Life Changing

The ministry of spiritual friendship has changed my life. This "model" is what God "uses" in my own spiritual walk. Thus, through Him, I am being transformed bit-by-bit, day-by-day as He sustains, heals, reconciles, and guides my faith.

The ministry of spiritual friendship has changed my ministry. This "model" allows me to restfully engage directees confident that there is a God-ordained path to follow. Not a GPS that tells me when and where to turn at every intersection. Rather, a map with compass points. These directional markers of SHRG (sustaining, healing, reconciling, guiding) provide directions for this spiritual director to confidently, calmly head, under the direction of the ultimate Spiritual Director.

What's Your Story?

What's you story of spiritual friendship? Feel free to e-mail me your story (bob.kellemen@gmail.com), or to post your story in the comment section below this Blog entry.

Converging Streams, Mighty River

Converging Streams, Mighty River

Biblical counseling today is moving onto the right path. Perhaps a little history lesson (stay with me, history can be fasincation, honest; and I did say little") would be helpful.

One Anothering Spiritual Friendship

Long before our current debates about what makes biblical counseling "biblical," New Testament writers spoke about "one anothering." Every believer was to love one another, encourage one another, confront one another, disciple one another, etc.

Biblical counseling is nothing more, nothing lss, than biblical one anothering.

In the long stream of Church history, for centuries this one anothering became known as spiritual friendship. Not only did pastors and theologians provide spiritual friendship for lay people, but lay people provided it for pastors and theologians.

Various streams of spiritual friendship converged and merged into four mighty tributaries along two prominent rivers (to continued our river analogy):

*Soul Care: Comforting the Suffering

*Sustaining: Empathizing--"It's Normal to Hurt"
*Healing: Encouraging--"It's Possible to Hope"

*Spiritual Direction: Challenging the Sinning

*Reconciling: Exhorting--"It's Horrible to Sin/Wonderful to Be Forgiven"
*Guiding: Empowering--"It's Supernatural to Mature"

Other Flowing Rivers

Throughout Church history, Christians faced and interacted with non-Christian ways of people helping. At times, Christians rejected all such "worldly" ways of helping. At other times, they chose to use the language of the day, while keeping the biblical concepts. At still other times, they decided to merge certain principles from the world with principles from the Word. (This is an all-too-broad summary, but I did say a "little" history lesson.)

Beginning with modern secular psychology, many Christians leaders replaced historic one anothering with secular theory. (This is another very broad generalization. However, unlike the preceding 1850 years, history does demonstrate a major surrender of historic bibical counseling themes from 1850 to 1950, especially among American and European White Protestants.)

The Modern/Post-Modern Thread

Here's where the story gets really fascinating.

In the 1960s and 70s, several biblical counseling movements launched attempts to reclaim the mantle of people helping. Unfortunately, like many such movements that are a reaction against something, they tended to be unbalanced.

One such movement tended to focus predominantly on reconciling and guiding through confronting sin. It was biblical in that exhorting people to escape sin is biblical. However, what it gained on the truth side of one anothering, it lost on the love side.

Another such movement tended to focus on sustaining and healing through comforting the suffering. It was biblical in that encouraging suffering people is biblical. However, what it gained on the love side of one anothering, it lost on the truth side.

Counsel Wars

For the next half century, these two competing models did just that--they competed. Often, they did so with less civility than the on-looking secular world. To this day, these counsel wars continue . . . sadly.

Go to the Internet, read Blogs, type in certain names, and you will find each side claiming that the other side is filled with "psychoheretics."

One side accuses the other side of the psychoheresy of the failure to love the suffering. They call them "relational heretics." They say that their opponents fail the test of orthopraxy (biblical love).

Another side accuses the other side of the psychoheresy of the failure to confront the sinning. They call them "theological heretics." They say that their opponents fail the test of orthodoxy (biblical truth).

Converging Streams

Fortunately, the two side, at times, are merging and bringing the best of both worlds while losing the worse of the world.

Why is this happening now?

Mainly because history is in vogue once again among Christians. Protestant Christians in particular, who for nearly 500-years avoided history and traditon for fear (terror) that it might smack of "Romish Ritual and Human Tradition," are now recognizing that the Holy Spirit has a history.

Returning to the Bible and Church history, Protestants are unearthing the embedded stream of spiritual friendship with its twin tributaries of soul care and spiritual direction.

Once again, one anothering that values truth and love, that focuses on suffering and sinning, and that appreciates sustaining, healing, reconciling, and guiding is rising to the surface and winning the day.

How incredible!

In other words, biblical one anothering spiritual friendship is flowing again like a mighty river.

So What?

What does this have to do with you? I did, after all, call this Blog a history lesson. A few questions to ponder can help us to apply today's history lesson.

1. As you evaluate current models of people helping, ask, "Does this model exhibit all four streams (sustaining, healing, reconciling, and guiding)?"

2. As you think about the church where you are a member, ask, "Does it exhibit all four streams? If not, what could I do to help?"

3. As you reflect upon your own way of offering spiritual friendship, ask, "Do I exhibit all four streams?"

4. As you interact about current models of people helping, ask, "Am I interacting in a spirit of speaking the truth in love?"

Let's finally "get it right" by practicing orthopraxy and orthodoxy in our one anothering spiritual friendships by speaking the truth in love through biblical and historical soul care and spiritual direction.

Musings on Biblical Counseling: Teaching an Old Dog, New Tricks

Musings on Biblical Counseling

In seeking to launch the Biblical Counseling and Spiritual Formation Network (BCSFN), I’ve invited over 100 “experts” from various backgrounds. Many e-mails have been quite encouraging.

However, one, from a leader in the field, who has never met me and really did not even know of me until my invitation, was disappointing. I wasn’t so much disappointed in what he said about me. I was more disappointed because what he said spoke volumes about his practice of his model of counseling. I won’t even go into what he said. Let’s just say that it was negative and confrontational.

I began to ponder this e-mail from a biblical counseling perspective. Step one in any biblical model of communication involves earning the right to communicate. Solomon reminds us that the wounds of a FRIEND are faithful. The Hebrew word for “friend” literally means “lover”—one who has demonstrated love for you. I was not “feeling the love” from this stranger. Not having established a friendship with me, biblically, his words were not “faithful wounds.”

Another common “step” in biblical counseling is data collection. After opening his e-mail with the words, “"I did not know of you before your e-mail,” he continued by confronting the motives behind the launch. Mind you, he did not interact about the lengthy document attached. It made me think, “If I had some questions about a complete stranger’s motives, would I drop them like a bomb? Or, would I ask questions to clarify, before confronting from a lack of knowledge?”

Another core aspect of biblical counseling is humility. Paul warns that those who seek to help a stumbling brother should do so in a spirit of meekness. They should demonstrate a conscious awareness of their own frailty, failings, and fallenness (Galatians 6:1-3). In this, Paul amplifies the words of Jesus regarding looking at the two-by-four in my eye before pointing out the sawdust in my brother’s eye. So, I thought, “How would I have wished for this brother to have responded to me, if he had questions about the motivation and sincerity of the BCSFN launch?”

First, if it were me, I doubt that I would have used e-mail which is notorious for miscommunication of tone and tenor. Second, whether by e-mail, phone, or in person, I would have liked for the brother to say, “Wow, what an intriguing endeavor. More power to you in trying to develop a network of biblical counselors and spiritual friends. However, I have some questions. Some things that potentially raise some red flag. I don’t mean to be judgmental nor condescending, so, could we dialogue a bit—some good old fashion give and take?” That would have been inviting. And humble.

Additionally, true biblical counseling is “holistic.” It seeks to sustain (“It’s normal to hurt”), heal (“It’s possible to hope”), reconcile (“It’s horrible to sin, but wonderful to be forgiven”) and guide (“It’s supernatural to mature”). My sense with this e-mail was that the approach was only one-half of one aspect of true biblical counseling. Its focus was on “It’s horrible when YOU sin!” There wasn’t any reconciling grace. Nor any guiding grace.

The approach of this e-mailer actually clarified further, even after a quarter-century of biblical counseling, the goal of biblical counseling. The goal of biblical counseling is NOT to spot sin. That is one sign post along the journey, not the destination itself.

The ultimate goal of biblical counseling, spiritual formation, and of life, is to fulfill the Great Commandment: to love God and love one another. We glorify God as we exalt Him BY enjoying Him and His children.

In biblical counseling, we glorify God as we help others to become more like Christ by exposing grace: we are to “spot grace.” In Romans 5-6, Paul reminds us that where sin abounds, grace superabounds. Counseling that has as its main goal to “spot sin” falls short of the glory of God. It falls short of glorifying God.

When we expose sin, it is an intermediate step toward exposing the grace that forgives, which in turn is an intermediate step in exposing the grace that guides—that empowers us to supernaturally mature. Biblical counseling with Christian seeks to stir up the grace-gift of God that God has placed in His regenerated children so that they love God and others better so that God is rightfully glorified.

So, what mood could the e-mailer have set if his goal were to “spot grace” and stir up the gift of God? What biblical and historical “method” could he have followed if his goal was to glorify God? Maybe something like this. . . .

“Wow, I bet launching this BCSFN is a wild and difficult endeavor fraught with risks” (sustaining).

“I’m praying for you that by God’s grace and by clinging to His Word, you and the team that God calls together will find His hope and peace and power” (healing).

“I do wonder if I see some red flags. If so, could we talk about a more godly way to go about this, and about God’s grace to forgive any sinful ways that might have crept in?” (reconciling).

“Most importantly, could I join you in the journey, as a co-laborer, if not with the BCSFN, at least in your life, helping you to be the most loving leader of the BCSFN that you can be?” (guiding).

“Because, more than anything, I want to see God glorified as you and your team love Him and love others well, and as you equip others to disciple people to love well” (the ultimate goal of true biblical counseling).

It’s amazing what an e-mail about biblical counseling can teach a biblical counselor. I guess that you really can teach an old dog (me) new tricks. You can even do it by throwing some rather distasteful bones at the old dog—because God can take our bones and use them for His best—to nourish us so that we glorify Him.