AACC Reflections: The Trinity

AACC Grace and Truth World Conference:
Day Four and Wrap Up Reflections—The Trinity

Each AACC Conference I attend, I listen for the “underlying” theme—not necessarily the planned theme (this year, Grace and Truth), as powerful as that is. But any consistent threads in plenary sessions, worship, track presentations, personal interactions—that might suggest the Spirit’s underlying theme.

Here’s what I heard: The Trinity.

What sets Christianity apart from everything else? The Trinity.

What sets Christian counseling apart from every other form of people helping? The Trinity.

I listened to the message of Trinitarian theology and Trinitarian counseling from Piper, Crabb, Dave Jenkins, and many others.

Christian counseling/biblical counseling will be filled with grace and truth, will be filled with Scripture and soul, will be filled with truth and love… to the extent that our theology and our personal lives are impacted by and infiltrated by the Trinity.

As I said in my track presentation (http://bit.ly/3ShzlR), “Too often biblical counselors counsel more like Allah than like the Trinity.”

What in the world did I mean by that?

Allah is the alone with the alone.

Aloof.

Distant.

Other than.

Our Trinitarian God is the eternal community.

When we counsel soullessly, when we counsel aloofly, when we counsel with truth minus love…then we ought not to call what we do biblical Christian counseling.

Grace and Truth are mediated via our Trinitarian God as His life, His love, flow through us to those we counsel as we live the truth in love.

That’s the message I listened to this week.

How about you?

A New Friend, An Old Issue, A Fresh Perspective

A New Friend, An Old Issue, A Fresh Perspective

Yesterday, as I was putting the finishing touches on my updated Mission, Vision, Passion, Commission (MVP-C) Statement for RPM Ministries, the phone rang.

Thirty minutes later I had a new friend. During our talk, my new friend and I commiserated over the state of current Biblical/Christian counseling. Like me, my new friend bemoaned the fact that extremism seems to rule the day.

Either we have people claiming to be Christian counselors who do not build their models of counseling on the Bible, or people claiming to be Biblical counselors who do not relate to those who disagree with them in a Christlike way.

Hmm . . . Christian counselors who are not so very Biblical. And Biblical counselors who are not so very Christian.

Disappointing indeed.

It's an old issue. Sadly, few seem to be able to combine truth and love in Biblical/Christian counseling.

The ironic part? This issue of comprehensive truth and love was exactly what my updated RPM Ministries MVP-C Statement highlights.

In summary:

RPM Ministries exists to change lives with Christ's changeless truth through writing, speaking, and consulting focused on comprehensive, compassionate, culturally-informed Biblical/Christian counseling and spiritual formation.

It's not rocket science. It shouldn't be this hard. It shouldn't be so rare.

My new friend and I long for the day when Biblical/Christian counseling "integrates" truth and love.

My guess is, so do you.

My suspicion is, many people are growing weary of these "counseling wars."

My hunch is, many of us want to find a community of Christian/Biblical counselors who love the Word of God and who love the people of God.

I'd be glad to hear from others like my new friend.

In fact, I'm sure there are many who would like to hear from each other. Perhaps we could build a community of loving/truthing Christian/Biblical counselors.

Let's share our stories. Let's share our horror stories of not feeling like we fit anywhere because we refuse to join one "camp" or another. And then let's share our encouraging stories of our commitment to comprehensive, compassionate, culturally-informed Christian/Biblical counseling.