The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy.
00:00:01 [Applause] [Music] we're going to continue last week's sermon last week we touched on quite a heavy topic i want to close it this week on friday i had a small focus group i won't mention them they are here today and uh the focus group i asked them this question if you're going through emotional turmoil who do you rely on to cope and find solutions how do you how do you go through we all go through this right let's go to a few options the first one if i can get ah the first one basically yourself you can google
00:00:58 wikipedia that means yourself that means you're the type of person that you have a problem uh you don't tell people you you are stoic about it you try to solve it yourself that's first the second is yours you say why should i i'm not so smart i find somebody i go see a professional i see a therapist i see a psychiatrist i see a doctor i see a life coach i talk to a few people to recommend me you know my my family had this issue my son has this issue my wife had the issue my husband had an issue they say
00:01:30 why don't you go and see so and so and so okay the third one is church so we did a survey uh guess which was the lowest no need to tell you right google had eight external experts had seven the church had two actually i asked jongo today whether we could do this via multimeter i actually did a survey this morning but john is too busy i have a bad feeling we did it the stats will come out the same now we're not here to judge people we're trying to say that the church is not the place it'll be honest where people come when
00:02:13 they have problems and i want to start off by being uh by being honest about it we're not here to judge i get it why why you need to tell church people people like to talk then they will kind of sermonize you you know hey the bible says this you're not walking in faith you know they become very righteous on you so people feel the church is not a safe place for them to express their struggles a minority do but majority will go to google meaning i'll solve it myself or they go outside now what happens then
00:02:49 is when you come to church and somebody asks you how are you brother what do you say i'm fine but you're not so today we're going to deal with this and it's a difficult topic and last week basically we talked about how serious the issue is today i want to ask what's the role of the church and so i would like us to just ponder and and see what is my role and your role and it's something we've got to struggle through let's pray lord we just ask for humility this is a topic which is heavy but we want to be victorious over it
00:03:27 we want to truly say christ is our cornerstone so open our eyes our ears and make me teachable that what i say this morning it's really from your word in jesus name we say this amen let me recap last week last week of course we went to the story of the demon knight at mark chapter five and we realized what happened is that the real villain in the story is the people of jerusalem because to them two thousand pigs is more valuable than one man who suffered his lifetime and was made whole again mentally
00:04:03 and they asked jesus to leave the key word is go and so jesus doesn't go to the town and does not heal does not cure and does not share the good news that's the point of the story we know that because it's placed in another three other counts where jesus entered the towns so the story is saying when jesus come he will shake you but he shakes you for love shakes you so that he can redeem you and bring you to repentance and the the way the story flips is the town of jerusalem's is reflective tragically of the church today why
00:04:39 because the church generally have done this for people who struggle with mental problems people feel stigmatized they feel overwhelmed there's collateral damage and collateral damage here is family and uh we just really think how the gospel takes us from the from the devil to christ so let me now take you i want to close this to look at the end of chapter six i want to ask you three questions today what is the purpose of christian counseling who is qualified to do christian counselling or what are the
00:05:13 pillars of christian counseling now the issue is when we think counseling the problem with us is that because of the society we lived in we have really subconsciously taken the secular model and hijacked it into the church so when we think counseling we think a group of people who are trained who sit down you talk to me we have problems i give you a solution you know the kind of guy with a chair sitting there you sit on a bench and then they tell you your background was this something happened to your past
00:05:42 blah blah blah blah blah blah so to us counseling is that you know so they will say that well if you want people to open up their problems in the church then have more counsellors lah i know you've got to do more training get more people who are aware of these things then i'll open up their problems but we are not subhan medical center psychiatric department we are a church so this is an issue which i think has a lot of confusion and i want to take us back to scripture now let me just go back to the first
00:06:12 part why this particular text is interesting is that we have the story of the man with impure spirits at the end of it calling the tfc look at it he began to send them out two by two and gave them one authority over impure spirits there's obviously a connection already just a few verses down the road jesus connects a thing but now it is not jesus it is the disciples and then when he went out to the towns this is what we call the first short-term mission trip but another one he does this one he just
00:06:44 turned off in the book of luke he does it again with 70 disciples and there's a pattern there and then we'll look at it they drove out many demons so obviously there's a connection the story earlier on is connected to here so we got to look at the story of the genesis demoniac or what we call the person who had an impure spirit a unsound mind within what we call a story or a narrative of the kingdom of god now king of god generally the rule of god over his people wherever god places them in the new
00:07:16 testament is no longer a physical locale but to the jewish mind when they think kingdom of god they think eden they think david kingdom so when jesus comes to them you are going to restore the kingdom that's why in the book of acts the first thing to ask you when are you going to restore the kingdom to them is physical so when jesus comes at the mark chapter 1 behold the kingdom of god is near all of them go ah we're going to overthrow the roman empire is an important thing huh now what's interesting is he gives you
00:07:46 four parables very clearly on the kingdom he says it the kingdom of god is like this and when you read it eh nothing to do with a place nothing at all he's not describing a kingdom you know what he's describing he's describing people very clearly you are like the soha the seed you must be like a lamb the four parables are about people huh so the jewish mind who hates the romans who wants to overthrow them is the kingdom of god is about people and then after that he gives you four counts now this is interesting because
00:08:26 he is now taking the preoccupation with physical kingdom he says nah you want the kingdom of god this is what the kingdom of god will do and in one day in revelation it will do this in that kingdom there will be no more storms we find it in revelation there will be no more people on south mind because he'll wipe away every tale there'll be no more incurable diseases and death the final enemy will be gone he brings you to here will be that kingdom but now and not yet i will give you a taste of that kingdom that's how the story
00:09:01 goes so the jewish mind then understands one day you would restore the kingdom to his fullness but now i give you that taste and that taste is better than the davidic kingdom and we will restore jesus says god will restore eden and how do you do that you need faith after that then he says you understand huh you understand huh they tell them now go do the work of the kingdom of god that's how you understand the story it means the story of the impure spirit is placed within a larger story it means all my issues are placed within
00:09:48 a larger story of the bible and if i do not get the largest story in the bible my issues become my life and that's the first thing he's trying to tell you do not let your issues become your life god has given you a destiny the devil is trying to wrestle that away and give you trouble and making that trouble to you your life mission so let's just go through that a little bit what did he do besides driving out demons healing sick people versus is clear they preach the gospel this is the first missionary journey which
00:10:32 already tells you the function of any counseling ministry is missiological it has to point towards repentance if it doesn't point towards that it is not christian counseling i'll give you a simple example uh you have a couple who is going through a marriage if you want to go for marriage counseling so fight five five five five five five five better go see marriage counselor so question is do you see christian counselor or non-christian counselor so of course they say of course anna masih christian councillor
00:11:06 and i say why because christian counselor will teach us christian principles i say what christian principle i said you go to cnn christian marriage counselor they tell you people fight because no communication they fight because of in-laws they fight because of uh money you go to christian councillor he'll tell you exactly the same thing he just used bible verses only no no no no no but you see huh ephesians very clear ephesians tells you you must have covenant you see my husband is not acting like a husband
00:11:38 not acting in covenant then the husband said the wife not being submissive to me correct ma founding efficiency right very clear we see at the end of ephesians he talks about why the husband verse 22 but here is what he says look at what he says now as the church submits to christ so also christ why should something to the husbands notice the connection to christ and then husband is even longer you say this is a profound ministry i'm talking about christ and the church what is he doing paul is taking the
00:12:09 issue of marriage counseling and putting it into a larger issue so you said okay here's the bigger narrative you see your husband know i think like husband right yeah no husband your wife not acting like a whatever you're not acting okay let's go back you see let's go back to chapter three chapter three it says jews and gentiles should not be hostile hey what's that got to do in my marriage i'm telling you when my problem you're telling me a jews and gentlemen you're always trying to spiritualize everything but paul is
00:12:37 talking about the church it's connected no no no no i'm talking about my marriage didn't you just say christ in the church didn't paul talk about the church in chapter three in fact paul talked about the church again in chapter four so what is paul saying unless you understand how the church functions in chapter 3 and chapter 4 forget about fixing your marriage that's his point if you cannot treat outside people right a jew and agenda has hostility you cannot submit to one another in church guess what happens to you in your
00:13:12 marriage you can't solve your marriage issue because there are larger issues about yourself you are not solving you are not acting like you're in the kingdom of god that is the point of christian counseling it places you in a larger narrative and this is what ccf which is the key christian counselling movement says one of the most valuable things we can for those who are hurting is to help identify what are they gripping onto it could be a marriage issue it could be a parenting issue it could be a
00:13:53 clinical disorder issue you could be having depression it could be a struggle and what christian counseling does is that the first thing he does is they pull you to a bigger picture is that god has given you a life it is to be a citizen in the kingdom of god but what the devil has done is to shift that and take your life dripping issue and says unless you solve that you cannot function and jesus is saying unless you see the kingdom perspective you will not solve your problem there's a huge paradigm shift took me
00:14:34 years to discover this because every time i had an issue i used to drive and the issue will overwhelm me until god gently whispered their bigger issues you see there's root and there's fruit you know the fruit is your marriage problem the root is your discipleship issue so if you cannot communicate with your wife it's quite likely you can't communicate with outside people because you treat them badly you take home of course you treat your wife badly you just can't see the the dots if you have trouble in church
00:15:02 submitting other people guess what happens at home but you cannot connect the dots and the bible is trying to connect the dots for you good roots produces good fruit and the root is the kingdom of god here's what's happening with counseling uh you know people say made in malaysia a greater saya made in malaysia really engine japanese engine seat belt made in china everything else don't know me from where assembled in malaysia made in malaysia not really like actually oem is assembled in malaysia
00:15:36 so when people say it's counseling you know what they really mean it's actually secular counseling brought into a christian context and then i throw a few verses i throw verses around to make it sound like a christian but it is not aimed at discipleship there's something for us to think about let me tell you hear the key issues where it splits and here jesus is saying when you go out there and you show the kingdom of god you bring along with them the entry to the kingdom of god and there's repentance
00:16:14 i had a discussion with a therapist now they said god had led me to a lot of these people to talk to and she was giving me a lecture about family therapy how important it is arnold you know family therapy is the way arnold let me ask you what's your identity and give me a little sermon about identity and when we do therapy we ground people in their identity and they're healthy so here's my first question what's our identity our identity is in christ but in the secular world the identity is in what is in self
00:16:51 that's the big difference unless the counseling leads us to an identity of christ it is not christian and here's the problem because secular counselors cannot do that you can understand that right you don't want to see a counselor who throws his religion at you so let us unpack this and it shows you the role of the church already here's the second one christian counseling has to be accountable there's something secular counseling does not do now this chapter has a particular verse which i suggest
00:17:26 the modern church has overlooked you see when he sent out the culver he centered up on a certain pattern you know when he sent out the 70 disciples he sent on a certain pattern you know those old chinese movies where you have a you have a kung fu master he teaches students no he'll teach one by one he got one kung fu skill he don't teach huma because you can come and betray him and then you send out like oh no go back to the village beat all the bad guys correct that means if i got 12 disciples i sent out
00:17:57 12 disciples one to each town the other way is what we call the x-men model i have one professor i teach the 12 of you to work as a team i send out 12 to you to one place jesus doesn't send 12 disciples to 12 thousand he doesn't send 12 disciples to one town how does he send them out two by two you know no no i know logistics ma twelve people it's two six teams it's a matter of logistics jesus not to manage he had 70 disciples later on he also sent them up by two by two when paul went out there he went up with
00:18:34 who barnabas later on paul went out you know who he went out with sealers later on you know who he had timothy and when he was in jail he said send mark to me you'll find out again and again the pattern in new testament is always two by two why in this particular context he gives you the key he says this there's a judgement there no whenever you enter house stay until if any place do not welcome you you go and you shake your sarong to them you know so you shake your sarong curse be autonomous luke actually says that so what is the
00:19:12 story later on you go back to reporting time i go back to jesus you say i shook my sarong to them he says really uh did he shake the sarong yes he did is what we call accountability it's witnesses that's the context also if one falls the other one picks them up if one makes a mistake the other one rebukes if one does healing the other one does preaching that's the model of the new testament and we have overlooked that what has happened in christian ministries we are now all working in silos silos are dangerous they lead to
00:19:53 idolatry it is my ministry you know family life you don't touch my kingdom the kingdom of arnoldim under me i've got john annette linda pasterling this one you don't come near my machaya under me got 20 para councillors my gang very big one oh hey ulam your live group you think very bigger that's not the way it works it's accountable you see when you go out you see here's how the culture and i think how the devil has blinded us i have a problem say with depression or anxiety i don't want to tell the church because
00:20:39 i feel stigmatized so i google i find a neuropsychiatrist i go and talk to the psychiatrist the psychiatrist puts me through medication puts me through a terribly program i see once i get better i come back to church you will never come back to church and if you come into church you'll never come at the same person because the therapist has just renewed your mind to the world because the mission of the church is the renewal of the mind now we are not saying don't go and talk to the therapist you know
00:21:11 we are saying two by two your therapist has to talk to the church you don't do that you're acting in silo that's the biggest problem nowadays that everyone say you know i'm i know i'm i've got to give for counselling really yeah a lot of people can't talk to me the problem really what do they tell you it cannot tell you love very private so my ministry to go around fbc everyone tell me all the problem i tell them their solution you know how dangerous that is a lot because we don't know what you're saying
00:21:42 and then people ask you oh i'm representing fbc family life ministry i'm counseling you about no you are not if you have no idea what you're saying you are acting on your own so he has to be accountable here's the last one you see here some people say this is what we call uh on the job training they see how jesus did it uh he he what he did with us with the impure spirits he deal with all the healing uh they see wow very good turnout jesus said now you go and do on on the job training no it's not you
00:22:15 know he gave them authority that means if jesus did not anoint them they go to the town they'll make a fool of themselves that's the key point he gave them authority the word made flesh gave them authority unless you are standing on the authority of the word made flesh it's not christian counseling it has to be under the authority of the word of god now once we come to the use of the word of god we have a problem because what's the difference between the bible and wikipedia i'm going to go back to
00:22:51 the kingdom of god story wikipedia is this i got a problem i got these symptoms google google google google google i find out this issue anxiety this problem my kid behaves a certain way this is the symptoms so so ah then i searched suvang jaya the nearest clinic therapist life coach i go and help i go there what is this it's isolated the problem is we treat the bible like wikipedia i got a marriage problem i just go to the verses on ephesians about marriage i have an issue of anxiety i go to the old testament i say be still
00:23:31 i got an issue about comfort i go to second corinthians i say this is the birth of comfort the bible is not an encyclopedia it does not tell you about adhd schizophrenia marriage breakdowns depression sexual dysfunction addictions it is not an encyclopedia is a very poor encyclopedia and christians use the bible like it's wikipedia the bible is a compass it tells you god's salvation plan from genesis to revelation and you are part of that kingdom plan you use the bible as a compass then you go to wikipedia
00:24:17 very big misunderstanding so let me give you a statement of faith that we have come up with in our ministry by the way this sermon was constructed by pastor link annette linda and john go you don't like it you go and blame them we believe christian counseling is a relationship ministry which has to point people to the gospel we believe in the integration of science now science is important some christians swing the other ways it's got nothing to do with science all psychology is from the devil and
00:24:47 humanistic let me give you a little bit because it's a very sweeping remark uh if say you played golfer oh yes i kept reading please remind me not to move i gotta do it for example if you play golf and you spray in your bag you go for what physiotherapy right do you know what they call that they call that physical therapy is gross motor skills however if i say occupational therapy do you know it's the same thing is exercising you know because there's a link between your body and your mind so if i'm a kid i have a learning
00:25:30 dysfunction i send you to someone that teaches you how to exercise fine motor skill they call it occupational therapy does that guy have to be christian now come on oh no that's from the devil man you got to go to church and let the bible speak to you hallelujah you better really cover for cow slave if you speak like that there's absolutely nothing wrong to having a hindu or a muslim occupational therapist is it psychology obviously in psychology because it deals with sensory your body and your mind
00:26:02 the problem is people make sweeping remarks without understanding the details there are some parts of psychology and therapies which is very humanistic and leads to self there a lot of it isn't we need to integrate and not throw the baby out with the water secular counseling is a one-way self-improvement process which is easily man-centered but christian counselling is two-way discipleship this is so radically different because in in in ephesians 2 we are saved by grace so that no man can boast
00:26:37 and in a secular counseling you have a counselor and a counselor is top down but in christian counseling is side by side and there's one other person you know who is it is the holy spirit so sometimes when you're talking with somebody who has got depression anxiety marriage problems parenting issues addictions and you are trying to be pastoral about it because although the church ma you hear a voice whispering to you and on he says ah no your sins are probably worse than that person that's christian counseling because
00:27:17 jesus the wonderful counselor speaks through the holy spirit i'm going to break down how the church works so we have now looked at difference between what we call secular counseling and christian counseling so ebc is counseling a relational and conversational process which it is that speaks the truth in love you ask anyone even a secular therapist psychiatrist psychotherapy psychology they say yeah that's more or less true then my second question is who is qualified to do this if that is the technology can i make a
00:27:52 suggestion to you all of you everyone should be involved in the counseling ministry that's the fundamental difference there is no such thing as a separate group of people called what's your ministry church i'm a counselor everybody counsels the pulpit is counseling now the worship team was counseling you through music the bible study leaders are counseling you with the word of god and some people one on one have the skills and empathy to counsel you everybody counsels that's the biggest shift from the secular model and the christian
00:28:34 model and when people come and tell you my gift is to counsel actually that's an oxymoron everybody counsels let me break that down a bit and of course ephesians tells you this and he tells you verse 11 christ gave apostles prophets number one that's a hierarchy you notice apostle prophet evangelists pastors and teachers verse 12 equipped people so that the body of christ may be built up now i i do not want to go in detail now what is interesting is the metaphor he uses verse 15 instead speaking truth in love will grow in
00:29:10 in every respect the mature body who's the head as he christ from him the whole body joined he uses now a medical medical metaphor held together but every supporting ligament grows and builds itself up in love notice that comes out the truth in love so here's the other thing it's not just everyone here should do counseling you know you do counseling from the model of verse 16 which means this christian counseling only occurs when it's working with other parts of the body so a person comes to tell you my gift is
00:29:47 counseling and he likes to go around church counseling people he doesn't tell anyone else that is not biblical counseling because he is not working in connection with the rest of the body it has to be done together how is that how do we do that let's break it down a bit now first is like a jigsaw puzzle you click together that means one person does this another person does that another person does that and when they all do together working with therapists psychiatrists doctors elders pastors worship leaders preachers people who
00:30:26 write things in the bulletin only then is that christian counseling that's the biggest shift so let me just tell you how this works out this is from the canadian biblical counseling coalition biblical counseling occurs whenever and wherever god's people engage in conversations that are anchored in scripture sentence of christ and the gospel is informal and formal and how do we do that you speak the truth in love sometimes people need to heal because i'm hurting you speak scriptures of comfort they need to renew
00:31:03 you speak scriptures of encouragement and then sometimes they struggle because if you have a disorder is never easy you bounce up and down up and down you speak scriptures of god's will and sometimes they say i know i can't change i can't hold on a job i can't pass my exams it's just so difficult you speak scriptures to renew the mind and you say by the power of the holy spirit you can brother the devil uncreated you but you are now recreated and you do that with partnership and you do that in three
00:31:37 areas understanding your body the environment and the will i i personally found this very helpful from my own walk someone said don't give me all this bible stuff like i really got no problems my marriage really got problems i can't i got issues don't come and tell me to do all this that's what i don't like about all you preachy preachy people always summonizing or not you know how much problems i have now and you asking won't help other people so let me give you a story that day on friday we had live group had bible study i
00:32:14 thought a depressing topic which is today god decided to lock the door they couldn't get out after depressing bible study with other leave everybody get me out and the door was locked they couldn't get out here's a picture of us trying to get out of the door so we tried we tried and then we used many things we use screwdriver we use scissors we use ruler cannot open hey by the way where the dowels are doing something very useful sitting at the back giving advice let all the young people do in the end after trying many tools
00:32:58 we got the door open hallelujah i think that utterly would give it a three-hour bible study session after that they will really need counselling already how do we do it because someone took a hammer and whacked the handle and the header came out the screwdriver failed the scissors failed the ruler failed in the end after trying many tools we used the hammer brothers and sisters all of you are tools in god's toolbox you may be rusty you may be jacket you are a hammer you may be a screwdriver you may be a
00:33:42 nail you may be a ruler if you work together as hurting as you are you would change and you would bring about the kingdom of god we are instruments to use the words of portrait we are instruments in the hands of the redeemer we are all hurting people helping other hurting people because we have a savior that was hurt for us this is the ministry of the church let me show you how this is done in practical steps number one remember in the efficient text is top down from apostles doubt so the first responsibility is
00:34:35 leadership and leadership needs to create an overall safe environment at bc for those who are struggling mentally and emotionally to feel safe and accepted this is efficiency jew gentile man and woman slave and master struggling with mental non-struggling that's the first thing this has to be done on a pulpit another means to build awareness to remove the secular cultural stigmatization so if i have a marriage issue a parenting issue i have a struggle i feel society rejected me i need to come to fbc
00:35:11 i need to feel the leadership does not discriminate me loves me i feel the worship is saying cornerstone god is with me the worship sweeps over me i go out there i see friendly faces that looks at me and says brother you and i are equal that's the first step here's the second step we need to train believers as caring listeners before the mco we are trying to do this after service we have a few people stand up they are prayer warriors sister annette is very good at this she's my pillar and they would then
00:35:50 see here the sermon the spirit will prompt them after worship and they'll go up and says can i talk to you and we need to saturate the church with this but the person who talks to is not a psychiatrist is not an elder is not a bible teacher what does he do that's step three you point them to the appropriate people and if mental disorder is firstly a spiritual matter then it's a clinical we then work together we have a panel of therapists and we're moving towards a larger panel and we're connected now to a lot of
00:36:28 hospitals and then we will say why don't you try your therapies do you have an existing psychologist are you on medication peter trying to help me to get a panel on this and we say let's talk together and i will tell you in the last few months our team has spoken to almost a lot of doctors they all talk to us all the psychiatrists government and private they will talk to us and they are very happy the church comes on board at this point we ask you have to determine is it clinical because it's not
00:37:02 it's very dangerous you start to do funny things i had i had somebody who said that no you need to pray over everybody and you come to people who have disorders and pray lord remove that spirit if you don't understand the signs of it you know what you're doing you're re-traumatizing the person you know so one sister came up to me who was visiting other churches was very into spiritual warfare he came up to me and said you know so and so i spoke to this person uh so and so got abused when he was a
00:37:30 teenager i'm not going to pray to release the demons wow you know what you're just doing you're just re asking a person to relive those bad experiences and you're re-traumatizing it that's why in fbc we believe in integration step four whoops we form a support team this i will tell you is the church biggest strength the support team will what we do during the primary soul care because soccer is everything spiritually clinically based on the diagnosis disorder because a disorder has particular thing let me
00:38:03 give you example for example if you have schizophrenia the person talks to you he's not himself you must be able to recognize it and not lecture him when he has a when he has that condition with the bible the guy tells you later like actually he's he didn't take his medication you say no no no the bible says here's what the word of god says no you will not be tempted beyond whatever hallelujah he doesn't understand you so you must understand the disorder and then the support team has two parts of we have peer you know why we
00:38:32 need peer because people who struggle like this feel alone and then we need mentors because very often the parental figure is missing and then there's collateral damage and we form teams around very often parents because they're tired so if you're a father you're a mother and you have your child needs care and you're just giving and giving you are draining and a visit from three sisters or three brothers from the church will just change that and we have people come and tell me you know they spoke to
00:39:08 so and so from our church and they speak for one hour from our pastoral team and they say wow it's just made me feel so much better that's the role of church and one therapist came to tell me you know because we are all in chat groups we have a few i won't mention we have quite a few active cases and one therapist from a very large uh secular organization spoke to me he says i have never seen this in my life you know why because outside world when you talk about support you know who to support your family and your friends you know
00:39:36 how many that can count on one finger but when the church says we support we can mobilize god willing 600 people we can get a team to help you with your studies get the team to help you your job get the team to help you with your food get a team to be friends with you that's the power of the body of christ you're on medication the medication has side effects we are moving towards a panel of christian doctors who tell you baselines you know perhaps you don't need this medication because government hospitals let me tell you a
00:40:07 bit just to educate you government hospital they hunt on you in medicine they don't normally a government hospital no time right we don't know we just stick you in the water try this medication it doesn't work on this we try another medication don't know what you all the place like that then we change the dosage until we get it right we think this is conditional i think this are you you go go go because government hospitals they can't love you they can't love you but the church can and once we do this
00:40:40 we turn the corner we work with other ministries and i know we're working with ulam live groups get involved kitchen ministries get involved other things get involved and because people who struggle are lonely we see all right fine we talk to the parents so and so why don't we get five six brothers to do a bible study with you and people feel accepted we do life we do social we make you feel you are normal and once your mind is more renewed we bring you back to church life this is our current model we are not
00:41:18 saying is correct we're not saying it's perfect three years of bumping around in the dark we believe this is the biblical model many people work with us mansi helped us along the way pastor joshua the committee correct me if i'm wrong but you know what's critical here when you look at this everyone's involved worship team is here karis is here kitchen ministry is here live group is here boys brigade is here every church ministry is here what's christian counseling nah everyone let me just encourage you with this and here is our
00:42:02 technical roadmap if you want we have a whole manual on it we're moving towards a manual and uh next few months god willing we're doing some training but it'll be quite technical and that will really get into the clinical diagnosis and the symptoms i'd like to thank sister linda for compiling a lot of these documents for us we're putting it out soon but let me just end with this what are the pillars of christian counseling just very quickly one god's will is sovereign you do not know why some people struggle
00:42:34 and some don't we cannot explain that and that's the first thing we do and i will tell you one thing the statistics of people getting out of clinical disorders is very very very low yet the church must get it off we must persevere some things we don't know why secondly here's the more the one thing that we really need to enforce we are all equal whether your malay chinese indian poor rich nepali god mentally well mentally not well you are equal if we do not get that across this church will be a stigmatized place and lastly
00:43:25 in anything we do we glorify god that's christian counseling these are the pillars let me end you with you with this you see in secular counseling they use words but in christian counseling we use the word of god and i want to just say something the word of god has power uh you know we are in a very dry you know cannot move we had a very dry season right have we noticed the weather cannot hand right but when it rains don't you feel good that because the weather is so bad when you raise you just want to
00:44:02 go ah reading hallelujah correct don't you want that monsoon to come in when the weather is bad people who struggle feel parched do you know what is the monsoon in in christian counseling when people are struggling is the word of god let me give you one which i really love from isaiah 55 and i'll end with this as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater
00:44:46 so is my word then goes out for my worth mouth it will not return to me empty but will accomplish what i desire that's the will of god and achieve the purpose for which i sent it and to anybody out there struggling with an emotional pain a mental struggle may verses 12 13 may you claim it you will go out in joy and be let fall in peace the mountains and hills will burst into song before you and all the trees of the field will clap their hands instead of the thorn bush will grow the juniper instead of briars the martyr will grow
00:45:38 this will be for the lord's renown that's god's glory for an everlasting sign that will endure forever i want to invite the worship team to come up and i'm just going to end with one challenge which instrument are you in god's toolbox
