Being Eager to Grow

“We ought to be good at counseling, the very best at both receiving and giving. No one else’s explanation of human misery goes as wide and long or as high and deep as the Christian explanation. No one else can account for the complexity of factors while keeping the actual person clearly in mind and heart.” David Powlison, The Biblical Counseling Movement after Adams. Biblical counseling has had a huge impact on my life, as a pastor, as a husband, and as a father and grandfather. Because biblical counseling is essentially intense discipleship, the intense discipleship that I have experienced over the many years with others, has made me more like Christ, and desire to pursue him more and more. There is nothing that I know of that will help you to grow and change more into the image of Christ then serving others through intense discipleship/ biblical counseling. I’m not saying this is the only avenue of spiritual growth, what I am saying is that while you are helping someone else to grow in Christ, you are abounding in your growth with them. That has been my experience, and I want to be the very best at both receiving and giving counsel.

I was first introduced to biblical counseling in 1989. A friend of mine, Bill Hill, https://equippingnationals.org/who-we-are/team/ he invited me to his home to talk with me about the struggles I was experiencing in pastoral ministry. I did not know anything about biblical counseling at the time. Bill took the scriptures and skillfully helped me through those days of struggle, no one else explained my struggles using Scripture before. Just like the quote above explains, “No one else can account for the complexity of factors while keeping the actual person clearly in mind and heart.” That’s what I experienced in my first encounter with biblical counselling. God cared and my counselor cared, they were in partnership to help me through this struggle. That’s when I first heard about and experienced Nouthetic counseling. Soon afterward I went to counseling training at Faith Baptist Church in Lafayette IN. https://www.faithlafayette.org/counseling At Faith Baptist Church, Pastor William, “Bill” Goode and Dr. Robert “Bob” Smith, M.D. established the Faith Counseling Ministries in Lafayette IN. Jay Adams was involved but not a member of the church.

In those days the Faith Counseling Conference was called the Missionary Training Conference. Bill Goode was a pastor’s pastor. Bob Smith, Randy Patton, Steve Viars and others on the staff were training us at that time as well as other biblical counselors. I made a lunch appointment with every one of the teachers just so that I could ask questions and get to know them a little better during those days. I was hungry to learn more about biblical counseling and form a better understanding of proper biblical ministry, being the right kind of shepherd, being the right kind of husband and dad. I sent my wife to the training conferences with other ladies, my wife and I were growing and changing together, our marriage was growing and changing because of the biblical counseling training. I led our church to offer to pay for any pastor or missionary that was interested in going to the training conferences. Much later I would duplicate what Faith Counseling Ministry was doing by having our own conference called the Chicago Land Biblical Counseling Conference.

Faith Baptist Counseling Ministries had a profound impact on me as well as on my wife, family, and ministry. I would attend the conference in February for many years to come. In those days it went from Saturday evening to the next Saturday afternoon, it was an intense and personal time of growth packed into a week from 8:00 AM to 7:00 PM usually ending about 8:00 or 8:30 PM, then rich fellowship afterwards. I watched it grow from under 300 to hundreds over the years that I attended, I was getting training that would have a profound effect on my personal life as well as my marriage, family, and ministry. This is where I learned that biblical counseling was more than just an outreach of the church, it is seven day a week pastoring, it is a philosophy of ministry firmly planted directly in Matthew 28:19, 20 and Ephesians 4 type ministry, it is intense discipleship, it is using God’s words skillfully to aid those who are struggling in life.

During this time friends who were in pastoral ministry, formed a group and we began to meet and study together. We dove into Jay Adams books and created our own study guides specifically to teach in our churches. All of us had been affected by biblical counseling and wanted to know how to serve our people better, not just counseling, but in developing a biblical philosophy of ministry. We would meet on occasion and study biblical counseling books together, discuss counseling issues, ministry issues, and other related issues that were going on in our personal life. As a formal group we met for many years, occasionally we would meet with Jay Adams in a restaurant in Woodruff SC, that was always a real blessing and treat. We would meet him for lunch at this location for informal chit chat and general discussion.

Read the article Competent to Counsel: An Interview with Jay Adams, where Jay mentions our “Pastors for Nouthetic Ministry” https://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/competent-counsel-interview-jay-adams and the article “Pastors for Nouthetic Ministry, Part 1” https://nouthetic.org/pastors-for-nouthetic-ministry/ and Part 2, https://nouthetic.org/pastors-for-nouthetic-ministry-part-2/

I cannot tell you how much of a blessing that time was for us, asking questions, and just listening to him talk. I was invited to his home with a friend once to talk, I think the greatest blessing of that time together was hearing his wife talk about him. The ministry that Jay had with his wife and with his family was rich, and she was eager to share that with us. She held him in such high esteem. This group of pastors met with Jay when he was available, sometimes he would hand out books and of course his humor was contagious. I was always fascinated with the simplicity of the depth in which he would speak about things at times, yes simple but deep. There was nothing better than being around these pastor friends growing and changing together, centered around a biblical philosophy of ministry that we shared alike.

We were, and still are dedicated to growing and changing in ministry, we don’t meet like we used to, but those years were abundantly rich, we were growing in ministry together in so many ways. I have known some of these men for 30 and 40 years, they are still hungry to grow in their understanding of biblical ministry. Additionally, we attended counselling training offered by the National Association of Nouthetic Counselors, (NANC), that eventually was renamed the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors, (ACBC). https://biblicalcounseling.com/

A number of us went through the biblical counseling certification process, I finished my certification in 1999. I have been blessed by the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors as well as (CCEF), the Christian Counselors & Educational Foundation. https://www.ccef.org/ The Biblical counselling movement has grown in so many ways, with materials, and with great men and women who have contributed to the biblical counseling movement.

I thought I would share something that I wrote around 1990 or so. Randy Patton asked me to give him a list of how Nouthetic counseling had helped me, the following is the paper that I wrote those many years ago.

How Nouthetic Counseling Has Helped Me In The Ministry

• As I thought upon how Nouthetic counseling has influenced me as a Pastor and as a person, I came up with this short list. This list should not be construed as all-inclusive, many other areas of my personal and pastoral life have been affected. I preface this list by saying that I came to counseling as a counselee, not as one looking for a “counseling method”. I found, as a result of using what I had learned, that counseling/discipleship is not just a part of something we do, (a method in our ministry), it is a philosophy of ministry and life. Col 1:28, Romans 15:14
• How Nouthetic counseling helped me in the ministry in a nutshell.

1. Developing A Philosophy Of Ministry
2. How I approach the heart of how we conduct ministry.

Jesus did not just mandate discipleship, He modeled discipleship, having one supreme goal, to please the Father. John 8:28, 29. Paul emulated Christ by laboring to please God, 2 Cor 5:9, modeling Christ’s goal in his life, pleasing God and bring him ultimate glory 1 Corinthians 10: 31.

1. Understand Evangelism & Discipleship
2. How I approach winning people to Christ as a “disciple maker” not just a “soul winner”. Witnessing and winning someone to the Lord is a lifelong privilege, but sharing the gospel is more than winning people to Christ, it includes discipling them in Christ after they become a believer. The dynamic of evangelism is a two-edged sword of winning and teaching. The two-fold principle of winning and follow through is given in Matt 28:18- 20, making disciples, and then teaching them to observe.

• Applying Truth or Progressive Sanctification

1. How I approach the doctrine of spiritual growth and how I am specifically helping believers to grow and change, not with a broad shot gun approach, but with a precise rifle approach, dealing with specific areas of need. Jesus is not only a saving Savior but a sanctifying Savior, desiring to conform us into his image. Rom 8:29, Eph 4: 22-24 (The put on put off dynamic of Scripture.)
2. Emphasis The Sufficiency Of Scripture
3. How I approach every possible difficulty in life. God has given us a Book that is sufficient to address every possible area of life because the Bible is written for everyday life. 2 Tim 3: 16, 17, 2 Pet 1:3,4
4. Recognize The Lordship Of Jesus Christ
5. How I approach teaching people the importance of the Lordship of Christ in everyday life. Teaching them that they do not choose Christ as Lord of their lives, He already is Lord of their lives, they just need to submit to His Lordship. John 13:13-17
6. Understanding The Stewardship Of The Believer
7. How I approach teaching believers to be good managers of their lives by being spiritually goal oriented. Stewardship is not just something we do, it is what we are, active Stewards/Managers of every aspect of life. 2 Cor 4:2, Phil 3:13, 14

• The Local Church

1. How I approach teaching believers about the role and importance of the local church in their everyday lives. The local church is the learning center for equipping them to live for Christ, Eph 4: 11-13

• Church Discipline

1. How I approach teaching believers to handle conflict and exercise conflict resolution, by using the principles of church discipline. Matt 5:23, 24, Matt 18:15-17, Rom 14, Gal 6:1
2. Attributes Of God Particularly Gods Sovereignty.
3. How I approach teaching believers to trust God, particularly by understanding Gods sovereignty. God is in complete control of their lives, knowing that God is in the problem with them helps them to know that God also is in the solution to life’s problems. Dan 4:35, 1Ch 29:11, 1 Cor 10:13
4. Family Growth
5. How to understand the role of each family member and give believers specific instruction on how to fulfil those roles. How am I growing as a husband and father etc. Eph 5:22-6:4
6. Personal Spiritual Growth
7. If I am asking people to grow and change by becoming more like Christ, how am I modeling growth and change along with them. Phil 3:17, 2 Th 3:9, Phil 3:12 -16

• It Has Taught Me How To Put Handle’s On My Theology.

1. I have learned how to transform theology proper to theology practical for everyday life so that it can be useful. 2 Tim, 4:2, Galatians 1:15, 16

This paper reflected at that time the development of a meaningful philosophy of ministry, one that has blossomed into a much more specific focus and purpose. See https://christinyoucounseling.com/understanding-focus-and-purpose-in-life/

As I look back at this paper, I remember how eager I was to learn, and grow, and change. I am still growing and changing in my understanding of life and ministry! I still want to grow, don’t you? I’m thankful I kept this paper, because it reminds me of where I was and how far I have gone. I challenge you to do the same. How have you grown? What has influenced you? Are you growing and do you have a yardstick from the past that you could look back upon and see where you have grown? If you haven’t today’s the day to start, I encourage you!