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Lesson OneHoly Tension: Leading People Toward the Cycle of Spiritual Movement3 Activities1 Assessment
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Lesson TwoFour Kinds of Conversations: Provoking the Right Kind of Tension3 Activities1 Assessment
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Lesson ThreeThe Rhythm of SoulCare: Four Movements3 Activities1 Assessment
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Lesson FourThe Doctrine of First and Second Things: Beginning to Understand Radical Dependence on Supernatural Resources for Supernatural Living3 Activities1 Assessment
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Lesson FiveNew Covenant Provisions: Entering Tension that the Spirit Creates and Resolves3 Activities1 Assessment
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Lesson SixNew Covenant Community: What the Spirit Makes Possible3 Activities1 Assessment
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Lesson SevenSafety and Excitement: What Makes Someone Willing to be Known and Explored3 Activities1 Assessment
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Lesson EightThe Purity of Self-Awareness: Encouraging Trust in Another3 Activities1 Assessment
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Lesson NineDiscernment: Building Confidence in the Process of Discovery3 Activities1 Assessment
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Lesson TenReleasing What Is Alive: Touching the Soul with Power3 Activities1 Assessment
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Course Wrap-UpCourse Completion1 Activity1 Assessment
Participants 165
Discussion Questions
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Briefly review what role each of the following topics plays in SoulCare: passion, wisdom, journeying reality, vision, reframing, and categories of understanding.
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37 Replies
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Passion is about the motives within. Wisdom is knowing where you stand before God leaving a thirst for Him above all things. A journeying reality is the starting point. The vision is the goal or outcome which should be an appetite for God over all outcomes. Reframing is the transition from the starting pointing to the goal, changing from the journeying reality to the vision. Finally the categories of understanding is remembering that each person has their own unique story and brokenness developed over time yet are made in God’s image.
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passion = checking the motives within in order to effectively begin the process of SoulCare
wisdom = helping to stir the appetite for God and release the Spirit of God in the life of another
journeying reality = the starting point for a person, their “You are here”
vision = the ultimate goal, in Soul Care we need the vision to be that the person has an appetite for God that is greater than anything, including their appetite for “solving the problem” of their journeying reality.
reframing = asking questions that start to transition the focus from the journeying reality to the vision of having an appetite for God that is greater than any other appetite.
categories of understanding = remembering this person is made in the image of God and has a capacity to love like God, but that they, like all of us, are a broken being, who needs the work of God.
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Passion: What’s going on inside of me?
Wisdom: What is going on inside that other person, and what is the Holy Spirit up to?
Journeying reality: a presenting problem, issue or burden
Vision: the person with an appetite for God stirred so much that the other appetites in life are diminished
Reframing: what is the whole story of this person’s soul? Relational patterns throughout life etc
Categories of understanding: this person is made in God’s image with the capacity to desire, perceive, choose and feel…and these capacities have been corrupted by the fall.
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In passion we must ask the question, ‘What is happening in me?’ How am I responding to this person and why, what is under the surface of the waterline. Wisdom then moves us to want the other person to have an appetite for God that surpasses all other appetites, and draws them deeper into relationship with God. Journeying reality is being present and safe for them to begin to open up their story to us, where have they been, where are they now, where are they going, their journey. Having a vision of where they are now, and being able to have a vision for where the Spirit could take them, and becoming excited to be a part of that journey. Being with someone next in reframing their story. Helping them to view their own relationships, where they see them as broken and how God, by His Spirit can guide them to reframe the story of their soul.
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Passion: Understanding what is going on inside of me motivating me in order to do something
Wisdom: Life’s experience motivating me to rely upon God’s direction
Journeying Reality: What is it that this individual is experiencing deep down inside right now
Vision: for this person to have an appetite for God that is stronger than their journeying reality
Reframing: for this person to see themselves and this reality they are living. To see God’s vision of them. And definitely not my vision,
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How might your experiences in the cycle of spiritual growth help you provide more effective SoulCare?
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30 Replies
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I have found that confidence and trying to release the power of God in the lives of others is completely inadequate, and in fact, can be detrimental, if I am accomplishing it in my own power and with my own forced confidence in my own abilities. Only when I recognize my own brokenness, repent, and abandon myself to God, can I truly have confidence, but that confidence does not come from my own abilities, but from my confidence in God, who is already at work in this person’ life and my own. I can then, and only then, release what is best in me to others. The Spirit of God flows through me and can work to open others up to His work in their lives.
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I’m seeing the very cycle he discussed in my own emotions as I take this course! I’ve experienced much brokenness and repentance in it
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I believe that God gives us each this experience of spiritual growth so that we CAN then walk with another. We all have to come to the places of brokenness, repentance, abandonment, confidence and release, and as we do, we more fully understand our own inadequacy, and can fully appreciate anyone who may ask us to join i their journey, just exactly where they are, but also where God can bring them. We may even have similarities along the way that can be helpful as someone tries to move out of their brokenness into repentance and see their need for Christ in an even deeper way because He has opened their eyes and given them more clarity. We need each other, God made us that way and that is why this type of care is so necessary today. People have spent too much time alone without others and without God and just can’t see a way to change, because without the Spirit indwelling we cannot.
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First I have to remember that I am self-centered and broken. I must rely upon God if I am ever truly going to be effective in helping anyone, especially myself, my past experiences have led me to where and who I am, and this can create a lot of empathy. But I must do more than just sit in the emotions of a moment to stir SoulCare, I must learn how to listen to God and what he wants for his children in there journeying reality.
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More of God; less of myself. I need God in everything for every aspect of my life. For God to be reflected in me, I need his power, strength, guidance, teaching and ruling in me the more so.
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Why is it a mistake to focus on retreating, advising, or empathizing while attempting to provide SoulCare? Which of these three mistakes are you personally more likely to make as you attempt to engage in SoulCare? What do you think predisposes you to make that mistake?
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30 Replies
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Retreating, advising, and empathizing while attempting to provide SoulCare all place the emphasis on “removing the symptoms” for either the one who is providing the SoulCare or for the one who is receiving it. Retreating shuts down the ability of the Spirit to move through you. You effectively put a wall up between yourself and the one who needs the SoulCare because you’re confused, puzzled, disgusted, etc. and feel the need to reframe the situation in ways that you can handle. Advising places the emphasis on your own ability to glean from worldly or biblical wisdom and apply it to this particular situation. This only serves to make a person reliant upon your own wisdom and the world’s answers instead of those of the Spirit working in their lives. Empathy, though it is important in SoulCare, can lead to it becoming the emphasis of the interaction. The person leaves feeling very validated and loved by you, but it doesn’t lead to the overall vision of SoulCare, which is that they will have an appetite for God that is greater than any other appetite.
I am most likely to make the advising mistake, and have made it in the past. I do a lot of reading and I am constantly learning. As an educator and minister by training, with spiritual gifts that tend to lead me to teaching/shepherding roles in the church and with others, I can easily try to understand a journeying reality with my own eyes, analyze the situation, and put together a fairly comprehensive plan for better health and wholeness. There’s only one problem with that…..that goal of moving to a healthier space is a short sighted view of the vision God has for all of us. It comes from my own brain and not from a space of recognizing my own brokenness and need for my appetite for God to be greater than any other appetite.
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All are flesh. Retreating is for my own comfort. Advising is for my own comfort. Empathizing is for my own comfort.
I’m personally likely to engage in any of those 3 depending on the personality of the other person. A dominating or angry person makes me want to retreat, especially if they rant or do monologues. Probably because I struggle w people pleasing and don’t want to interrupt them, yet I find this intolerable. Redefining someone’s struggle in terms I can handle is totally for my own comfort.
Empathy comes naturally to me, so I’m probably most likely to lean on this.
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They are all mistakes because they all say “I can do something to help here in my own strength,” and that is simply not true. In ourselves we can do nothing, we need the Spirit to do the work in them and in us! I think I probably most often have thought (prior to these course) that I could bring “good biblibal advice,” I see the folly in this now, but I still have to be honest and will sometimes think as I meet with others that I might have something to offer. Fortunately for them, I have learned to listen to the Spirit when he gently says “not now Rebecca!” I believe the reason I am disposed to this is that I really want to help and want to think that there is somethig I can do, but when I am being completely honest I KNOW there is nothing in ME that is good except Christ in me. So allowing Him to do the work is my best course of action.
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When I am retreating I am focused on my own comfort zone and am backing away from what makes me uncomfortable. Our focus should be in what the Spirit is guiding us to do and say and our comfort is not a factor. Advising is me giving an opinion even when taken from a scripture, if the Lord didn’t lead you to use that scripture and in how to lead the other person I to a deeper understanding of Christ with it, you shouldn’t be using it. Waiting on the Holy Spirit to guide. Empathy is good and necessary but when that is all we have to offer it is not soul care. I think I am more prone to advising because I have been doing that with scripture for a long time
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Retreating: As Dr. Crabb explains, “You’re really moving into your own comfort zone and you’re away from moving toward SoulCare.”
Advising: This is not SoulCare. It’s “rearranging behavior” as Dr. Crabb describes.
Empathizing: It’s not the substance of SoulCare and opens the door to many more topics.
Of the 3 mistakes, I am more likely to stumble into retreat. What predisposes me in this case is first I’m very introverted. So getting a conversation out of me in the first place is a goal!…lol. Then, as Dr. Crabb as admitted himself, a lot of times I feel like maybe the person should be talking to someone else. Though the Lord has used me in ministry for many years, it doesn’t stop those feelings from surfacing.