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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 184
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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Passion is sensing what is alive in me and what I yearn for in myself and in another. Wisdom is what is happening in the other person that I need to understand well enough to move in certain directions as we chat. Journeying realities are the “red dot” of where the person is in this moment. Vision is seeing where God is taking them as they yearn for him above all else. Reframing moves the other to think about the relational impact of their ideas. Categories of understanding are the details , the specifics of what is true about someone’s soul.
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Passion – to look at the SoulCarer’s motivation, a self examination of your own interior in order to provide effective soul care
Wisdom – a recognition of the fact that the SoulCarer is inadequate and must rely on the Holy Spirit for guidance and direction in this process
Journey reality – a focus on where the person is instead of where they want to be
Vision – the possibilities , necessary goals
Reframing – taking the focus off of the presenting problem and focusing on the story of the soul
Categories of understanding – information provided in the telling of the story of the soul that informs the SoulCarer’s focus in this process -
Passion defines what’s important to me, especially as I relate to others. Journeying reality sees what’s going on in another person, taking a deeper look below the waterline. Vision is where the other person is, pursuing what might be in their future, what the spirit is doing. Reframing involves asking questions to see the story of the soul, of relationships – how they relate to and with others. As people share, understanding how this image bearer has capacities including the ultimate one for God. The overarching in-process dynamic is wisdom, which is part of all the above and reveals a better way of seeing into another person.
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Passion what’s going on inside me; Wisdom what’s going on inside another; journeying reality what the person I’m caring for is sharing; vision what this person could experience if they wanted God more than anything else; reframing looking at the story of their soul in context of key relationships; categories of understanding thoughts that are a guide to knowing how to move ahead.
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How might your experiences in the cycle of spiritual growth help you provide more effective SoulCare?
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When you experience brokenness, repentance, abandonment, confidence and release you know that you have changed from living in and emphasizing the external world to the internal one and that God has done a lot of healing and it is He that will heal the person He has brought to you. You will be able to share it more effectively and they will be able to receive it because they will know you can understand and it will make sense. His Spirit bears witness with our Spirit.
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The cycle draws me out of myself, and draw near to God, and hence in drawing nearer to God who is able, SoulCare is effective not in eliminating the problems, but turning the person to see a larger story than ourselves, a larger Person who is able to provide, a greater purpose to live for – a better hope.
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The Cycle will help me gage my place to allow the spirit to keep me focused on what it is doing rather than where I am and not pull that place into the process, I will be able to see where I am and progress to the place where I need to be to venture into the soul of both the person involved and myself. It is a useful lens to check the state of my soul, for it is a cycle that repeats itself on all of our Spiritual journey’s
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As you’ve journeyed through the cycle, and hopefully gained wisdom and insight, it can help you see where the other person is. That will help you to pray and seek the Spirit more effectively. As you listen to the Spirit and His wisdom, you will be able to lean in with the person more effectively.
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I realize that I can do nothing without God, in my brokenness, I am in need of repentance. In my daily walk with God, on this path of my spiritual journey I learn to rely on God more, and to put my trust in God, and not in others, and then I do not have to worry about impressing others, or pleasing them. The five phases of the Cycle of Spiritual Growth, is brokenness, repentance, abandonment, confidence and release. Also Dr. Larry Crabb talks about and shares the three mistakes to avoid in Soul Care: Retreat, Advise, Empathize. We all are fallen image-bearers of God, we need to depend more and more on God and not on ourselves.
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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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Retreating will make them think they are unlovable, advising is trying to fix them, empathizing is only the first step and leaves out the solution of allowing God to bring healing. It depends on the person and my energy level. Retreating if I am tired, advising is old behavior and empathizing is the one I would like to do so they will accept me.
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Retreat back to our comfort zone. We bring the other person to where we are ‘secure,’ rather than journeying with the person at his/her crossroad with Jesus.
Advise as a “band-aid” solution. Often times, it portray a “expert” posture that we have the answers, when in fact we don’t have a clue how to move forward.
Empathizing to convey a “I understand” stance to the other person, when we aren’t ready to work through our interior world, and understand the other person’s interior world, and what the Spirit is doing in both our lives. Personal emotional responses (grief) is incomparable.I retreat when I sensed this is going to be a super ‘hot potato” and when I can’t envision how to help the other person. The retreat is driven by fear of being stuck in a ‘sticky’ dependency. It’s a risk I have to take if I desire to involve in Soulcare – “a drowning man holds on to a straw.” Healthy boundaries, and always directing the person to Christ who is able, not me.
Predispose: I have been stalked.
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Retreating, advising and empathizing are all common mistakes while attempting to provide soulcare, but none of these methods truly care for the soul of the other person or direct them back to God. Instead, these responses keep the focus on the problem. I am personally the most likely to empathize. I want to make the other person feel good, and I want to resolve the problem by caring for the individual. I feel like it is important to empathize, but it is also important to keep going and to uncover what is really going on in their soul rather than staying in that place of empathy.
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Your not relying on Brokenness, Repentance, Abandonment, Confidence to achieve Release, to allow the Holy Sprit to move and keep and accept the realization this is to big for me but what is in me from accepting Christ as my savior is released and will go to work on both of us. Predisposes, I used to rely on life experiences that have helped me see different Journeying Reality’s and I relied on them to piece a soul story together but you can not do this for each person is different and solely unique, you need to Journey into their story, be curious of the red dot, not impose other’s history into someone else’s unique story and place.
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When we focus on these three things we are not depending on the Spirit – we are focused on fixing the problem or getting away from it. When I don’t know how to engage – I think I lean towards empathy – because it’s easy. When I am feeling competent, I lean towards advise – giving people the “to-do” list. These are rooted in my own junk – my wanting to help so that I am needed or valued. Or my pride that wants people to think I’m wise.