Introduction
One of the
emerging issues in Christian counseling today is providing the kind of
intensive, loving care which huge numbers of people in the church need
in order to receive healing for their broken lives.
To enable persons to come to ‘maturity in Christ’
and develop to the fullness of personality we call the "image of Christ" represents an enormous challenge to
the body of Christ. It has always been so,
but it seems even more imperative in
today’s world that the church develop ways to provide nurture.
("Fellowship" and discipleship are not
enough.) It seems that far more people in today’s churches have
experienced significant blows which hamper development - destructive
families, violence, addictions and so on - than a few
decades ago. (Possibly we are just more aware of how people’s growth is
stunted or fostered.)
The
same need exists in the church world wide. Imagine
the needs for nurturance, as well as teaching, for
millions of Russians coming to Christ after suffering lifelong
oppression, violence and a skyrocketing rate
of alcoholism. One mental health expert
considers the whole population to be suffering from
depression. Imagine the
millions in Africa displaced from tribal ties and rushing to cities in
search of a better life.
[i] And imagine the millions trapped in terrorism
and war in dozens of other countries. Who can possibly assist these millions to
understand and dream of reaching towards the wholeness which holiness implies? The
church of Christ worldwide has the greatest gifts and resources to
bring healing -- not just through
evangelism, but through in-depth loving which fosters healing and
reshapes lives, not by the millions, but
one by one.
Virginia
Satir, one of the foremost family therapists of our time, says her
"best estimate" about people growing up in
North America is that perhaps four percent of us grow up in truly
nurturing families - she says one percent
may be a more realistic figure. By
nurturing she means that the basic needs of emotional
and spiritual sustenance, as well as physical and
educational requirements of children are optimally met.
We can hope
that within the church we might see a higher percentage of nurturing
families, but I don’t believe that is
necessarily so, since the people in the pew are products of the larger
society. What this means
is that the vast majority of people within churches, as well as outside
of them, suffer some degree of deprivation
as well as some life traumas. To enable
people to trust God (emotional reliance) and not just
“believe” (a cognitive process) means that they must
experience love, acceptance and nurture - what we might
call substitute parenting or re-parenting - in order to grow to
maturity.
Historically
at times the church has known and experienced the power which comes by
living in community - as the family of
God, as the body of Christ. Hundreds of
Christian communities down through the
ages bear witness to that. Yet in our age,
most Christians live less and less in community of
any kind, let alone Christian community. Most of us, especially in urban churches, live
fragmented lives, only one fragment of
which is “church”, “spiritual life” or “fellowship.” To receive healing
and move towards wholeness requires much
more than an hour or two a week in a church to which we commute. The integration
of life which community best offers is foundational for personal
wholeness for the vast majority of people. In my doctoral research on exceptional
Christians, I found that commitment to and participation
in the body of Christ (though not necessarily the organized, formal
church) was a critical element in
formation (Dodds, 1992).
The Biblical Model
of Healing: The Living Organism
It is not by accident that the model of
relationship that Jesus gives the church is that of His own body “the body of Christ.” The body, the living
organism, exemplifies living together interdependently, all of us being both needed and needy.
The “body” means family at its finest, true
community drawn together in a web of
relationship, committed to each other for the common good.
We are all born into some kind of family. In “family” we are all shaped, for good or for
ill. In family too we can best re-learn,
be re-shaped, re-influenced, experience healing, become whole. We don’t learn and develop in a vacuum, devoid
of close relationships. We learn better
ways of thinking, behaving, relating through interactions with others. Today’s unprecedented loss of extended family
and community at various levels increases the need for the church to
create caring, loving groups which nurture people, especially through
their very difficult times of wounding. The
church is uniquely gifted and empowered to become the “secure” family
-- the functional one which provides re-birth and growth toward the
optimum of the “image of Christ.” The small group movement has
succeeded to the extent that it fulfills this role.
The church must offer far more than
the emotional support the lucky few gain from paid professionals or an
hour a week in a “cell group.” We can never hope to meet the nurturance
needs of millions if we rely on these alone. Even
if professional counseling was the best option, there would never be
enough professionals to meet the need. We
know that in times past the church community fulfilled multiple roles
in the life of a person. The church was
the center of living, of participation in the sacraments and
confession, discipleship, fellowship, teaching, comfort, celebrating
birth and mourning death. Today’s church
functions in a secular society where many of these crucial life
elements have been given over to other institution or agents. For instance, the priestly and pastoral roles
once fulfilled within church are now more likely filled by
psychologists and counselors. I would like
to see the church reclaim these roles as functional elements in the
life of its people.
The 3-M Model for Change I propose shows
how the church can foster growth using a profound but simple approach
(Dodds, 1992). This model defines what God
gives to us through His Word and other resources.
1. Motivation a
desire for something better than what we currently experience
2. Model the new ideas, persons, or ways of
behaving which offers us an alternative
3.
Means the energy of the Holy Spirit available to
us and within us which empowers our efforts at change.
This model can be taught simply to even small
children with three statements:
1. I can behave differently and as a result my
life will be different.
2 . I can do something (such as apply God’s Word) to
make it happen
3. God will help me through His Spirit in me.
Limitations of Counseling
and Hospitalization
Even at its best, counseling and
hospitalization for the severely wounded involve certain barriers or
limitations. Neither, though valuable, are
endowed with the kind of “family” resources the church can provide. Traditional counseling offers an hour a week
during which a wounded person can share hurts and find some help and
understanding. But, after that hour, he or
she must return to the same set of relationships and daily routine. To put new insights and other learning into
action is difficult. He or she may or may
not find support to make the important changes needed to bring about a
healthier life. Without the supportive net
of relationships and a “holding” environment full of love and care,
many persons are not able to take steps of growth.
With daily support, such as one finds in a closely
knit community, much greater change is possible. This
is one reason community based programs such as ‘half-way houses” have
worked as places for persons to find healthier ways of living when
recovering from addictions and so on.
Today a churchgoer in crisis is more
likely to be confined to a hospital than ministered to by the body of
Christ. Admission to a psychiatric unit
creates several barriers to the wounded person who may not need
confinement (not being at an extreme of harming the self or someone
else). Consider some barriers which would
be avoided in a church community setting:
1.
Finances: The daily cost in a psychiatric unit runs about $1,200 per
day. [ii] A “partial hospitalization” program or “day
care” can be $600 or $800. This is beyond
the reach of most people. Even if paid by
insurance, such care only serves the identified patient rather than the
family in which he or she is enmeshed. There
is no connection back to the people in the daily life of the patient.
2. The
“hospital shock” of being treated as a psychiatric patient, having
personal items taken away, being confined with a group of people who
may have bizarre and terrible experiences feels demeaning to many
people. Such exposure can make the wounded
person more depressed before any positive changes can be fostered. One client of mine told of her hospital
roommate sharing (uninvited) her many suicidal attempts and all the
ways they could trick the staff and find a way to kill themselves in
spite of all the rules.
Another client shared how demeaned she felt in a
“Christian” psychiatric unit which robbed her of dignity by treating
her as an irresponsible child or crazy person. Being
treated this way, her depression became worse.
3. Hospitalization may focus on environmental
safety and dispensing of medications, and may not provide immediate
counseling or the support of a warm and encouraging staff who impart
hope or teach a new life style. Without
supportive relationships recovery is likely delayed.
4. Due to their complexity as institutions,
hospitals may not be able to provide an atmosphere of support such as
one could experience in a small group of caring fellow Christians
.
I believe the church can be a vital force
and set an example in taking initiative to provide alternative modes of
care for the wounded, just as the hospice movement represents a healthy
alternative to dying in a hospital. The
church’s communities of care could similarly model an alternative way
of offering “crisis of soul” care. The
model we practice and propose here is one way to practice the love of
Christ in ways which foster growth, especially in crisis or deep need. We seek to do what Olthuis admonishes the
community of faith. He calls for a variety
of modes of support to enable people to become whole and to flourish
within the family of faith (Olthuis, 1985b, 1989).
Reasons for Life and
Healing in Community
I define
community as a shared, common life based on voluntary commitment to
agreed upon purpose, goals, and values. It
is a network of significant others knit together by covenants which
connect persons, nourish health and enable healing.
In the context of this model it also includes small
groups within the larger community, serving each other in “life
together” workshops or retreats. Biblical
community, or the body of Christ, is founded in God’s essential being.
1.
In the Trinity, God’s essence and nature as a relational being are
reflected.
The Trinity is a model of loving relationship. Being made in God’s image, we too are made for
loving relationship; in pursuing relationship with Him and with each
other we find both the challenge and the support needed for our highest
development as persons.
2.
Love, springing from and centered in God, is the greatest healer. Relationship is
essential for love to be enacted and experienced. Personal
encounter changes people.
3.
We are developmental beings created by God for growth. Community
provides for that developmental process so that we may become like
Christ in all dimensions.
4.
Community is the optimal environment in which to foster loving personal
relationships, to nurture
growth and to experience restoration and healing. It
provides a foundation for healthy service through affording both
individuality and interdependence, the mutual valuing of persons and
their gifts.
5.
The word “restoration” implies that something has gone wrong. Things are not
as they should be or not as God intended for us. We
have sinned. We have been sinned against. We are entangled, stuck, bogged down, bound
and broken. We need to be released,
healed, mended, set free from old patterns and generational chains of
sin. Community provides for the
integration of relational, social, emotional and spiritual aspects of
our lives, which living in a fragmented and tortured society does not
do for us.
6.
When there is deprivation of loving relationship in our original
community (especially that of the family), gaps in the self occur. We experience
these as inadequate development, wounds or losses.
When a person is
surrounded by healthy, positive community, well‑being is promoted;
healing, restoration, growth and
wholeness can occur.
Values which a Christian community of care
might share are: interpersonal communication centered in
honesty, immediacy and openness; a high degree of
interaction, implying time together, mutual availability;
trust and understanding and an appropriate
definition of boundaries; acceptance and affirmation; sense of family (place of belonging); valuing of each
person as essential, as gifted and unique; mutuality and
reciprocality; accountability; nurturance;
creativity.
The Spiritual
Foundation for Caring for Others
Our foundation for service in the
body of Christ is a spiritual one, based in God as creator, restorer
and healer, as modeled for us by Jesus, the Servant Leader. Therefore our service to one another depends
upon applying divine resources. These
include the gifts of the Spirit, the healing Word, and prayer. 2 Peter 1:3 says God has already given us
everything we need for life and godliness. Our
challenge is to put these resources to work and apply them in our own
and others’ lives. Our perspectives must
include the awareness that none of us Christians are exempt from the
effects of sin and its impact and infringements on our lives. Sin can disrupt our total being -- emotional,
spiritual, physical, intellectual, relational. It
can also skew godly patterns of life, relationship and ministry. Christians, especially those who care for
others, are the target of God’s enemy who is out to devour us (I Peter
5:8). Those who serve the body of Christ
as agents of Christ’s healing need to be mature enough to understand
these truths, and sufficiently strong to withstand the pressures which
ministering to others creates.
In addition to the ordinary, personal ravages of
sin, the stresses of living in a sinful world, and the extraordinary
dangers of life in Satan‑bound cultures, some Christians in ministry
may suffer extreme forms of spiritual warfare due to their dedication
to Christ and their efforts to release those held captive by or stunted
by Satan. Such battles may harm their
ability to grow in godly maturity and may limit their effectiveness in
ministry. Attacks may take the form of
illness, relational difficulties, spiritual oppression.
They may at times lead them to despair, to
staggering wounds, and even to death.
In spite of these forces of evil, we know that
Christians, including the care givers themselves, can be restored,
renewed, released and healed in a caring Christian community committed
to prayer, support, and nurturance.
Examples of The Need for
Care in Community
Let’s look at some actual examples which
come from our experience in caring for members of the body of Christ. Our experience covers about 30 years in
cross‑cultural, international work. We
have devoted our lives to attending to the medical and emotional needs
of foreign workers, as well as to their spiritual and
educational/intellectual needs. We learned
quickly that a person’s difficulties, especially in crisis situations,
seldom encompass just one dimension of life. A
person’s problem may begin with a physical illness, for instance, but
effects of the illness usually spread into the emotional, the spiritual
and other dimensions of his or her life, as well as into the lives of
the whole family and the work roles. The
longer the first need is unresolved or unmet, the more intense the need
becomes and the more it affects all other aspects of the person and
his/her roles within the organization. If
problems and needs are identified within the community of care and
addressed promptly, the damage is minimized. If
not, however, the problem is compounded, affecting more areas of the
person’s life and more persons within the family or community.
Often the church community invests
little in its members who are hurting. Such
neglect may cost the person and church tremendously when measured in
the devastation or suffering. It may lead
to other consequences, such as cynicism and distrust or loss of faith.
These
examples from our own work with the wounded in missions illustrate the
varied dimensions of need. [1] Though these
life stories are more extreme in some details, they are not
significantly different in magnitude or scope from ‘ordinary’
Christians sitting in the pew with you on any Sunday.
[1]
Mary was thrilled to receive a grant from a
prestigious international foundation to fund her doctoral research
in anthropology. Twenty‑four hours after departing her Ivy League
university she sat on a mud bench in a rural village in the Andes
Mountains. She attempted to establish
relationships with the villagers and to begin the arduous task of
learning their language and collecting research data.
The people mocked her, misled her, and sometimes
threatened her with stones. She became ill
with dysentery, laying in her hut for days before a villager dared to
help her. She suffered periodic terrors,
feeling something clutching her in embraces so hard they squeezed away
her breath. She feared she would die of
suffocation. Finally well enough to sit
again in the square and record notes, she was overwhelmed with
loneliness and rejection. After one more
round of jeering and ridicule she ran sobbing from the village, caught
the first truck passing on the rutted road, and returned to the
homeland. She dropped out of her study
program.
Caroline sought treatment for
continuous headaches, even leaving her field assignment for CAT
scans and other sophisticated tests. Two
and a half years later her headaches were still undiagnosed, and she
and her family left the field in total discouragement, having been told
that she was a “psychosomatic case.” Her self‑esteem plummeted, her
head still hurt, no diagnosis was forthcoming. She
and her family planned to leave missions - until at Wycliffe’s Quest
(where they came in desperation hoping for some renewal) God led to the
correct diagnosis of the medical root of the problem.
Gerald experienced excruciating
pain, changes in visual perception and on‑going disequilibrium. He became deeply depressed because of the
continual pain. He and his family left the
field after a year of anguish, still seeking relief from the pain,
which became so severe that he contemplated suicide.
The life of the whole family was thoroughly
distorted. Again, through the ministry at
Quest, the root of the problem was identified and the man experienced
release from demonic oppression.
James stepped out of the ivory halls of
a Christian college into a camp with 20,000 refugees and a ten
million dollar budget. He and his fellow
workers, all in their early twenties, worked feverishly to deal with
the myriad problems of caring for the refugees. There
were no mature leaders on hand, and no place for R&R.
In anguish over the suffering and his own inordinate
responsibility, the young leader turned to alcohol for some relief -
within a year he was having several drinks a day to make life bearable. Some of his fellows became so cynical about
Christian leaders and people‑helping that ten years later they have not
recovered their faith or their desire to serve in cross‑cultural work.
Nancy, a translator, left the
field after prolonged illness and resulting depression. Her partnership had broken up through bouts of
rage, after she and her co-worker rented a house all the villagers
rejected because they believed it was haunted. Four
years later neither her illness nor her depression had been treated
successfully even though she was shunted from one “care‑giver” to
another for four years. Through the
multi‑modal care at Quest and PEEQ she finally recovered.
John and Cindy were accepted for mission
service in a third world country where they were to live on two
hundred dollars a month as a way of relating to the nationals whom they
would serve. Their training consisted of
three days in New York city. Cindy left
the funeral of her mother, dead by suicide, to catch the overseas
flight. Her field leaders labeled her a
trouble-maker and a poor adjuster, difficult to work with and slow to
learn the language. Cindy and John suffered deep rejection and severe
depression. They were sent home as
unsuitable; their home church considered them failures.
Brad and Angie submerged their marital
difficulties in religious zeal. Feeling
God called them to serve in an overseas assignment, they worked hard to
pass through the orientation and training program without letting their
problems show. Once in the new culture and
in school to learn the new language, they found the stresses unbearable. Brad began abusing Angie, at times hitting
her, demanding she satisfy his sexual needs twice a day, “as a good
Christian wife ought to do.” She was terrified to let anyone know; to
be sent home would be humiliating and lead to their loss of candidate
status. Their church would throw them out
as bad examples. An astute counselor saw
abnormalities in the children’s behavior, but field leaders could not
accept that there was a problem. Two years
later the wife filed for divorce. The
husband joined another mission and was immediately sent on another
overseas assignment.
Just out of college, Sarah and Tony were
idealistic and highly motivated. They
accepted an overseas assignment as house parents for 23 children, ages
5 to 18. This included supervising
nationals who worked as household employees. With
their own toddler and infant, and the additional roles of buyer for the
organization and keeping round‑the‑clock radio contact with workers in
the interior, they began to find the stresses unbearable, but were
afraid to let on lest they be labeled as complainers and perceived as
uncommitted. Toni developed prolonged
gastrointestinal illness. Sarah found she
could no longer breast feed and began to experience frequent anxiety
attacks. The baby developed colic from
cow’s milk; no alternatives for infant formula were available.
Ruby, a young teacher in a foreign land,
suffered several traumatic episodes, having her home robbed and
invaded, and being threatened at knife point on various occasions.. Her field team minimized the serious
implications of her experiences. She
became increasingly withdrawn and depressed. The
field situation was compounded by unresolved issues from her family of
origin and childhood abuses. After being
sent back to her homeland, she was shunted from care giver to care
giver without anyone of them attending to the complex matrix of her
needs. Impatient with her inability to
work due to prolonged illness, her organization and her church cut off
her financial support. Her recovery during
our PEEQ experience (see Pilot Program) was dramatic.
Kristi and Bob moved twenty‑three times
in thirty months, with three little children, during their training
phase with an international mission. This
period included two new countries, learning two new languages, many
geographic settings and climactic changes. Once
in their field assignments they were shocked at the dismal and hopeless
outlook at many of their colleagues. They
worked twice the “normal” hours to meet the devastating needs of the
nationals and their colleagues. By the end
of their first term they had each lost twenty pounds, and staggered
through several illnesses, some with lasting consequences.
Robert traveled the world continually, as an
International director for his multi‑national company. He was seldom home, often only staying long
enough to sleep and to refill his suitcase with clean clothes. Due to his constant travel he found it nearly
impossible to sustain relationships. His
marriage began to crumble. In the Orient
he suffered an acute illness which left him incapacitated.
He became allergic to his whole environment and to
food itself. After six months the company
“let him go” because he was unproductive. He
was left with no medical coverage. His
finances melted away; he fell into debt. His
wife divorced him. Expensive specialists
he consulted never spoke to one another. Finally
a relative flew him across the country to care for him.
His errant teenager was murdered; he suffered
terrible guilt knowing he had been too busy, and then too ill, to
attend to his child’s needs. He was left
with permanent disabilities.
In
all these cases, the persons and families would have suffered far less
if early interventions had been made to support them in caring
community. Though the examples are of
people serving in Christian ministry, the needs arc representative of
the throngs of Christians who need the loving ministry of the body of
Christ. When appropriate care and support
are lacking, and people are faced with on‑going, overwhelming stresses
and burdens, exhaustion, illness and other forms of depletion, crisis
or tragedy result.
One Form of the Model:
Intensive Care Community
Intensive Care Community provides an
intensive, residential support and care community for cross‑cultural
workers who are suffering exhaustion, depletion, depression, burnout or
other crisis as a result of overseas and cross‑cultural ministry. In this community context staff and guests
live together with a high degree of interaction for two weeks or more. The needs of the whole person are attended. Small groups provide an ideal setting for
maximizing healing.
We are located in Liverpool, a hamlet in
central, rural Pennsylvania, overlooking the Susquehanna River. This is a scenic, relaxed setting for our
groups. Our home offers a comfortable
family experience, including meals and group activities.
Our intensive program attends to the needs
of the whole person, by providing:
1.
Spiritual care, including
daily worship and healing prayer, pastoral counseling and sharing of
Biblical insights helpful in setting out issues relating to God, self
and mission ministry. A pastor-counselor
ministers to the spiritual/religious needs of persons by being a
visible and human spiritual advocate who hears confession (of sin,
needs, wounds, etc), assures forgiveness, encourages trust in God,
administer the Word, and fights the “spiritual battle.”
2. Physical assessment of health status, nutritional needs and
stress management related to physical health, and recommendations or
referrals as needed. As part of an overall
plan of health (restorative and preventive), our physician recommends
appropriate diets and fitness programs for each person.
3. Individual and group counseling daily, assisting individuals, couples and
families to deal with issues arising from and related to ministry. Group sessions give opportunity for processing
common experiences, stressors and issues and includes healing prayer.
4. Daily instruction for education and prevention relating to stressors of field life,
symptoms of stress, coping strategies; communication and conflict
skills and other topics related to field and organizational life. Journal writing, life history narration and a
variety of tools are used for enhancing personal effectiveness.
Classes
allow participants to gain greater personal awareness and knowledge and
to develop new skills (e.g., interpersonal communication, stress
management, etc.), and more healthful attitudes.
5. Recreation and rest, with daily exercise.
6. Attention to needs of school‑aged children, if staff is available.
We know that a two‑week intensive program is
less than what missionaries need, though it does provide an excellent
start in working through field issues, etc. As
God provides funds for facilities, we plan to offer six‑week programs
which allow more time for rest and change.
Our staff for Intensive Care Community has
decades of overseas, cross‑cultural, mission experience in more than
two dozen countries. Our full time staff
includes Larry Dodds, M.D., Board Certified in Preventive Medicine and
trained in family practice and tropical medicine, Lois Dodds, Ph.D. a
counselor and educator. Additional staff
with extensive mission field experience contribute a variety of gifts
and training.
We have a large library for both staff and
guests. As we increase staff and
facilities, we envision adding several other components to a greater
degree:
1. Art, music and other creative therapies. Staff
incorporate the creative arts into worship and other daily activities
and work with individuals to foster their creativity in the arts as
part of their restoration to wholeness.
2. A sports counselor/coordinator to work with individuals and groups for
physical renewal and fitness. Recreational activities help to foster
healing.
3. A personal appearance counselor to assist each individual in the restoration
of self esteem and confidence through color analysis and suggestions
for choosing most appropriate clothing and hair styles.
4. A career development counselor to assist persons in reviewing and assessing
their job and professional roles, taking into account personality type
and various factors in their foreign assignments.
These various elements of a program would
be feasible for a church community, as all these roles are usually
fulfilled by members of a congregation. Instruction
could be geared to the life issues of the participants.
Earlier Trials of Our
Model
During our years abroad we had opportunity
to discover the healing power of community. Our
best example is Yarinacocha, a small community with a unique group of
Christians located in the Amazon at the center for literacy,
linguistics and Bible translation. In this face-to-face, year round
community we experienced enormous growth through the interaction with
about 250 others. This was a permanent
community, with periodic change of participants. It
taught us many of the powerful dynamics of growth through living in
community. We also discovered this in
other field settings.
Quest, a month‑long candidate program of
Wycliffe Bible Translators, was a wonderful arena for developing
learning and growth through community. In
about two dozen sessions we guided nearly a thousand persons in their
growth. For eleven years we have traveled
each summer to three or more overseas sites to teach courses for
missionaries and national church leaders. Each
experience has been a wonderful example of the healing power of
concentrated time together dedicated to growth and learning. Though our formal task is academic, the
outcomes in the lives of these persons are long lasting, providing
mutual love, support, and progress in life strugglesall leading to
professional and personal growth. We know
from interacting with these same persons that Christian groups do not
automatically function with such positive outcomes!
Many people are wounded because life together is
harmful instead of helpful.
The idea of creating a place and programs
for the restoration of persons through life in caring community grew
out of our experiences. We formed
Heartstream as a result of many long conversations with colleagues
about our own struggles and crises and our longings to find support,
especially in a place where we could openly share without fear of
“losing face” or losing financial supporters.
Long before we conducted our pilot program
as Heartstream Resources, our experience in numerous mission field
settings and educational workshops taught us. Two
pilot programs of PEEQ (Personal Effectiveness Enhancement Quest), a
month long workshop accredited by Azusa Pacific University, served as
excellent examples of the gains in a residential community, even in a
short time. Though PEEQ was not designed
to be a therapeutic program, it proved to be highly therapeutic and
beneficial for those who attended. Participants
included cross‑cultural workers who came to the U. S. from various
foreign locations, as well as pre‑field mission candidates identified
as gifted in growth facilitation.
PEEQ workshop was designed for growth
facilitators, formal and informal, who work in cross‑cultural
ministries, to foster their knowledge and understanding of human
development and counseling, and to provide skill development. The design of the workshop allowed for ample
pursuit of both cognitive and experiential learning, and involved a
high degree of interaction between resident staff, students of all ages
and more than a dozen specialists in the area of human development who
were in residence for one to five days. We
anticipate offering PEEQ as a graduate level program once or twice a
year.
About Heartstream
Resources
Heartstream Resources is one of several
budding ministries in the movement to provide mental health care in
missions. In the last decade God has drawn
together mental health and mission professionals for ongoing and crisis
care.
Heartstream Resources exists to provide
care for cross‑cultural workers. We are
planning a residential community to foster healthy living and
restoration and healing of Christians in full‑time service. We especially minister to those who suffer
crises, burnout and other serious forms of depletion.
At our center we desire to model and foster the
growth and building up which can take place in a loving community in
which each person contributes his or her gifts, talents and training
for the nurturance of others. Interaction
and therapeutic relationship are not limited to the professional, such
as counseling, but include such activities as daily community worship,
corporate prayer, shared work projects and recreation.
Our
purpose is fulfilled four ways:
1.
Therapeutic community for restoration and personal growth.
2.
Educational programs emphasizing health, personal wholeness, problem
prevention, life skills.
3.
Consultation with mission leaders about caring for people and
maximizing their development.
4.
Applied research in mental health, pastoral care, physical health and
human resources in cross‑cultural settings.
How The Local
Church Could Use This Model
Appropriate care and support for all
Christians, including those in ministry, involves nurturing the whole
person, attending to the emotional, relational, spiritual, intellectual
and physical aspects of the self. It also
involves healing of wounds and restoration of losses.
In Ephesians 4:16 we read that the whole Christian
community can build itself up in love “as each part does its work.” The
body together can do far more than any of us acting alone!
In a local congregation the pastoral staff might
begin by identifying individuals who need intense love and nurture,
such as those suffering divorce, recovering from abuse or addiction,
those who are or were deprived of adequate parental love and nurture. These persons and their families could be
brought together with mature, loving church members at a camp or
retreat center, or even a large home. They
could live together for a week or two, devoting time to activities
fostering healing and growth. The pastoral
staff, along with deacons and elders capable of nurture and healing
could head up such a community.
Trained lay or peer counselors could assist in
various roles, such as encouragement, teaching, attending to physical
needs. A professional counselor might
volunteer to direct the experience. Dr.
Siang‑Yang Tan of Fuller Seminary researched the effectiveness of lay
counseling programs and found them to be highly effective (Tan 1990,
1991, 1992). Such a week or period could
be called “crisis prevention,” “spiritual formation,” “restoration” or
“spiritual healing.”
If the church relies solely on professional
“healers” it seems it will be impossible for all the needy to receive
help -- one by one. My desire is that the
church at large accept the obligation and the opportunity to care for
its wounded and to nurture them to health, to develop the beauty and
maturity of Christ. If we are ever to
speed the healing of the masses of persons who fill the pews, I believe
that small group “intensive care’ communities such as we describe must
be created. Being loved, comforted,
accepted, guided and taught within a group, by a group, is the most
effective way to bring about healing.
Our efforts for even the most
wounded and broken will never be wasted, for as Jesus Himself said, ‘I
tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these
brothers of mine, you did for me’ (Matt. 25:40).
