Tag Archive - theology

Steve Jobs, John Wesley, and How Pursuing Opportunities Often Come at Great Cost to Our Personal and Family Lives

October 10, 2011 in Marriage-Family, Ministry-Theology, Therapy-Psychology with 4 Comments

The annals of history are filled with people who have done great things (inventions, writings, art, building, etc.) at great cost to their personal and family life.

So it was not a surprise when I read Steve Jobs’ biographer Walter Isaacson say the following:

Mr Jobs then explained why, despite his famous reclusiveness, he had decided to co-operate with a biographer…

“I wanted my kids to know me,” Mr Isaacson recalled Mr Jobs saying, in a posthumous tribute the biographer wrote for Time magazine. “I wasn’t always there for them, and I wanted them to know why and to understand what I did.”

I was really struck by that statement “I wanted my kids to know me.”

You and I may never invent something like the iPhone, but everyday we are given the choice to pursue opportunities that pull us farther away from our kids and spouse…family — or to say no to opportunities that pull us away from them. And instead make decisions that enrich our families and the lives of our kids.

I wrote this post not as a moral indictment on what choices we make in regards to how we choose to live our family lives…but more so that we understand there is often great cost to our families when we pursue certain endeavors.

Often these choices get even more murky coming in the form of ministry as well. It’s not hard to find historical records and stories of great men and women of God who have left a huge mark on Christianity with their writings and ministries, but who have left a wake of destruction in their personal and family lives.

For example, I remember hearing in my Church history class of the bad marriage and family life of the famous cleric and theologian John Wesley. We can thank him for the legacy he has left, but there was a personal and family cost to getting there.

Are you willing to sacrifice your personal and family life for your pursuits?

People can still pursue opportunities of great cost, and follow God at great cost…without destroying their families in the process. Perhaps we need to pay attention to, and become better at discerning which opportunities allow us to continue to foster our marriages and families in the process, and which ones could be lethal to them.

Do Churches Try and Protect Their Congregants from Anxiety?

July 12, 2011 in Ministry-Theology, Pastoral Counseling, Pastoral Leadership, Therapy-Psychology with 4 Comments

A couple of weeks ago a friend of mine shared an article with me on my Facebook profile called, How to Land Your Kid in Therapy.

It is a fascinating read for sure, and well worth your time.

But I was especially taken by this passage:

Paul Bohn, a psychiatrist at UCLA who came to speak at my clinic, says the answer may be yes. Based on what he sees in his practice, Bohn believes many parents will do anything to avoid having their kids experience even mild discomfort, anxiety, or disappointment—“anything less than pleasant,” as he puts it—with the result that when, as adults, they experience the normal frustrations of life, they think something must be terribly wrong.

Consider a toddler who’s running in the park and trips on a rock, Bohn says. Some parents swoop in immediately, pick up the toddler, and comfort her in that moment of shock, before she even starts crying. But, Bohn explains, this actually prevents her from feeling secure—not just on the playground, but in life. If you don’t let her experience that momentary confusion, give her the space to figure out what just happened (Oh, I tripped), and then briefly let her grapple with the frustration of having fallen and perhaps even try to pick herself up, she has no idea what discomfort feels like, and will have no framework for how to recover when she feels discomfort later in life. These toddlers become the college kids who text their parents with an SOS if the slightest thing goes wrong, instead of attempting to figure out how to deal with it themselves. If, on the other hand, the child trips on the rock, and the parents let her try to reorient for a second before going over to comfort her, the child learns: That was scary for a second, but I’m okay now. If something unpleasant happens, I can get through it. In many cases, Bohn says, the child recovers fine on her own—but parents never learn this, because they’re too busy protecting their kid when she doesn’t need protection.

I think that we often do the same thing in the church as well.

Take this quote:

“parents will do anything to avoid having their kids experience even mild discomfort, anxiety, or disappointment—“anything less than pleasant,” as he puts it—with the result that when, as adults, they experience the normal frustrations of life, they think something must be terribly wrong.”

And re-write it like this:

“churches will do anything to avoid having their congregants experience even mild discomfort, anxiety, or disappointment-’anything less than pleasant.’”

I just see too often instances where pastors will swoop in and try and rescue a congregant from having anxiety as they wrestle with scripture or with God. They somehow believe that any anxiety is wrong and the person should have a solid certainty about God’s truth. So much for the dark night of the soul.

Or a youth pastor tries to keep a youth kid from asking too many tough questions that promote some anxiety in the group, and uncomfort with the youth pastor themself.

Or a worship planning meeting will spend endless hours managing every detail of a service so that nothing unplanned happens, or no mistakes are made. Sometimes I wonder if they are just trying to stave off any anxiety that may arise during the service in congregants or themselves if something were to not go off as perfect.

Much of church life is geared around trying to protect people from the frustrations of life and from experiencing any discomfort during church or their spiritual lives.

I say this from experience in my own work as a pastor for many years, and from what is conveyed to me by clients who come in for counseling.

But if anxiety is unpermitted in the church pew, then where else can they go to freely express it than the counseling office?

How Ministry Leaders Avoid the Hard Work of Boundary Setting

June 1, 2011 in Ministry-Theology, Pastoral Counseling, Pastoral Leadership, Therapy-Psychology with 3 Comments

We talk a lot about boundaries in our culture.

“Boundaries define us. They define what is me and what is not me. A boundary shows me where I end and someone else begins, leading me to a sense of ownership.

Knowing what I am to own and take responsibility for gives me freedom.” (Boundaries, Townsend and Cloud, pp. 29)



In fact, boundaries is one of the first things I address most often in my therapeutic work because a lack of clear and defined boundaries often leads to many problems in relationships with people. If people don’t have clear boundaries they often have a confused sense-of-self and identity.

But I feel like I’ve started to notice a trend regarding boundaries, especially in ministry circles.

The trend is this

A pastor/ministry leader/lay leader, et cetera makes a sweeping or non-negotiable statement about the boundaries they are practicing or want to practice.

Usually the statement comes from up front, preferably in front of many people as possible (Sunday worship perhaps) so as to communicate to as many people at one time the established boundary.

It may go something like this

“Because our church is so big, or because I’m so busy, I want you to know that I will NEVER personally return any emails/phone calls that you send to me. And I will NEVER meet you one on one at dinner/lunch/coffee, et cetera. I have a family and it’s a boundary that I have set in order to protect them.”

Though there are situations that this may be appropriate, it often feels like many ministry leaders do this in an attempt to avoid the difficult task of establishing healthy boundaries that can only come about in up and close relationships and interactions with other people.

Sure, it’s easier to just cut people off and avoid them.

Sure it’s easier to tell 6,000 people you will never return their emails than to have a heart to heart conversation with them about why you are setting a boundary with them regarding their emails.

It certainly helps us try and squash our own anxiety…but it certainly doesn’t lead to the relational growth that I think is necessary for not only people…but especially ministry leaders.

We only grow as people when we have to do the day in and day out hard work of being in relationship with people. We don’t grow by avoiding them or cutting them off.

I definitely think ministry leaders can do a better job of setting boundaries, but I just wonder sometimes if they avoid it because it’s such hard, ongoing work. Nothing is easier than getting up front and just delivering a boundary in front of 6,000 people. That way we can avoid the individual relational interaction and just address the big, anonymous crowd before us.

And when we do this, I wonder if we are actually avoiding the task of being a pastor.

How do you go about setting boundaries in your own life and ministry work? Any tips or suggestions?

Our Emotions and Grace

May 23, 2011 in Marriage-Family, Ministry-Theology, Pastoral Counseling, Pastoral Leadership, Therapy-Psychology with 4 Comments

“Many years ago I was driven to the conclusion that the two major causes of most emotional problems among Christians are these: the failure to understand, receive, and live out God’s unconditional grace and forgiveness; and the failure to give out that unconditional love, forgiveness, and grace to other people….We read, we hear, we believe a good theology of grace. But that’s not the way we live. The Good News of grace has not penetrated the level of our emotions.”

What’s So Amazing About Grace by Philip Yancey (quoting counselor David Seamands)

Why ‘Pastors’ Become Therapists

April 27, 2011 in Ministry-Theology, Pastoral Counseling, Pastoral Leadership, Therapy-Psychology with 9 Comments

Several weeks ago I was at The Hideaway Experience doing co-therapy along with another former ‘pastor’ turned therapist. It’s not unusual to find therapists and counselors who were former pastors, but I think that vocational movement is often looked at with a sense of skepticism. That somehow, when a pastor leaves the pastorate to do counseling, they somehow also leave God behind in the process.

But what I am finding to be true in my own life and in the lives of many other therapists and counselors who were former pastors, is that they feel that God is now more alive and present than He ever was in their pastoral work. That is not to say that God was not or is not alive and present in both contexts. But what it does perhaps call attention to is the nature of pastoral work and pastoral identity and what that really means in our contexts, especially the North American context.

Eugene Peterson in his new book and memoir, The Pastor: A Memoir, says this:

“The vocation of pastor has been replaced by the strategies of religious entrepreneurs with business plans…..

I wonder if at the root of the defection is a cultural assumption that all leaders are peole who ‘get things done,’ and ‘make things happen.’ That is certainly true of the primary leadership models that seep into our awareness from the culture—politicians, businessmen, advertisers, publicists, celebrities, and athletes. But while being a pastor certainly has some of these components, the pervasive element in our two-thousand-year pastoral tradition is not someone who ‘gets things done’ but rather the person placed in the community to pay attention and call attention to ‘what is going on right now’ between men and women, with one another and with God—this kingdom of God that is primarily local, relentlessly personal, and prayerful ‘without ceasing.’”

As my friend and I (both former pastors now turned therapists) talked about that night at The Hideaway was the fact that for some of the first times in our lives we felt like we were free to be a pastor. But being a pastor didn’t come for us in the context of the Evangelical American Church, but rather in the mix of intense therapy work with couples who were struggling to put the pieces of their lives and marriages back together. There we were eating dinner with the couples, doing therapy, praying with them, crying with them, celebrating with them…witnessing all that life has to offer.

We felt like pastors.

But in the Church we as pastors often aren’t very pastoral. Instead we spend our time on budgets, on architecture plans, raising money and developing curriculum. All good things but it often pulls us away from what I think Eugene Peterson is describing when he says pastors “the person placed in the community to pay attention and call attention to ‘what is going on right now’ between men and women, with one another and with God…”

Instead of a pastor “paying attention” and “calling attention” to what is happening in a church community’s context, we end up taking on areas of specialization.

For example there is the 45 minute a week keynote speaker (aka preaching pastor). But many pastors who fulfill this role often remove themselves from the role of being a pastor to their people. They make statements and set boundaries that communicate something like “I’m too busy to spend time with you, so don’t expect me to ever come to dinner with you, or email you, etc.” They leave someone else to do the marrying, burying and hospital visits…the very things that make up the daily fabric of life. Perhaps they have removed themselves perhaps from the very act of pastoring.

I just wonder if in the process of specializing ministry positions the very essence of pastor then becomes lost. So now we have to designate someone to do pastoral care…i.e. to do the very things that a pastor does but that no pastor wants to do.

I have been a pastor (by title) for the last 13 years. But over the course of that time I have always struggled with who and what a pastor is. My expectations and the expectations of the churches I worked for were often very different. That is okay. But there should at least be some clarity when we talk about pastors then, because maybe we are all coming at it with different definitions. One way that that clarity manifested itself to me in ministry as a pastor was by the type of books we were recommended to read on staff (business books, leadership books, vision casting book, planning books, strategy books….all okay stuff in moderation, but what happened to the books on pastoral care, prayer, hospitality, spiritual direction, death, etc.?)

The books we read often indicate what kind of pastor we desire and strive to be.

In my 7 years as the college pastor (actually director since my denomination will not call me pastor unless ordained) at Bel Air Presbyterian Church, I honestly think my students would say of me that I was a good pastor…meaning I was good at “paying attention” and “calling attention” to what was happening in our community and pointing out the work of God in our midst. But I was not a good pastor in the context of how it is defined in the Evangelical American context. I wasn’t much good at budgeting and planning and coming up with strategies that would grow our ministry tenfold over a two year period. I could get by for a while, but I was not gifted at that, nor was I passionate about that.

Ultimately I had to make a decision on what type of pastor I wanted to be.

So what does one do when they feel like they are good at pastoring by “paying attention” to and “calling attention to” the work of God in people’s lives, but they are not good at being a “religious entrepreneur?”

They become a therapist.

I have found that in therapeutic work I am more of a pastor than I have ever been in my church ministry work. I am privy to parts of people’s lives that they would never share with me when I was their pastor, and in that interaction I have seen the work of God in ways that I was never witness to when I was in the pulpit.

Let me end by saying, I love being a pastor (I’m still on staff of a church), and if I could be the type of pastor in a church that Eugene Peterson talks about, then I’m totally open to that. But for now, I love being a therapist and I love the pastoral work that I get to do in that context.

I just wonder if we need to re-think…re-define…re-imagine who and what a pastor is in our modern day, Evangelical American Church context.

How do you wrestle with this as a pastor?

Is it something you struggle with?

‘Taking’ a Triune God Into Our Pastoral Counseling Work

March 17, 2011 in Ministry-Theology, Pastoral Counseling with 3 Comments

A book that I read about seven years ago, and have flipped back and forth through on occasion in the last few years…I have just recently picked back up again and started re-reading it because of my interest in the integration of theology and psychology, especially pertaining to pastoral counseling in the context of the Christian community. The book is a wonderful book, and one that I recommend for all pastors, counselors, etc…those who are trying to integrate these two disciplines (psychology and theology) into their counseling work.

The book is called Theology and Pastoral Counseling: A New Interdisciplinary Approach by Deborah van Deusen Hunsinger. In the book Hunsinger applies the theological method of Karl Barth to pastoral counseling, and I think the outcome for the reader is a real deep appreciation of how the disciplines of theology and psychology can so effectively work together in bringing about transformation in people’s lives.

In the opening chapter of the book Hunsinger draws on the work of Shirley C. Guthrie and his article “Pastoral Counseling, Trinitarian Theology, and Christian Anthropology. Hunsinger goes on to say:

Guthrie’s article is perhaps best characterized as an exercise in theological application. Drawing on central insights from Barth’s theological anthropology, Guthrie asks how a (Reformed) Christian doctrine of the human person might inform the pastoral counselor’s work. Guthrie is thus not interested in interpreting Barth so much as in using Barth’s anthropology to make his own constructive contribution. Guthrie’s essay sheds considerable light on our question of what it means to bring a theological perspective to the therapeutic task. Pastoral counseling’s distinctiveness as a profession, he argues, comes precisely from its theological self-understanding. (p. 18)

Guthrie writes:

What makes Christian pastoral counseling unique is that fact that without arrogance but also without apology the work of counselors is based on the attempt to understand both themselves and their counselees in light of the God who is Creator, Redeemer and Life-Giver and thus the answer to questions about the ultimate origin, meaning and goal of life which lie behind all other problems and questions. (p. 18)

What are the implications of this then in our work as pastoral counselors? Hunsinger says:

From the above quotation it is already evident that Guthrie has adopted Barth’s methodological procedure of basing his theological anthropology on the doctrine of the Trinity. Following this method, Guthrie outlines a Christian doctrine of the human person on the basis of a doctrine of the triune God. Human beings are thus understood from a threefold perspective: first, as created in the image of God (derived from knowledge of God the Creator); second, as sinners who fail to live out God’s purposes and who stand in need of redemption (derived from knowledge of Christ, the Redeemer); and third, as people who are promised a new humanity in Christ (derived from knowledge of the Holy Spirit). Guthrie emphasizes the importance of the pastoral counselor’s keeping all three aspects of human reality in a kind of creative tension, so that the created goodness, the sinful fallenness, and the promised new life of human beings are all clearly seen and affirmed as being simultaneously true….Counselors are ministers who may indeed have specialized skills but who, like their counselees, are themselves ‘limited, fallible, sinful human beings who themselves are judge, need reconciliation and salvation, and can only receive the wisdom and power they cannot produce from themselves to help others. (p. 18-19)

Beautiful. I love the idea that we must keep a ‘kind of creative tension’ between those three aspects of the Trinity as we do our work in the context of pastoral counseling.

Moving Towards, Rather Than Excluding One Another With Our Theological Differences

March 8, 2011 in Ministry-Theology, Therapy-Psychology with 6 Comments

In all wars, whether large or small, whether carried out on battlefields, city streets, living rooms, or faculty lounges, we come across the same basic exclusionary polarity: “us against them,” “their gain–our loss, ” “either us or them.” The stronger the conflict, the more the rich texture of the social world disappears and the stark exclusionary polarity emerges around which all thought and practice aligns itself. No other choice seems available, no neutrality possible, and therefore no innocence sustainable. If one does not exit that whole social world, one gets sucked into its horrid polarity. Tragically enough, over time the polarity has a macabre way of mutating into its very opposite–into “both us and them” that unites the divided parties in a perverse communion of mutual hate and mourning over the dead.

……….There may indeed be situations in which “there is no choice,” though we should not forget that to destroy the other rather than to be destroyed oneself is itself a choice. In most cases, however, the choice is not constrained by an inescapable “either us or them.” If there is will, courage and imagination the stark polarity can be overcome. Those caught in the vortex of mutual exclusion can resist its pull, rediscover their common belonging, even fall into each other’s arms. People with conflicting interests, clashing perspectives, and differing cultures can avoid sliding into the cycle of escalating violence and instead maintain bonds, even make their life together flourish. (pp. 99-100) — Exclusion and Embrace by MIroslav Volf

What I know about myself is that in a theological disagreement…if I am not careful…I can become angry…and I can very quick exclude those that I disagree with. It becomes an I-It (Martin Buber) relationship, detached and void of any reciprocity.

This is very easy to do in the world of online theological debate where often little to no relationship exists between those that hurl insulting and judging comments back and forth at one another. Just read John Dyer’s post, Love Wins and Truth Prevails, But Speed Kills ‘em Both.

But theological debate is very different when in the context of an I-Thou (Martin Buber) relationship, where there is a relationship of mutuality, and differences do not form reasons for exclusion. Rather, there is space for the other. For their doubts, questions, fears, and different opinions and interpretations. Because I have a relationship with John Dyer and Brent Thomas for example, it doesn’t matter that I went to Fuller Seminary, and they went to Dallas Seminary and Southern Seminary respectively. My relationship with them is of priority over any theological disagreement or difference we may have.

I wonder what theological discourse would look like if people were not so quick to exclude others who do not believe exactly as they believe? But I think in order for that to take place at varying levels, each of us must do the hard work of really understanding the roots of why we respond the way we respond when someone believes differently than us. And we must take responsibility for that. Own that. And if we do that, I think we can put ourselves in a better position to honestly and openly hear the other views of those that we disagree with.

I just know for me that I’m always going to push back on people who dogmatically have all the “right answers” to every theological question. It may have nothing to do with that person. But it probably has a lot to do with growing up in a pastor’s home, raised in a church, and feeling like I was expected by the community at large to be a certain type of Christian. It probably has something to do with some early traumatic experiences of theological interpretation (i.e. being told by a pastor that my mom’s and aunt’s cancer was due to the sin in their lives). It has a lot to do with attending Fuller Theological Seminary where I was taught a variety of theological positions, rather than being indoctrinated into one. It probably has a lot to do with pastoring college students for 10 years, a group of people that live in questions and desire the freedom to think for themselves.

So I have been wired a certain way. And so have you. And when your buttons are pushed you instinctively react to that feeling. You may not know it, but you do. So do I. I know what my hot/fear buttons are, and I know what I tend to do in the course of a heated theological debate. Do you know what your hot/fear buttons are, and what you tend to do in the course of a heated theological debate?

If we can all be aware of that dance that we do, and take responsibility for our feelings and actions, then, I just wonder if we can move toward each other and embrace as Christians, or do we have to continue to exclude? If we can move toward each other, then our relationality to one another may be what keeps us engaged rather than disengaged from one another.

Let me leave you with a very lengthy quote by Volf on the prodigal son and the priority of relationship:

What is so profoundly different about the “new order” of the father is that it is not built around the alternatives as defined by the older brother: either strict adherence to the rules or disorder and disintegration; either you are “in” or you are “out,” depending on whether you have or have not broken a rule. He rejected this alternative because his behavior was governed by the one fundamental “rule”: relationship has priority over all rules. Before any rule can apply, he is a father to his sons and his sons are brothers to one another. The reason for celebration is that “this son of mine” (v.24) and “this brother of yours” (v.32) has been found and has come alive again. Notice the categorical difference between how the father and how the older brother interpret the prodigal’s life in the “distant country.” The older brother employs moral categories and constructs his brother’s departure along the axis of “bad/good” behavior: the brother has “devoured your property with prostitutes” (v.30). The father, though keenly aware of the moral import of his younger son’s behavior, employs relational categories and constructs his son’s departure along the axis of “lost/found” and “alive (to him)/dead (to him).” Relationship is prior to moral rules; moral performances may do something to the relationship, but relationship is not grounded in moral performance. Hence the will to embrace is independent of the quality of behavior, though at the same time “repentance,” “confession,” and the “consequences of one’s actions” all have their own proper place. The profound wisdom about the priority of the relationship, and not some sentimental insanity, explains the father’s kind of “prodigality” to both of his sons.

For the father, the priority of the relationship means not only a refusal to let moral rules be the final authority regulating “exclusion” and “embrace” but also a refusal to construct his own identity in isolation from his sons. He readjusts his identity along with the changing identities of his sons and thereby reconstructs their broken identities and relationships. He suffers being “un-fathered” by both, so that through this suffering he may regain both as his sons (if the older brother was persuaded) and help them rediscover each other as brothers. Refusing the alternatives of “self-constructed” vs. “imposed” identities, difference vs. domestication, he allows himself to be taken on the journey of their shifting identities so that he can continue to be their father and they, each other’s brothers. Why does he not lose himself on the journey? Because he is guided by indestructible love and supported by a flexible order.

Flexible order? Changing identities? The world of fixed rules and stable identities is the world of the older brother. The father destabilizes this world–and draws his older son’s anger upon himself. The father’s most basic commitment is not to rules and given identities but to his sons whose lives are too complex to be regulated by fixed rules and whose identitites are too dynamic to be defined once for all. Yet he does not give up the rules and the order. Guided by the indestructible love which makes space in the self for others in their alterity, which invites the others who have trangressed to return, which creates hospitable conditions for their confession, and rejoices over their presence, the father keeps re-configuring the order without destroying it so as to maintain it as an order of embrace rather than exclusion. (pp.164-165)

So You Want To Get Married? Suggested Books and Resources for Your Premarital Preparation

February 1, 2011 in Marriage-Family, Ministry-Theology, Therapy-Psychology with 16 Comments

“What books do you recommend we read in our premarital counseling?”

That has been a question I have been getting a lot of recently. Whether it’s a Facebook message from a friend, an @rhetter comment on Twitter, or some email I receive from someone who came across my blog, it seems lots of people are interested in finding the right books and resources to read in their premarital preparation.

It’s a really good question, I’m sure you will get a million different answers depending on who you ask. I find that people take this stuff real personal, and really want to share with you what books they read in their premarital counseling because understandably they want to be able to contribute to you some ideas of what books influenced their marriage in hopes that it too has a lasting impact on you.

Soapbox: I wonder what would happen to our marriages if we invested as much time into their preparation as we do for all the wedding planning. It would not surprise me if the average couple who actually does premarital counseling spends about 5-10 hours total in this prep. That includes sessions with the counselor and homework on their own. Compare that to the amount of time a couple spends planning the details of their wedding (location, catering, music, photography, honeymoon, seating arrangements, wedding dress, tuxedos, ring shopping, et cetera). You get my point.

Okay, now back to the topic of this post.

There are lots of different directions you can go with premarital counseling, and the books and resources that you might use. When deciding which direction to go, here are a few things to take into consideration.

  1. How much time do you have to do the premarital counseling? A few months?  A few weeks? Days?  Et cetera.


  2. What kind of training do you have?  Are you a pastor who does lots of counseling and performs weddings?  Are you a lay leader who mentors couples? Are you a licensed therapist/counselor?


  3. What kind of couple are you working with?  Are they highly motivated to really invest and engage in the work?  Do they make the premarital counseling a priority?  Will they read the material, or do the assignments?

Once you have answered those questions, then I think that will put you in a better position to help you determine a course of action for premarital counseling, and what resources, books, or tools you might want to implement and recommend.

My premarital work has changed drastically over the last 8-10 years as I have spent more time with couples, changed professions (from pastor to therapist), and have engaged a wider variety or marriage books than are typically touted.

I have a list of 11 books, and 2 resources that I use in my premarital counseling. By that I don’t mean I have a couple read all the books, but I will pull ideas from the various ones listed, and I may make a recommendation of 1-2 books for a couple to read, depending on the couple, and what area of growth I think is most crucial to the success of their marriage. Consider this just the well from which I draw water from. And also know that I use a variety of material from both the Christian and non-Christian marriage literature.



Books
Let me start with books. If I could only recommend five books that a couple reads, or that a counselor/therapist/pastor reads and pulls ideas from, these are the five I would recommend (I would recommend this for marital as well as premarital work):

When To Say YES, When to Say NO, To Take Control of Your Life by Henry Cloud and John Townsend
–Boundaries, boundaries, boundaries. This is a huge area of growth for most people, especially couples as they merge two lives, two families, two careers, etc. together. Most people don’t know how to set healthy boundaries, and if you don’t learn this skill early on in your marriage, it could be very detrimental later on.

Passionate Marriage: Keeping Love and Intimacy Alive in Committed Relationships by David Schnarch
–Two ideas: “self soothing” one’s anxiety and differentiation. Two important concepts that few explicate like Schnarch. Also, Schnarch’s work on sexual intimacy is pioneering work on many fronts, and sexuality tends to often be one subject that couple’s fail to honestly communicate about. Though I hate to put a warning on this book , I must so as not to catch people off guard. This is not a “Christian marriage” book and Schnarch’s graphic writing on topics and blunt language may be offensive to people…though I have found many people thanking me for recommending this book to them. I just think it would be a shame for people to miss out on such a great work on marriage.

Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Love of a Lifetime by Sue Johnson
–When couple’s understand the importance of their early attachment bonds, and how those bonds either positively or negatively influenced their current relationship, it can be a major moment of insight for understanding how they interact. Johnson’s pioneering work on Emotionally Focused Therapy is condensed in this easy to read book, and I think her practical advice can interrupt couple’s negative patterns and promote positive ones.

The Mystery of Marriage: Meditations on the Miracle by Mike Mason
–One of the first books I read on marriage, so it has some sentimental value. And Mason is right, marriage is a mystery, not a five or seven step process that if only followed, equals marriage success. I love Mason’s theological and philosophical insights into the mystery of marriage.

The Total Money Makeover: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness by Dave Ramsey
–Money, money, money. It’s one of the major sources of conflict in a marriage, and one of the most common reasons leading people to divorce. Why we don’t spend more time helping couple’s work through their issues around money is beyond me. Getting on the same page financially, and holding the same fiscal values can literally free a couple up in so many ways.

I might change my mind on those five tomorrow if a different couple has different needs, wants, and desires, or if I see different areas of potential conflict and needed growth in a specific couple. But when put together, those five books have some powerful principles in them that can set a couple off on the right foot and help positively transform their marriage.

Here are some other suggestions for books I might, and often do throw in the mix.

The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work: A Practical Guide from the Country’s Foremost Relationship Expert by John Gottman
–Gottman is a leading expert on marriage, and this book provides LOTS of great exercises for couples to practice.

Extraordinary Relationships: A New Way of Thinking About Human Interactions
 by Roberta Gilbert
–I love Gilbert’s use of Bowen family system’s theory and how we might think differently about the relationships we are a part of.

Sacred Marriage: What if God Designed Marriage to Make Us Holy More Than to Make Us Happy by Gary Thomas
–Because if the subtitle doesn’t compel you, I don’t know what will. Great antidote to what many couple’s assume marriage is all about.

The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love That Lasts by Gary Chapman
–A light bulb literally went off in my wife and I’s head (dating at the time) when we realized that we spoke different love languages, but expected the other person to speak the same. Very freeing insight for a marriage.

The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran
–Because at times we need more poetry and less information when it comes to marriage preparation. The section “On Marriage” is a great reminder to couple’s, especially as it pertains to one’s differentiation.

Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke
–”Love consists in this, that two solitudes protect and touch and greet each other” — Beautiful!



Resources/Tools
And now for a couple of very helpful resources that I use from time to time in my premarital work:

I’m certified as a counselor/trainer in the use and implementation of both of these inventories/programs. These are great tools to use, especially if you are not a trained/licensed therapist/counselor, or if you are a pastor who feels like you need more tools to help you design your premarital work.

Family Wellness: The Strongest Link: The Couple

Prepare-Enrich



Tips
As you prepare for your marriage let me make a few suggestions on how to maybe approach and use the material:

  1. Try reading one of the books together…out loud.  You will be amazed at what stands out to you as you do this.  And you will be amazed and enlightened by the conversations that start between the two of you as you simply read out loud.


  2. Try sharing a book and as you read the book to yourselves, use different color pens to highlight material that is important to you.  It helps your partner pick up on some things that need to be addressed, and may help your partner have insight into what issues you see relevant in the coming marriage, or what issues strike a personal chord.


  3. Start preparing for your marriage (not wedding prep) months in advance.  I recommend at least six months so that you have time to properly address issues that may arise.  If your engagement is shorter than six months, then start right away.  Don’t put off till the end.

So anything you would add to this post under books, resources, tips, etc.?

I know lots of people use Love and Respect by Emmerson Eggerichs, and the two books by Shaunti Feldahn, For Men Only: A Straightforward Guide to the Inner Lives of Women, For Women Only: What You Need to Know About the Inner Lives of Men.

Sabbath Keeping versus Margin Keeping: Practices We Must Foster

December 15, 2010 in Ministry-Theology, Therapy-Psychology with 4 Comments

Exchanges between friends on Twitter often raise some great questions.

On November 24 Tyler Braun posted the following:

Challenging post from @MarkBatterson on maintaining margin: http://bit.ly/gMJmjP // I lose it far too often.

My reply to Tyler was:

@tylerbraun almost everyone who ends up in therapy with me has no margin…it’s a consistent theme and issue that affects EVERYTHING!

And my good friend from the church I grew up in Phoenix with, Anna Broadway, replied with:

@tylerbraun @rhetter How would ya’ll say margin in his/your use compares to rest/sabbath? Is sabbath practice a means of protecting margin?

So how does margin compare to Sabbath? And is keeping a Sabbath a way of protecting margin? Those are great questions.

I talk quite frequently in my work with families in both the counseling and church ministry setting about the topic of margin in their lives. I talk about creating “white space” on the calendar, where there is nothing scheduled. It is protected time for families and members of the family to just be…to rest…or to participate in something that hasn’t already been planned. It’s a time to be free of “should”, “have to”, “tasks”, and to simply rest. It’s a great time of connection in families, as they are free to be creative, and do things that aren’t demanded of them.

Margin, “white space”, boundaries…whatever term you use, it is essentially the same. It’s the act of creating space that is free of busyness and activities.

I see this task of creating space and margin as being very different from Sabbath.

Genesis 2:3: Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.

Sabbath keeping is something that I believe we as Christians should want to do. It is a day where we rest in the work that God has already done. It is a laying down of our wants, abilities and demands, and to be content in what God has already accomplished in our lives. It’s a discipline of saying I don’t have to produce, or do something in order to be right before God. It’s an act of being versus doing. This is reflected in the New Testament, especially at Jesus’ baptism in Mark 1:9-11, where Jesus identity is in his being in relationship with his Father, and not in his doing.

Creating margin, “white space”, boundaries, I view as something that we do on top of Sabbath keeping. It is built in times that are focused on rest, and allowing the creativity in a family/ourselves to come to fruition. Many families/individuals over-schedule their lives with busyness and activities like sports and hobbies because they have somewhere lost the ability to just be with one another outside of having to always do things with one another. There is a distinction there, though subtle, can have huge impacts on our relationships with one another.

I believe we protect the Sabbath because that is something we do to foster our relationship with God, and to state that we are dependent upon him, rather than ourselves.

I believe we protect margin, “white space”, and boundaries in our lives because that is something we do to foster our relationship not only with ourselves, but with those we live, work, and play with.

When an individual, or family loses the ability to foster a Sabbath, or create margin in their lives, I know that there are usually deeper things at work. Often individuals and families are afraid to just be by themselves, or with another, without something planned to do. That fear and hesitation points to the very need to create that space and practice a Sabbath.

Any thoughts that you all have on Sabbath, margin, creating “white space”, etc.? I would love to hear them.

The Influence of Technology in Our Lives

October 22, 2010 in Marriage-Family, Ministry-Theology, Technology-Social Media, Therapy-Psychology with 3 Comments

“The technology is rewiring our brains,” said Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute of Drug Abuse and one of the world’s leading brain scientists. She and other researchers compare the lure of digital stimulation less to that of drugs and alcohol than to food and sex, which are essential but counterproductive in excess. New York Times: Hooked on Gadgets and Paying a Mental Price

It seems that almost everyday a new article or study comes out that clues us in to how pervasive the effects of technology and social media are on our lives. Whether the effects are personal or relational, technology and social media are transforming our lives. Some of the ways that it transforms our lives can be expected (feeling connected, up to date information, organization, etc.), but other times the effects are ones we don’t expect (anxiety, affairs, jealousy, anger, porn addiction, lack of intimacy, etc.).

John Dyer and I are speaking at Woodcreek Church in Plano on Sunday night, and this is like the fourth or fifth time in the last year or so that we have been able to collaborate in person on the intersection of technology, theology, and relationships. In this post I would just like to point you towards some resources that you may find helpful as you begin to think more critically on how technology and social media are influencing your life. And I would like to suggest a few tips that you may find helpful in navigating through this issue.

Technology Transforms Us
I have written about this topic numerous times on my blog at rhettsmith.com, and hopefully you will find something helpful there for you to read. I also recommend that you regularly read John Dyer’s blog at Don’t Eat the Fruit. John does some of the best writing at the intersections of technology/theology and technology/relational-practical psychology. Check out one of John’s talks below on how technology is not neutral.

Technology Is Not Neutral: How Bible Technology Shapes Our Faith

View more webinars from John Dyer.

One of the more succinct articles on the topic of the transforming effects of technology on our lives is from New York Times Op-Ed Columnist Charles M. Blow, who has a great round-up of some of the articles and studies of interest, Friends, Neighbors and Facebook.

Last, I want to recommend just a few books with varying themes on the influence of technology in our lives:

The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr

Born Digital: Understanding the First Generation of Digital Natives by John Palfrey and Urs Gasser

Better Off: Flipping the Switch on Technology by Eric Brende

Facebook and Your Marriage by K. Jason Krafsky and Kelli Krafsky

Set Some Technological Boundaries
Most people adopt a technology into their lives without really asking, “How is this technology going to shape me? How is this technology going to change my relationships, or impact my family dynamics? So one of the first boundaries that I think is helpful for individuals and families is to begin with some questions. For example:

Seeking Boundaries Through Questioning

  1. If we give this iPhone to our son and daughter, how may this technology impact how we communicate with them in the future? And are we okay with how it transforms the communication process?
  2. Is the device age appropriate? For example, does my 8 year old really need an cell phone?
  3. If I’m on the computer instead of interacting with my friends, wife, kids, etc., what kind of message is that sending to them? Am I okay with that message, or the their perception of the message that is being sent?
  4. How will my use of social media (Facebook, Twitter, blogs, etc.) impact how I communicate with others?

There are lots and lots of questions that you can ask yourself, or those that you are in relationship with (partner, spouse, family, co-worker, etc.). So begin there. Be creative and explore how the adoption of a technology into your life will transform it. Once you have asked some questions, setting some physical boundaries is helpful. For example:

Setting Physical Boundaries

  1. Set time limits on when a technology can be used. For example, many individuals and families that I know set time boundaries on their use of cell phones and computers, often leaving them off from the time they get home till after the kids are in bed. Some choose to leave them off all night. You don’t have to be legalistic about it, but play around with some ideas. I find it helpful to leave my cell phone off when I come home from work so that I’m focused on my family, especially my daughter who goes to be within an hour or two after I get home. I may decide to check it after she goes to sleep to make sure there is nothing urgent, but I often choose to leave it off till morning so that my wife feels that I’m fully present with her.
  2. Create a physical place where you can put aside your technological devices as a way of saying to one another, “I am present. What matters most is what is happening in front of me, and not what is happening out there.” Some families have been creative in creating spaces such as baskets where every member in the family puts their devices from night until morning. Check out John Dyer’s article, Why You Need a Technology Basket at Home.
  3. Set aside at least one day a week where you strive to be as technology free as possible (I know technology can mean a lot of things, but I’m primarily thinking of computing devices, cell phones, etc, etc.). Do you have a day where you leave your phone off, or don’t check your email? If not, think about setting aside a day to do this. It accomplishes at least two purposes: 1) Signals to yourself, to your family, and to others that you won’t let technology dictate your life (at least one day a week); lets those people know that for at least one day a week you are setting aside time to be fully present with them. 2) Helps one lower technological anxiety (something that many people don’t realize they have until they start to unplug).

These are just a few suggestions to help you begin the process of thinking through this topic. What suggestions do you have?

The influence of technology is a huge topic, and with each passing day more and more information and studies are coming out as we begin to see some of the effects that our new technologies are having on our lives. So now is the time to begin asking questions and setting boundaries–not only in your own life, but helping your friends and family think through this issue.

Mr. Nass at Stanford thinks the ultimate risk of heavy technology use is that it diminishes empathy by limiting how much people engage with one another, even in the same room.

“The way we become more human is by paying attention to each other,” he said. “It shows how much you care.”

That empathy, Mr. Nass said, is essential to the human condition. “We are at an inflection point,” he said. “A significant fraction of people’s experiences are now fragmented.” New York Times: Hooked on Gadgets, and Paying a Mental Price
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