This book sets the tone for CCEF's Biblical counselling approach, particularly to kids & teens. Julie uses Scripture, counselling experience, and persThis book sets the tone for CCEF's Biblical counselling approach, particularly to kids & teens. Julie uses Scripture, counselling experience, and personal experiences as a foster & adopting mom to offer insightful questions into what Christ-centred parenting can look like, rather than relying on "formulas". She doesn't give clear examples of a "parenting formula", which I think is reasonable as parenting philosophies/research/trends will constantly shift with the culture. Her basic message is that doing A +/- not doing B does not always lead to C (a 'well-behaved/ideal' child). She points to Biblical principles instead, and to parenting with self-examination of our hearts (whether our personal biases in parenting or our own pride & reactions) and a heart of dependence on Christ.
Here is the spirit & heart of this book. I never would have thought that I would read a B.B. Warfield quote in a parenting book, but how good is this!
"Nurturing a family is a lifestyle that makes Christ central. He is the source from which all that is good and holy flows.
Let me end with a vision for how to live out this grace we've been given. Here is what B.B. Warfield wrote in "Imitating the Incarnation": 'Self-sacrifice means not indifference to our times and our fellows: it means absorption in them. It means forgetfulness of self in others. It means entering into every man's hopes and fears, longings and despairs: it means manysideness of spirit, multiform activity, multiplicity of sympathies. It means richness of development. It means not that we should live one life, but a thousand lives -- binding ourselves to a thousand souls by the filaments of so loving a sympathy that their lives become ours. It means that all the experiences of men shall smite our souls and shall beat and batter these stubborn hearts of ours into fitness for their heavenly home. It is, after all, then, the path to the highest possible development, by which alone we can be made truly men.'
A Christ-centered home means that we are emptying our home of personal agendas, striving to image the Lord before our children. We are striving to love sacrificially, to engage with one another meaningfully, and to pour forth God's character in all we say and do. It does not mean perfection; it means humility in weakness. It means we give ourselves to him, and his strength is made perfect in our weakness. We become a channel of his life to others."...more
The perfect follow-up book to my first book of 2022, "The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry". This is a gift of a book to anyone struggling with not ever The perfect follow-up book to my first book of 2022, "The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry". This is a gift of a book to anyone struggling with not ever feeling like they are enough, overwhelmed, thinking they need better "time management", feeling the crushing weight of expectations from yourself or the world. Otherwise, it is a warm series of reflections on why our human finitude is good.
Kelly Kapic invites us to "rediscover that being dependent creatures is a constructive gift, not a deficiency." I love the warmth of his writing that distils 20 years' worth of research and dialogue and collaboration that weaves together some of the most profound quotes on the landscape of thought on this topic.
Here's a smattering:
"The result of busyness is that an individual is very seldom permitted to form a heart." --Soren Kierkegaard, journal entry
"Whoever has any knowledge of people will certainly admit that just as he has often wished to be able to move the to relinquish self-love, he has also had to wish that it were possible to teach them to love themselves." --Soren Kierkegaard, Works of Love
"Grant that whatever good things I have, I may share generously with those who have not and that whatever good things I do not have, I may request humbly from those who do." -- Thomas Aquinas
"Stress is a perverted relationship to time." --John O'Donohue
"God's time is created, gifted, slow, generous, gentle, and designed to enhance the purposes of love." --John Swinton, Becoming Friends of Time
"Experience is the food of all grace, which it grows and thrives upon." --John Owen, Pneumatologia
"Christian virtue, including the nine-fold fruit of the Spirit, is both the gift of God and the result of the person of faith making conscious decisions to cultivate this way of life and these habits of heart and mind." --N.T. Wright, After You Believe
"Part of the intrinsic good of our bodies is that they are an ever-present reminder of our creaturely needs: to be human is to be dependent on the Creator Lord, dependent on other human creatures who provide their presence and love, and dependent on the earth, which provides for our physical needs, from oxygen to lettuce, from shade to springs of water. This dependence, when recognized and remembered, raises serious questions about the emphasis on self-generated identity that is so often assumed and encouraged in our modern world. As embodied finite creatures, do we have a purely self-generated identity? How do I value my particularity without ignoring the countless ways my identity is given as much as it is self-created?"
At the heart of this book, Kapic focuses his reflections on the doctrine of creation, rediscovering its beauty and significance for our lives. In his words, "1. We are not under any requirement to be infinite -- infinity is reserved for God alone. Rather, in and through our creaturely limits we are called to love God with our whole heart, soul, mind, and strength and to love our neighbours as ourselves. In other words, loving both God and neighbour falls completely within the range of creaturely finitude.
2. We need to stop asking (or feeling that we should ask) for God's forgiveness when we can't do everything..."
He explores how our singularity and particularity and smallness is part of our inherent worth as humans. He then explores why our bodies are necessarily tied to our self-perception, relationships, and worship, and thus why ignoring or abuse of our bodies has significant consequences. He questions that our identity can be self-generated, instead being necessarily linked to our families, cultures, and historical contexts. He does all this in light of sin affecting our own limited self-understanding.
The second part of his book explores what healthy interdependence looks like: from humility, our relationship to time, cultivating awareness of God's presence which can free us from the rule of the clock, and God's good purposes in using the process of time to mature us, and the beauty of the body of Christ, God's church, to do good works in a way that honours our singularity and finitude as part of God's good design.
And his last chapter offers four patterns to live a healthier experience of our human finitude, by: 1. Embracing the rhythms & seasons of life. 2. Recognising our vulnerability 3. Expressing lament & cultivating gratitude 4. Honouring rest in both sleep & Sabbath
Concise & clear, compassionate & concrete -- this is such a helpful primer for a newer Biblical counsellor's toolbox. Lauren is a counsellor and faculConcise & clear, compassionate & concrete -- this is such a helpful primer for a newer Biblical counsellor's toolbox. Lauren is a counsellor and faculty member of CCEF and has written a great handbook to introduce the counseling process as part of a training program (which is why I read this book). The book is organised well, starting with theory based on a Biblical worldview of sin, forgiveness, and a Spirit-driven sanctification in Christ to grow and change towards loving God and others deeper, followed by goals at each step in the process. Lauren includes a rather 'simple' case study to illustrate this process at each step, as well as demonstrating some ways in which to use Scripture as part of counseling.
She helpfully acknowledges that counselors must be careful to check their assumptions of their counsellees, including any biases coming from a different ethnic or socioeconomic background to a counsellee.
Here is one of my favourite parts about being a Biblical counselor that Lauren writes about in the chapter titled "Imagining the Faithful Way Forward":
"This is perhaps the most exciting and inspired part of the counseling process!...Before we dive into the details of this part of the process, let me note that what I am referring to as the 'imagined way forward' could also be called the 'counseling plan'. I am using 'imagine' language instead because I find it more inspiring! How so? Because God endowed us with this powerful capability to imagine, to 'look' beyond what is currently in our experiences and envision something more, something greater, and even glorious. For the Christian, we must use our imaginations to envision our lives changing, developing, and maturing more and more into the likeness of Jesus. God stirs up our hearts with that which stirs up his heart -- to bring beauty from our ashes, to replace oldness with newness -- and that gives us vision, direction, and purpose in our lives. And because he has given us the Spirit, we can act on these imaginations and can work toward bringing them into our lived experience.
Perhaps one of the most effective ways to imagine is to spend time with counselees reflecting on who Jesus is. How he lived. How he served. How he laid down his life. How he took it back up again. How he serves us today. The life of our Lord, the ways of our Lord -- this is where we find motivation. This is how we draw from the past -- Christ's past -- to help us track our new way forward. 'Be thou my vision.' We desire Jesus to be our vision for our futures. 'Thou my best thought.' Jesus is our best thought for our futures. The task of imagining includes carrying Jesus, our best thought, into a vision of the future that has been shaped by his life and love."...more
When I first saw this book, I thought: “Ooohhh finally!”, followed by “This better be good.”
Well, I am pleased to say that this is a very good book onWhen I first saw this book, I thought: “Ooohhh finally!”, followed by “This better be good.”
Well, I am pleased to say that this is a very good book on a theology of menstruation, periods, monthly bleeding, TOM (time of the month), or however you like to name this biological clock in-built in women.
The author is clear that she isn't a medical doctor but she has done plenty of research and reading across the medical, social, cultural, and theological domains.
Jones retells the menstrual cycle story and looks at it through a Creation-Fall-Redempton framework, tackling the difficult Leviticus 15 passage and reminding us of one of my favourite stories, the beautiful encounter between the bleeding woman and Jesus in Mark 5, and covering the painful topics of the shame, messiness, and sorrow of painful & problematic periods, PMS, and the menopause.
A list of questions covered in the appendix include “Did Eve have periods in the Garden of Eden? Will we have them in the new creation?” which are well-answered.
A fun, compassionate, and clear book. *Highly recommended* for women of all ages, and their brothers, dads, husbands, and pastors!...more
The definitive history of the Biblical counseling movement out of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, by a witness and friend to some of the major players -- The definitive history of the Biblical counseling movement out of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, by a witness and friend to some of the major players -- this is David Powlison's PhD dissertation! One of the required textbooka for CCEF's Theology and Secular Psychology course (a must for anyone keen to think theologically about modern secular psychology)....more
A incredibly sobering but a essential read for Christians and Christian leaders in this #MeToo era, Diane Langberg writes with theological and professA incredibly sobering but a essential read for Christians and Christian leaders in this #MeToo era, Diane Langberg writes with theological and professional clarity sounding the right emotional tone on this topic. While we would rather naively remain silent, the way in which Jesus uses His power in humility is our example for shining light and speaking out against darkness. Diane writes, "the voices of victims today, of those abused and violated and crushed in our 'Christian' circles, are in fact the voice of our God to his people." Will you listen to them?
Some quotes I highlighted:
"Research on power and compassion/empathy has shown that elevated social power is associated with a diminished reciprocal emotional response to another's sufferings."
"The power of a person is found in likeness to Jesus Christ...Jesus used power not to rule but to influence, to invite, to welcome, and to transform... Humility is the mark of Christ. It is the way of power used rightly."...more
Can I just sit here & savour each chapter in this book forever & ever & ever? It's actually perfect timing that I finished reading this book at EasterCan I just sit here & savour each chapter in this book forever & ever & ever? It's actually perfect timing that I finished reading this book at Easter, but really, this book is perfect for everyday for eternity. If that isn't enough of my endorsement already...this will be the most refreshing read for your soul....more
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