Listen Up! A practical guide to listening to sermons is a short, yet insightful book that was given out at T4G last year. If you’re looking for a good tool to teach your church on how to listen to a sermon this is a great resource. You can access a short summary here.
What follows is a short summary of remaining three practices in the biblical counseling process. The first three practices (gathering pertinent information, sorting out problems and involvement) were summarized in an earlier post, which can be found here. Hope: The biblical definition of hope is “the expectation of something good.” The authors also add their…
This blog post was taken in its entirety from The Resurgence. We’re usually not too eager to deal with our sin, but doing so is an essential part of the Christian life. The Puritans offer six pieces of advice for how to meet our sin head-on. Mortification. It isn’t a word you hear much these…
This post is simply a summary post on chapter 22 “The Central Elements of the Biblical Counseling Process” of Christ-Centered Biblical Counseling. Randy Patten and Mark Dutton submit that there are six practices that summarize the counseling process: Gathering pertinent information Sorting out the problems Involvement Hope Instruction: the path forward Homework What follows is…
Several weeks ago I finished Mistakes Leaders Make by Dave Kraft. It was a short, easy read with several helpful principles that leaders tend to make. His list involves mistakes that oftentimes go unaddressed which is unfortunate because they can have serious consequences, to the pastor and church or both. Read through the following list…
If you’re interested in reading one book on biblical counseling read Christ-Centered Biblical Counseling. It gives the nuts and bolts of biblical counseling and is thoroughly biblical, focused on Jesus and is saturated with God’s Word. The chapters included the power of the Redeemer (Jesus), the ministry of the Holy Spirit, the unity of the…
Biblical confrontation is an expression of Christian love.
I’ve recently been reviewing Paul David Tripp’s book Instruments in the Redeemer’s Hands: People in Need of Change Helping People in Need of Change and was challenged by his words regarding confrontation. Typically when we hear the word rebuke or confrontation we immediately think of something negative or possibly…
This past Sunday I made the statement that the underlying reason for our sinful behavior, thoughts, affections and words stems from unbelief. For sure this unbelief manifests itself in a lot of ways but I humbly believe it is an overflow of not believing the truth and promises of God’s Word and instead believing the…
Tim Chester and Steve Timmis in Everyday Church: Gospel Communities on Mission give five principles of community-based, gospel-centered, mutual pastoral care that are very helpful in answering the question, “what does everyday pastoral care look like.” And just as a preface they contend that “pastoral care is not the sole responsibility of pastors anymore than evangelism…
