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1.The pastor’s relationship with children, particularly when they are in crisis, can have a significant impact on their spiritual growth and development. The pastors role is creating a safe space for the child to feel comfortable to share. Their role is to work with the child to improve their emotional well-being, social skills and resilience. The pastor should know when its time to involve the parents to work alongside them to ensure the child is feeling supported and seen. It is also important that the pastor used child friendly methods like play therapy and art and storytelling to help relate to the child.
2.The use of art as a method of counselling. Art expresses the longings of our heart and it communicates our emotional needs and fears and it can even reveal our religious ideas. As the counsellor you can ask children to draw a picture that shows their family and ask them to draw lots of details from their you can ask the child to describe their picture. You as the counsellor can use the technique Probing and ask more open ended questions to get more information from the child. What they draw might reveal more about what they are going through than words could ever say.
I completely agree, sharing testimonies and creating support groups can really help so many people realise they are not alone. Mental health in the church is really seen as taboo and a topic we want to keep undercover but it is real and as a church as the body of Christ we have a role to play in helping people overcome the challenges they are facing.
“When one stays in tune with the spirit, we are given spiritual gifts that help one to be fruitful in the area of counselling.” I completely agree with this statement, when you stay intune with the spirit it it natural to produce fruit because you are not doing your own thing and going in your own direction. When we lean on the Holy Spirit for guidance and wisdom we will receive it, we receive what we need when we need it but we have to remain obedient.
Siang Yang Tan states that the Holy Spirit is essential when it comes to the work of the Christian therapist. The Holy Spirit is the counsellor, comforter, helper and advocate.
Siang Yang Tan talks about how the work and the ministry of the Holy Spirit can be understood in 3 different ways; the Spirit’s truth, power and fruit. The truth refers to John 14:26 which says that the Holy Spirit will teach you all things and bring to remembrance all that it has said to you. The Holy Spirit’s power, we understand as Christians that the spirit is essential to life and ministry and we are commanded to be continuously filled with the spirit (Ephesians 5:18). This was my favourite part of what Siang Yang Tan had said “To be filled with the spirit is to yield to the Spirit, allowing the spirit to take control and shape us to become more like Jesus and to empower us to do the works of Jesus, which can include counselling.” Then we move onto the fruit. Naturally we think of the fruit of spirit in Galatians 5:22-23, love, joy, patience, peace, goodness, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control.
In the interview they had about mental health and the church, Siang Yan Tan was asked the questions of what kinds of struggles he sees within churches and he said the major struggles are the same that we have in society, depression, anxiety, stress, marital problems, parenting. The thing that struck me the most was that he said not all issues should be deal in the church. All churches should have a good referral system of good Christian counsellors, psychiatrists and professionals. He recognizes that not all pastors are equipped to handle certain issues and they shouldn’t try. This can cause more harm than good.
Siang Yang Tan has some brilliant insight into the role of the Holy Spirit and how that really plays a huge impact in counselling but also that there are limits within the church context in dealing with specific issues that a training professional can help with.
I love how you said that as a leader you have to be willing to convey, explain, substantiate and back up your thoughts, beliefs and opinions. It is so important as a spiritual leader to be able to back up what you stand for and not just back it up with your own opinion but to show where in scripture you can back up your statement.
A leader has to also be willing to admit he/she is wrong and allow people to call him/her out. As a leader you lead by example and nobody is perfect so it’s important to always allow people to see your imperfections.You are right in saying your physical health is of great importance. We often just focus on our spiritual health and forget that our physical health is also important. It’s mind, body and spirit, it’s not just spirit. Our bodies are a temple and it’s important we look after the body God has blessed us with.
‘Ministry starts at home’ – this statement you had made couldn’t be more true. But vocational ministers often forget this. They want to lead a church and have the church follow them but their home is anything but filling with love.
A spiritual leader is an important part of any family.
First and foremost the spiritual leader needs to lead by example. They need to love and lead with Christ. They need to embody the fruits of the spirit, they need to understand and practice spiritual disciplines like reading the word, praying, fasting, meditating. They dont need to be perfect by any means but they need to live a life fully surrendered to Jesus and be the best example they can be for their family to mirror. As the spiritual leader it is your job to set the standard by which your family lives by. There needs to be clear values that you live by and from that your family will live by. If you serve and lead from a place of love your family will too.
The spiritual leader needs to model Christ and create certain formations to help the family grow in Christ and these include:
Reading and studying the word together as a family every evening, this will allow reading their bible to become part of their routine and at some point it will be so normal for everyone to adopt this practice. The word is God’s truth and its important to make it part of your everyday life.
Prayer, praying together as a family for each other and for other people. In this we will see the power of prayer but also showing that praying is a way to connect with God, its a way to hear from him.
Serving, as a family you can serve together at church on a Sunday, once a month you can do a soup kitchen. Invite people over for dinner and have the family serve everyone. But start at home, take turns cooking and cleaning and doing things for each other. Its important for the family to understand that Jesus loves us and he did what he did from a place of love and when you love someone you will happily do anything for that person.
Generosity, blessing others whether with finances or not is an important part of who we are as Christ followers. As a family you can tithe at the beginning of each month. If the kids were to get money from doing chores it would be wise to teach them from a young age to give a portion of their money as an offering to God and have them understand from very young what it means to give of your first fruits.As the spiritual leader of the home and of a church it’s important to know how serious your position is. Many people look up to you and look at the way you love and lead and the way in which you live your life and they use that as a guide for their own lives. You have a huge responsibility to continue to work on your own spiritual formation and have people who can pour into your life and hold you accountable. Your spiritual health as the leader is so important as it impacts the spiritual health of your family and church.
As a spiritual leader you lead by example. Your family comes first and then the church. The families represented in the church are following you so it’s important for them to see that you are leading your own family with love and that they are your first priority which in turn will make it easier for the church family to trust you as you lead them.
