CLARUS 2013

Just a few more days until Desert Springs Church's annual theology conference called Clarus. The conference is completely sold out, but the sessions will be available in audio form on the church's website shortly after the conference. I am very excited for this conference and looking forward to sitting under the teaching of our very qualified speakers, Paul Tripp and Timothy Lane.

Clarus

Here is how DSC’s teaching elder, Pastor Ryan Kelly, explains what Clarus is:

Since 2005 Desert Springs Church (DSC) has held an annual conference weekend with a guest speaker and a focused topic. In 2008 we started giving it a name, Clarus—which is Latin for bright, clear, or radiant. We think that word aptly reflects our intentions with this conference: that God and His truth would be made more clear, more radiant to us, and more powerfully penetrating in us. To that end we set aside a full weekend every year for fellowship, singing, prayer, and instruction about God’s words and ways. In 2011, Clarus became a Regional Conference of The Gospel Coalition.

Clarus 2013

Ryan introduces this year’s theme:

God’s plan for our redemption is not merely to reconcile us to Himself, but to point us to those who share this reconciliation, the church. In Christ, Christians become part of a new family.

. . .Roughly 50 times the New Testament tells Christians to do something one to another. We sometimes refer to these as the one-anothers—e.g., love one another, serve one another, pray for one another, stir up one another, encourage one another, sing to one another, etc. Such commands simply cannot be done alone. We need partners. We need a partnership—which is really what “fellowship” is.

. . .To that end, we Christians meet regularly for worship and teaching; we read the Scriptures and pray, alone and in our families; we read good books and recommend them to others; we keep working at these relationships and our ministry to each other.

Dr. Tripp and Dr. Lane are not addressing a subject reserved for vocational ministers or even those involved in formal biblical counseling. They are addressing Christians with God’s Word concerning a most basic aspect of Christian discipleship: speaking the truth in love.

As Christians, we are to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ (2 Peter 3:18), and we are to also grow together (Ephesians 4:15-16). We do not do this perfectly because we are sinful people in need of a Savior. We hurt those that we love the most; we isolate ourselves from others because we don’t want our hearts exposed; we may put on a “good face” when we are around others, but inside we are in utter turmoil; we worship our own kingdoms. Without living in true Christ-centered biblical community, we will wallow in our failures and sins and live as those who have no hope.

But, of course, God calls us to something greater. He calls us to Himself! He calls us through the truth of the gospel, the hope of lasting change and the grace of God. In tune with Matthew 6:33, we seek His kingdom and His righteousness and in so doing, Jesus knits His church together because we are seeking after Him, not our own interests. He exposes our hearts and our sin for the good of His children and for the glory of God. We then let others in because we see that we need Jesus and each other. As Dr. Tripp and Dr. Lane remind us, “change is a community project.”

At DSC, we have been greatly helped by Dr. Tripp and Dr. Lane’s resources.How People Change and Instruments In the Redeemer’s Hands have been used here to train our membership in biblical counseling. This fall, our Community Groups worked through Paul Tripp’s marriage DVD series, What Did You Expect?: Redeeming the Realities of Marriage.

On a personal note, as a lay-biblical counselor at DSC, I am very excited to be part of a church that upholds the primacy of the Word in the pulpit, but also as central to the life of every Christian. And I’m thankful for this annual conference and the blessing that it has been to our church. Having Dr. Lane and Dr. Tripp teach will serve as an invaluable resource and encouragement, not only for the DSC family, but also for those from around the Southwest region who will join us. My hope is that this conference will remind us of our great need of Jesus both individually but also corporately. Christ is indeed the head of his church. By God’s grace, we are praying for the church in the Southwest region to be encouraged in the all-important work of one-anothering the Word.

For more information on this year’s conference, including talk titles and registration, visit clarusabq.com.

Community Groups and Biblical Counseling

I am very excited about a new series that is being done at the Biblical Counseling Coalition's Grace and Truth Blog about the relationship between small groups and biblical counseling.  Today's post is Part 3 of this series, which I say 'Amen' to and hope that it is an encouragement for others to see that small groups and biblical counseling go hand-in-hand.  Since Desert Springs Church's vision is that the Community Groups become the primary place for life and ministry, biblical counseling is intended to happen mostly within those groups.  There is still need for more formal settings for counseling, but CG leaders are actively being equipped for the challenges of counseling members of their groups as needs arise.  God's children are all counselors.  We all give advice, have been asked for our opinion on something, or have sought to correct someone that was wrong.  We are all counselors.  The question is, what kind of counselor are you?  When you give counsel, whose counsel are you offering...God's or your own?  The biblical counselor seeks to offer God's counsel that is found in His Word by the power of the Holy Spirit.  As DSC steers all of the ministries toward the CGs, it will be very exciting to see God move in the lives of our members and help them have a biblical perspective on their problems.  By God's grace, this is happening and God is glorified.  You can read Parts 1 & 2 at the Grace and Truth Blog link that is hightlighted above.  I hope you enjoy these posts.





Biblical Counseling and Growth Group Leading

By God’s grace the pastoral staff of University Reformed Church envisions biblical counseling as an important part of our overall discipling ministry. One of my goals as Director of Counseling Ministries is to help create a culture of biblical counseling at URC. This includes training elders and growth group leaders in the basics of biblical counseling. Over a year ago, Associate Pastor Ben Falconer and I teamed up to plan biblical counseling training for the URC “shepherds.” We have done several training sessions to help them incorporate a biblical counseling model into the discipling they do as elders and Growth Group leaders. One session in particular was to help growth group leaders use biblical counseling questions in leading a Bible study.

URC’s Vision for Discipling and Growth Groups

URC’s vision has been well-captured in the words of Associate Pastor, Ben Falconer:

University Reformed Church is… a Bible-teaching and praying church, ministering to our neighbors, the campus, the nations, and the unreached peoples of the world. We attempt to accomplish this mission in large part through our two principal ministries: our Sunday services and our Growth Groups. At URC, Growth Groups are the primary place where Biblical Community is fostered. This means that Growth Groups are thoroughly biblical in content (the Bible is the regular source of study), nature (believers pray for, honor, serve, teach, encourage, meet with, and love one another), and purpose (our primary goal is that disciples of Jesus Christ are raised up for the glory of God).

In the summer of 2010, I was able to do a ministry project for my CCEF Introduction to Biblical Counseling Certificate on URC shepherd training. Here is how Ben and I sought to align biblical counseling and Growth Group ministry. The purpose of this training is “to equip URC shepherds to glorify God by making lifelong disciples through the gospel.” This includes:

• Knowing and caring for each individual member by watching over their welfare.
• Intentionally leading people into Christian maturity (discipling).
• Being available to pray for and help people work through sins and struggles (counseling).

Components of Our Training

The components of the training include:
1. Scripture Study:

• Jeremiah 17: 5-15—God’s model of change
• Hebrews: the ministry of parakaleo

2. Training and Practice in Biblical Counseling:

• Learning what biblical counseling is and is not
• Learning a vision for effective small groups
• Learning the Three Trees model and the questions that go along with it
• Learning the Love-Know-Speak-Do model of counseling
• Doing case studies, self and peer counseling, role plays, and group leading exercise

3. Various Biblical Counseling Readings:

• Five Advantages of Church-Based Counseling by Deepak Reju
• Counseling and Discipleship by Deepak Reju
• Some Thoughts on How to Provide Long-Term Pastoral Care by Tim Lane
• Why Small Groups? by C. J. Mahaney and others
• Leadership Training: Shepherding Leaders to Shepherd the Flock by Tony Giles

Preventative Counseling

Several of the questions/concerns we received after our first session related to getting practice in using biblical counseling preventatively (discipling) and not just correctively (counseling). This made a lot of sense because most ministry (especially by Growth Group leaders) will be preventative discipling rather than corrective counseling. So we designed one of the sessions to directly teach/model how to use biblical counseling questions in leading a Growth Group where you are studying Scripture and sharing together as a group. Ben already teaches growth group leaders how to lead an inductive Bible study. We added biblical counseling questions to supplement this and help bring the Bible study into the trenches of real life for people in the group. We chose to do a study on 1 Thessalonians 5: 12-18 incorporating both inductive study questions and biblical counseling questions. An outline of our study is provided below:

The passage we’re looking at comes from the section on Christian community: how do we live with one another in such a way that the body is built up and God is glorified? What hinders community? How can we overcome these hindrances? The passage contains several commands that give us specific directions for living in community.

Read 1 Thessalonians 5: 12-18 and ask:

• What do you notice about these verses?
• What are the main commands?
• What does it mean to respect our spiritual leaders? Esteem them in love?
• What do you see in verses 14-15?
• Can you think of examples of admonishing the idle, encouraging the fainthearted, and helping the weak? Are you involved in these kinds of activities?
• How would you summarize verses 16-18? What would it look like to do these things in real life?

1. Which one of these commands is most challenging for you? Why? Have several people share and discuss as a group what makes it hard to obey the commands. The purpose here is to get people talking and to see which command(s) get the most attention.
2. Choose a command that several people thought was hard to obey. Ask: Can anyone think of a specific time when you struggled to obey this command? What was going on in your life/day at that time? What stresses or blessings were you experiencing? How did your circumstances influence your obedience or disobedience? How did you respond? What do you think motivated your response (desires, fears, beliefs)? Ask another person the same set of questions and discuss. Point out how our shortsightedness and wandering desires get in the way of building community.
3. In 1 Thessalonians 5: 9-11 Paul gives us great motivation to build strong Christian community. How would you summarize Paul’s encouraging words? How would keeping these words in mind help us overcome our resistance to community building?
4. Let’s go to God in prayer right now and confess the ways we have hindered community. Confess not only actions but also underlying heart issues.
5. What is one way you could build community this week? How will the truth of 1 Thessalonians 5:9-11 encourage and motivate you?

The Way Forward

While we have sought to provide good training to Growth Group leaders, this is still in its infancy. There is much work to do to ensure that biblical counseling and Growth Group leading are aligned and that they reinforce each other. This year we plan to do more training, especially for Growth Group leaders, in leading inductive/biblical counseling type Bible studies.

Join the Conversation

What can you apply to your ministry from the way University Reformed Church relates their small group ministry and biblical counseling?