Episode Notes

Answers to Shauna's questions of who'd we like to sit down with over a cup of coffee

• Mike - Jeff Durbin
• Shauna - John Piper / Ben Shapiro
• Jeremy - James K. A. Smith / Jordan Peterson

Topics & Questions Answered

• Grief? 
  • grieving the loss of a child or a child losing a parent
  • Books on grief & loss 
    • Bob Kellemen - God's healing for life's losses: to find hope when you're hurting
    • Paul Tautges - A small book for the hearting heart: meditations on loss, grief, and healing
    • Paul Tautges - Comfort those who grieve
• Rejection?
• Can a woman lead out in a church ministry with a vision for launching and cultivating a biblical counseling ministry in the local church?
• Respond to some feedback we received regarding EMDR

Show Notes: 
Paul Tripp discusses his heart behind his recent book release on suffering, “Suffering: gospel hope when life doesn’t make sense”, which was largely due to his own recent experiences in suffering through an acute renal failure. Listen as Paul shares the nature of suffering and our response to it. "Tweetable Tripp one-liners" from the episode

• Suffering is spiritual warfare
• Suffering isn’t neutral, we never come to suffering empty; we don’t suffer the thing your suffering, you suffer the way your suffering the thing your suffering.
• We have a dark ability to trouble our own trouble.
• Our bad theology is making a mess of our suffering.
• God doesn’t need us to be healthy to use us; that’s a human way of thinking.
• The move of grace is not from dependence to independence, but the move of grace is from independence to dependence.
• We’re afraid to be honest and transparent because we don’t believe the gospel.
• As Christians, we should be able to be the most honest community on the earth.
• As Christians, we struggle with believing the now-ism of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
• As Christians, we need to stop having cosmetic relationships.
• God makes his invisible grace visible by sending people of grace to give grace to people who need grace, that’s how it works, modeling that incarnational living.
• Our weakness is God’s workroom.

Episode Resource Links:

• Paul Tripp Ministries - New Morning Mercies
• Suffering: Gospel Hope When Life Doesn't Make Sense 

Show notes:

The cultural view of depression

• Treats it like a disease, attributing it or reducing it to a chemical imbalance or a genetic disposition. These aren’t invalid, but it causes a quick diagnosis so it can be treated quickly. It can almost promise a remedy, which scripturally speaking, is much deeper, its more of a heart problem that has physiological and emotional implications. Therefore, culture has a very superficial view and resolution to depression, very much consistent with the medical model. This isn’t bad, its just incomplete and a truncated resolution because it doesn’t deal with the heart of a person which is where the root of depression is planted.
• Medication implications - they don’t necessarily fix the problem, but ultimately mask the problem and often times creates new symptoms. As biblical counselors, we wouldn’t counsel clients to stop taking meds, but to seek their medical professional.
• Placebo testing with depression medications demonstrated that the prospect of hope helped tremendously with those struggling with depression. If a placebo provided hope imagine what real hope can do for those depressed; the gospel provides a living hope to the hopeless.

General & Biblical Notes on Depression:

• Depression is a progression; when unbelief goes isolated, and it's allowed to reign and nothing else is pressing in on that like community groups, discipleship, etc. it's very likely one can slip into a bout of depression.
• Paul’s teaching on suffering is helpful. Gal. 6.1-5.
• Imagine our community group leaders who respond in a Gal. 6.1-5 way?
• Learning from depression - learning to preach the gospel to ourselves and having others in our lives to speak into them.
• The gospel gap - gospel truth. Learning to orient our hearts in the place of sorrow.
• Learning to abide in Christ
• Gospel Community is so necessary for those struggling with depression.

Show Resource Notes:

• Soul Care Consulting
• Journal for biblical counseling
• Martin Lloyd Jones - Spiritual Depression
• Ed Welch - Stubborn Darkness

Episode Notes:

- What is EMDR Therapy

• Developed by Psychologist Francine Shapiro, EMDR stands for Eye Movement Reprocessing and Desensitization. It focuses on how memory is stored in the brain and how that impacts experience. It is a successful evidenced-based method for treating trauma.

- How is it used

• EMDR uses dual attention stimulation (eye movements, tapping, or rhythmic audio sounds) to activate the brain’s orienting response, allowing you to access adaptive information and attach it to the memory of trauma. “EMDR connects the ‘here and now’ parts of your brain to the ‘then and there’ trauma parts until your brain says I'm ok.

- Is EMDR biblical

• To ask if EMDR is biblical may not be the right question if you are hoping to find the Scripture that speaks of it. The better question may be, “Is it unbiblical?” To that the answer is easy. –No. Nothing in the practice of EMDR goes against Scripture. When done by a
      biblical counselor, it is best understood that EMDR is applying neuroscience to biblical counseling.

- Scriptures and the EMDR process

• Psalm 139:14- The complexities of the brain are the Lord’s handiwork.
• John 16:13- Speaks of the Spirit’s role to guide us in truth. Believing clients often find the truth of Scripture plays a key role in the EMDR process. 
• Jeremiah 33:6- Reminds us that healing is connected to truth.
• John 8:32- Truth has the power to set us free from what binds. 
• 2 Corinthians 10:5- Calls us to take thoughts captive.
• Isaiah 61:1-3- Gives a picture of the healing that is ours.
• Psalm 24:1- All things belong to the Lord, including methods of care and healing.

- Who should consider EMDR
    - If you've been impacted by trauma

• Trauma is defined as the emotional shock following a deeply distressing or disturbing experience. Trauma overwhelms the senses and hijacks normal processing. Traumatic experiences cover a broad range. Some include personal involvement where something happened to you. Others include something that happened to someone with you. Situations can also be traumatic due to the personal significance and impact on your life. Trauma results in an overwhelming sense of fear, feelings of helplessness, and loss of control. PTSD and CPTSD are clinical diagnoses given to people who are dealing with the continual impact of trauma. However, you do not need a diagnosis for EMDR to be helpful in processing your experience.

- If you feel "stuck"

• EMDR is extremely helpful to people who feel stuck in their struggle. If negative self-talk, catastrophizing, feeling continually overwhelmed, or feelings of hopelessness are part of your regular life, reprocessing target events and memories with EMDR can help. If your life seems centered around the negative experiences of your past and traditional talk-therapy has not fully helped you move forward, EMDR may be exactly what is needed.

- Is EMDR safe

• Yes. Because EMDR is non-invasive and client-led, there is little concern surrounding the process or impact of the therapy. Below are supporting facts as well as things to consider:
  • The client remains fully coherent and focused during the process. 
  • The client sets the pace and can decide if they need to stop at any time. 
  • When done properly, EMDR has the least susceptibility to suggestion or manipulation than do other therapies.
  • EMDR should only be done by a professionally trained therapist. 
  • While EMDR is considered safe, not everyone is a good candidate for this therapy. Consult with a trained professional to determine if it is right for you.

Episode Resources:

• Elizahuie.com  
• Mclean Bible Church
• CCEF

Eliza's Books
    - Raising Teens in a hyper-sexualized world
    - Raising kids in a screen saturated world

Episode Notes: 

• After 8 or 9 minutes of riffing about being in lockdown with each other, the discussion starts about using assessments in the counseling room and with the local church for leadership development.
• ABC has a resource page with the assessments broken down into categories such as: 
  • Anger
  • Marriage
  • Sex
  • Intimacy
  • bitterness
  • Money
  • Spiritual Life
  • Substance Abuse
  • Parenting
  • Adultery
  • Domestic Abuse
  • Womanhood, etc.
• Besides providing excellent training for certifying biblical counselors, ABC is also dedicated to providing, through membership, counselors with enough resources to help. 
  • You can print out one of the resources and hand them right to the client.
  • ABC membership is really a resource hub
  • The assessments help gather data quickly with a Likert Scale

Episode Resources:

• Association of Biblical Counselors Membership

General Notes: 

• Discuss Stewart Scott's new book, "31 Ways to be A One-Another Christian
• How Mike uses it as a pastor to encourage group leaders to be more relationally intentional with their groups and then being able to use it as a more formative leadership developing piece.
• Also, as a counselor, being able to use it as a form of data gathering, where the counselor is being forward about the relational dynamic of church engagement. As most counselees are pretty infrequent in attending church and even more infrequent with the communal life of their church.
• Using the book as a homework assignment to help counselees meditate on the verses, their explanations, maybe think of their own illustration, and then work to apply it by asking specific questions that center around the actions of the verse, etc.

Episode Resources: 

• 31 Ways to be A One Another Christian - Stuart Scott
• Biblical Counseling Coalition 

Episode Notes:

• The Heart of the Matter: designed to help facilitate a process with our counselees to help with the opportunity of examining their hearts. Drawn from Psalm 26.2
  • Heart log (helpful in assisting counselees to identify various aspects of their hearts 
    • begin to identify our theirs through logging 
      • A situation
      • Their emotion
      • Their thoughts and beliefs
      • Their desires and wants
      • Their subsequent behaviors and habits
  • Emotion Wheel 
    • Emotions are often smoke alarms of the soul that alert us to problems
  • Using the exercises to reveal deceptive patterns of thoughts, desires, behaviors, etc. 
    • Deceptive thoughts about situations and others
    • Deceptive thoughts about self
    • Deceptive desires
    • Level of desire
    • Sinful behaviors or habits
• This series is intended to diagnose what is going on within the counselee. The next part of the series will be about "Put On", where this series is about "Put Off"

Episode Resources:

• Books
  • A Theology of Christian Counseling - Jay Adams.
• Links
  • http://feelingswheel.com/

Episode Quotes:

• Situation is just a context that exposes the heart. - Jeremy Lelek.
• Idolatry is when you give yourself permission not to love God or someone else because you didn't get what you wanted. - Jeremy Lelek.
• Habits shape the heart - Christian History.

Episode Notes

Interview with Lee Lewis (was in our 10th podcast on depression)

Pastor at Radiant Church in Austin - https://www.radiantaustin.com/

• www.soulcareconsulting.com
• 12 stone counseling - Garret Higbee
  • https://www.twelvestones.org/
• Soulcare Consulting
  • Creating a ministry of soul care
  • Build a culture of care not a side avenue of care
  • What would that process look like for a church considering implementing this culture of care 
    • 360 evaluation interview process
      • Evaluate what's already happening in the church, find holes, and then provide a road map.
      • The road map is tailored to the size of the church, the resources they have available, which serves as a playbook to implement a process of healthy discipleship and culture of care.
    • Tag Line: "equipping churches for intentional life on life ministry to the intensive care needs."
      • Resources 
        • level 1 - small group study
        • Freedom groups - Gal. 5 13 weeks

• Reach out to soul care consulting at: 
  • [email protected]

• Influential books Lee has read
  • Instrument's in the Redeemer's hand -Paul Tripp
  • Desiring God - John Piper
  • Knowing God - J. I. Packer
  • All Things for the Good - Thomas Watson
  • Book of Psalms

Episode Notes:

• Faith
  • God will give you everything you need to complete the work, task, job, etc. that he assigned you to do - not according to your ability, but his ability to work through you.
• Faith isn't in your ability to do something, but your faith in God giving the work to you. God has given you the assignement; he has called you to do this and he will give you everything you need in order to do this, not because of your own ability, but because of his ability through you. - Shauna Van Dyke
• Heb. 12

• The faith in knowing that we have a loving father who is using times like these a means to healing our souls. - Jeremy Lelek
• hardship is usually the primary means that produces faith in us. Mike Van Dyke
• There is an active and passive reality to faith. Mike Van Dyke

Email us at [email protected]

COVID-19 Anxiety & Fear: P2

Phil. 4:4-9

• 3 fold plan for responding to COVID-19 
  • Praying
  • Thinking biblically
  • And living biblically

Anxiety - "its a feeling of worry, nervousness, uneasiness, or distress over a real or a perceived threat." - Shauna Van Dyke

Helpful Resources

• COVID - Anxiety Article