This series has been about discipleship, spiritual maturity and how to help people grow up in Christ. It is my view that the best test for judging maturity is not knowing the scripture but doing what the Bible says in terms of good relationships.
You will remember that I did a Doctoral Dissertation on developing a systematic human relations skill training program for Christians. In my studies I looked at the research on outcomes from actual counseling cases. The researchers were famous and not so famous men and women in the areas of Psychology, Psychiatry, Counseling, Social Work, etc. I summarized their results and correlated their conclusions with the scripture.
Let me explain what it means to do OUTCOME RESEARCH. Most of the time research in Counseling and Psychology is done with rats, monkeys, birds and other animals. But rarely has research been done that compares what actually happens in the relationship between the Helper and the Client. When we test those issues it is considered to be OUTCOME RESEARCH.
Over the past 50 years of doing this several factors have been teased out that are most important in judging whether the Helper/Counselor/Psychiatrist is effective in fostering healthy change in the Client. However, in most research, the Clients are not asked their opinions about what really worked to assist them in their goals to change. (NOTE: All change is SELF CHANGE. A Helper, Parent, Pastor, Psychologist can not change another person. The person must CHOOSE to change. He/she must CHOOSE to take the medicine, alter the thinking, quit drinking, see the Doctor, stop eating, etc.)
After studying hundreds of case studies and interviewing tons of Clients the researchers concluded several things. #1. The Helper's ideas, interventions, medicines, treatments are worth something of value to the Clients, but not much. The research places the Helper's contributions as about 10% to 17% of the successful, 100% changes accomplished by the Client.
#2. The treatment intervention chosen by the Helper makes almost no difference. Whatever theory and ideas Helpers use is about as effective as any other. Some chose medicine, some chose affirmation, some chose cognitive behavior. They all work for a successful Helper but unless the Helper has the CORE SKILLS as judged by the Client, no intervention works well. The Core Skills are highly correlated with the Fruit of the Spirit.
Tomorrow: THE CORE SKILLS. Read my book Hope and Change for Humpty Dumpty to discover the Core Skills in advance.
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