The Bible, Spiritual Maturity and Conflict #21

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.

Mature Christians Can Handle Conflict #20.

                                                 The Cycle of Conflict Intensity

 Dr. John Gottman researched why marriages succeed or fail and discovered one main cause of marital breakdown: Couples that attack rather than attend. I developed a scale to show Healthy versus unhealthy relationships, including marriages. If you handle differences as shown in #1. and #2. you will very likely have a long and successful marriage and family life. If you constantly handle differences like those people in #4. onward, either stop attacking your partner or get a divorce lawyer. 

Level of Interpersonal Interaction	Resulting Personal State
1.  Contented:  At peace with others	1.  Relaxed.  Thinking and feeling calm Male heart rate:  72  Female: 80
You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, 'Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.  But I tell you that	Jesus brings a new teaching about caring in addition to physical relationships. This is critically important in family life.
2. Complaint:  A specific behavioral statement.  "I" statements (I want, I think, I don't like. Some anger	2.  Slight anxiety & fear.  Increased heart rate-BPM & breathing muscles tense. Minor Fight/Flight
…anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. (Attack or Attend?)	Be careful about  anger, bitterness and rage. It is not always a sin but it must be handled carefully. Judge ourselves or we shall be judged
3.  Criticism:  A vague blaming. "You" statements.  Focus on person not behavior.  A flaw in person.  Global statements.  Somewhat attacking.	3. Raised anxiety, fear, blood pressure; increased BPM& breathing; muscles tighten, eyes dilate, reduced digestion, elevated blood sugar, etc.       Increase in Flight/Fight
Anyone who says to his brother, 'Raca’, is answerable to the Sanhedrin.	Raca is calling a brother or sister “stupid” or a failure. (*Note Bitter Root below)
4.  Contempt:  Personal insult, shame mocking attacks on the character sense of self, and identity.  Opposite of admiration, no respect.	4.  High anxiety and stress. Feel heart beat. Shallow breathing fight/flight response                hyper vigilant, brain freezes Reactive
One who says, 'You fool!' will be in danger of the hell fire. Mt 5:21-22	Character attacks cause severe emotional wounds.
5.  Consuming defenses:  Immediately reject all communication.  All-out Attack	5.  Severe emotional & physical anxiety. Can’t think. Feelings rule. Fight/Flight.  Shake and Tremble
6.  Crushing physical response. Acts out by withdrawal or aggressively pursuing the other. Miscommunication and Misunderstanding Cycle	6.  Emotional flooding - A chronic state of hyper vigilance and hypersensitive self-talk along with emotional pain, reactivity, bitterness, mental freezing, rage, etc.
7.     Complete Isolation: withdrawal.     a.  Problems impossible to solve          b.  Talking is useless            c. Hopeless           d.  Overwhelmed	7.  Too painful to interact with rational discourse.  Filled with constant thoughts of attack and condemnation. Must either stay away from the person or fight them with bitterness. Divorce, church splits, etc

                                                           

© Gary Sweeten, Ed. D., Sweeten Life Systems adapted from John Gottman, Ph.D. Why Marriages  Succeed or Fail, Firestone Press, 1994. Get My books from the eBook store.

Serenity Recovery Network

I was blessed today to visit the male section of Serenity House in Price Hill area of Cincinnati. Driving over there I was drawn back to 1970-73 when we had a dynamic house church in our home across from the campus of The University of Cincinnati. Why? I suppose you don't remember.

Karen and I were offered the "Left Foot of Fellowship" from the denomination we had been reared in. The reason was because I was so different from my fellow church members. I was different in that I:

Had a beard like Abe Lincoln (Abe was the last beard they liked.)
I had long hair down to my collar.
I led Inductive not Deductive Bible studies. (We asked the students to interpret what they read instead of me telling them what it said/meant.)
I thought lay members were as important as Preachers
I was an outspoken Bible reader with my own ideas.

So, the Deacons, after a heresy trial, asked me to leave the church. It broke my heart. It was God's way of breaking me out of an antiquated model of the church.

Why did the Serenity House touch me so deeply and bring back those memories? We had a Jesus House on Elberon near where I was this morning. The Jesus House was my first foray into healing, deep meditation, prayer therapy, dealing with drug addicts, living in community, etc. The group sharing today was a strong reminder of those very heady days in 1970.

Blessings,

Gary Sweeten

Maturity: Essentials and Non-Essential Doctrines #17.

Matt Holman, Pastor of Landmark Church in Cincinnati preached a dynamic and insightful sermon on this topic last Sunday and I was blessed to hear it. He began the sermon in an intriguing manner. He told a brief story about two women who almost came to blows in a MacDonald's over how they were serving the waiting customers. The issue that the two reacted to so strongly was trivial but it could have been fatal.

That illustrates St. Paul's admonition to the Roman church about Christians who differ over unimportant doctrines. Some doctrines are essential and some are non-essential or even trivial yet they can start a war of emotional interactions between Christians and end up with church splits and even new denominations.

Several years ago I was invited to speak at the St. Petersburg Institute of Theology. Before allowing me to speak I was required to attend thee meetings with the various key leaders to test my theology. They were very anxious that my American approach was like what they observed on "Christian TV" and had many questions about my TV shows, money raised to save Russia, etc. They did not believe it when I confessed I had no TV show. One man asked, "I thought every American Preacher had a TV show. What is wrong with you?"

As you read Romans 14, look for the things that St. Paul found it necessary to urge the more mature members to ignore to get along with the immature ones? What were some of the marks of Christian maturity and immaturity? What are similar concerns in our modern conservative Christian society?

14 ^1-4 Welcome a man whose faith is weak, but not with the idea of arguing over his scruples. One man believes that he may eat anything, another man, without this strong conviction, is a vegetarian. The meat-eater should not despise the vegetarian, nor should the vegetarian condemn the meat-eater—they should reflect that God has accepted them both. After all, who are you to criticize the servant of somebody else, especially when that somebody else is God? It is to his own master that he gives, or fails to give, satisfactory service. And don’t doubt that satisfaction, for God is well able to transform men into servants who are satisfactory.

People are different—make allowances

^5-9 Again, one man thinks some days of more importance than others. Another man considers them all alike. Let every one be definite in his own convictions. If a man specially observes one particular day, he does so “to God”. The man who eats, eats “to God”, for he thanks God for the food. The man who fasts also does it “to God”, for he thanks God for the benefits of fasting. The truth is that we neither live nor die as self-contained units. At every turn life links us to God, and when we die we come face to face with him. In life or death we are in the hands of God. Christ lived and died that he might be the Lord in both life and death.

^10-12 Why, then, criticize your brother’s actions, why try to make him look small? We shall all be judged one day, not by each other’s standards or even our own, but by the standard of Christ. It is written: ‘As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God’. It is to God alone that we have to answer for our actions.

¹³ Let us therefore stop turning critical eyes on one another. If we must be critical, let us be critical of our own conduct and see that we do nothing to make a brother stumble or fall.

^14-20a I am convinced, and I say this as in the presence of Christ himself, that nothing is intrinsically unholy. But none the less it is unholy to the man who thinks it is. If your habit of unrestricted diet seriously upsets your brother, you are no longer living in love towards him. And surely you wouldn’t let food mean ruin to a man for whom Christ died. You mustn’t let something that is all right for you look like an evil practice to somebody else. After all, the kingdom of Heaven is not a matter of whether you get what you like to eat and drink, but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. If you put these things first in serving Christ you will please God and are not likely to offend men. So let us concentrate on the things which make for harmony, and on the growth of one another’s character. Surely we shouldn’t wish to undo God’s work for the sake of a plate of meat!

^20b-23 I freely admit that all food is, in itself. harmless, but it can be harmful to the man who eats it with a guilty conscience. We should be willing to be both vegetarians and tee totallers if by doing otherwise we should impede a brother’s progress in faith. Your personal convictions are a matter of faith between yourself and God, and you are happy if you have no qualms about what you allow yourself to eat. Yet if a man eats meat with an uneasy conscience about it, you may be sure he is wrong to do so. For his action does not spring from his faith, and when we act apart from our faith we sin.

Are you in these passages? Where? 

What fruit do you need to develop in the Spirit to do these things? 

See my web page for videos and materials.

Healthy and Unhealthy States and Cities # 16.

What is the health ranking of the place where you live? Do you think your town, state and region are above or below average in healthiness? The Gallup Corporation famous for The Gallup Poll asked people to rank their lives in six categories.

Overall Healthiness
Work Environment
Emotional Life
Physical Well Being
Behavioral
Access to health Care

They arrived at a top score of Well Being, Second, Third, etc. The bottom ten states are primarily located right here in the area where I live. 

Oklahoma
Indiana
Louisiana
Ohio
Alabama
Arkansas
Tennessee
Mississippi
Kentucky
West Virginia

What can we do to raise the level of Well Being? We at Sweeten Life Systems, Inc are working hard to improve the individual and corporate Well Being of the people in our cities, schools, churches and homes. We have set up training centers all over the planet and we see wonderful growth in interpersonal relationships in those places where people get involved. Take a look at the FREE You Tube and Vimeo Videos. The Gallup link is here and has all the rankings from top to bottom.

Do you suppose this indicates that the people in general who live in these places have worse relationships than those who live in Hawaii which was #1. Ranked in Public Health? Where do you place your church in terms of relational health and well being? Do you hear a lot of grace and mercy and love from the teachers and each other? Do you ever feel as though the preachers are taking their anger out on you? Do you leave church feeling peaceful or agitated?

Ephesians 4: ^14-16 We are not meant to remain as children at the mercy of every chance wind of teaching and the jockeying of men who are expert in the craft presentation of lies. But we are meant to hold firmly to the truth in love, and to grow up in every way into Christ, the head. For it is from the head that the whole body, as a harmonious structure knit together by the joints with which it is provided, grows by the proper functioning of individual parts to its full maturity in love.

 Write your comments on the blog. I would like to hear from you.

Gary Sweeten

PS. What kind of feeling do you get from looking at this Pastor?
Do you know who he is?

The Essentials of a Mature Christian #15.

 I read a story on The Drudge Report past week about a fight that started over someone stumbling and spilling juice on another person. The scene occurred at the graduation ceremony of  a Kindergarten class. One mother was there to see her child graduate and spilled her drink on a relative of another child.  All I could think about was how reactive we are getting as Americans. When a fist fight with knives are brought out over spilled juice we have regressed to a sad state.

Are we Christians any different from the world on our reactivity? Gossip, backbiting, angry attacks over minor issues and fights over theological differences abound. I read last month that many members of a denomination were angry because a Pastor invited the people from Duck Dynasty to speak at their church.

Stop and think for a moment about the things you think are essential statements for being a mature Christian who can lead/teach others?

What stage do these ideas need to blossom in the Christian's life in the Spirit?

Take a look at the Fruit of the Spirit Chart and take three or four of the listed Fruit. Then ask yourself who you know that ranks the highest on the scales from Zero to Ten. For example, you might choose Patience and think of someone you know who has above average, a 7 or 8 in Patience with people and events.

If you really get into it think of several people who have a ranking of 7 or 8 on this scale.

It is not a scientific test but an exercise designed to get you thinking about growth in Christ. No one will have a Perfect 10 because we are all in process and need to grow in grace, mercy and spiritual fruit.

I have known many people who were advanced in biblical knowledge. In fact, I was King of the Sword Drills as a kid because I knew the Bible from Genesis to Maps and had memorized the travels of St. Paul. However, I was an emotional mess. I was easily angered and loved to attack other verbally.  My dad confronted me one time because of my angry attacks and told me to calm down. I replied:

"I am just calling a spade a spade."

Dad said, "No you are not calling a spade a spade. You are calling everything a dam shovel!"

I was actually proud of my immaturity. I loved Bible Passage Ping Pong where I could attack and ridicule others with whom I disagreed.  I loved a good argument. But I was a verbal bully.

As I grew in Christ and read the Bible I was convicted that my approach was sinful. I became a school teacher and Counselor and read the research about how words can maim and wound., And, I saw that the Bible correlated maturity with verbal and non verbal interactions. Since then I wrote a Doctoral dissertation on the importance of great relationships and see how love can heal. Yes, Psychology led me to discover that the Bible's view of relationships is accurate.

Our web, videos and bookstore can assist you in developing the Fruit of the Spirit in your life and the life of your family and students. See what you think. Hope and Change for Humpty Dumpty is very good and the missions' book, Climb Another Mountain by Donna Thomas will teach you how to reach the world with love.

Leaders Can Offer Health, Peace and Life or Death #13.

I am amazed at how little the church and all its leadership training in Bible schools, seminaries, CEU courses, etc focus on healthy relationships. Proverbs clearly states that "Death and Life are in the Tongue and those who love the Tongue will eat the fruit of either death or life."

No profession, calling, work or field loves the tongue more than the ministry. Most people think the ministry is all talking and no acting, listening or silent influencing. That is what they see and hear.

Most people are urged to enter the ministry of preaching if they can speak well. I was urged to go into the ministry because I was an extrovert with a lot to say. I was a very angry, bitter young man but I was strongly recruited to "Be a Preacher". The ability to talk was the key. They assumed I could be taught what to say but nobody seemed to care that I was an expert at attacking but not very good at warm caring.

It was when I was in graduate school for Counselors that the Proverb about Death and Life hit me and convicted me that I was a death dealer not a life giver. Jesus said, "Blessed are the peacemakers..." but I was a fight maker and was rewarded for my ability to fight. It has been a long,hard battle for me but I am better than I was. However, I still like to fantasize about wiping some smart aleck out!

I do not remember hearing a sermon on peace but a lot of them on fighting for the faith.

The fruit of the Spirit as listed in Galatians is all about peace, patience, love and caring. Why are those so rarely used as ways to judge whether a Christian is mature?

Go to our web and hit the You Tube link to watch several FREE video tapes on developing spiritual fruit.