Question: When the Preacher is Gone, is it Illegal to Pray?

I posted the old song yesterday to try and provoke some vigorous discussion about the role of the Clergy in a community's spiritual life. Do you agree with the lyrics that when the Preacher is on vacation or sleeping or playing with his children that all spiritual activities must cease?

What, exactly is the role of the Leader/Pastor/Preacher?

Give us your insights.

Gary Sweeten

PASTOR'S ABSENT ON VACATION

 

 

I came across this old ditty when I was searching for lyrics to a song I sang as a kid. It is my second installment on lazy Pastors! 

No Sabbath! NO SABBATH!!!!

 CHORUS: PASTOR'S ABSENT ON VACATION CHURCH IS CLOSED TILL HIS RETURN.

                      
THE OLD MAN WENT TO MEETING, FOR THE DAY WAS BRIGHT AND
FAIR. THO HIS LIMBS WERE VERY TIRING, AND IT WAS HARD TO TRAVEL
THERE. BUT HE HUNGERED FOR THE GOSPEL, SO HE TRUDGED THE WEARY WAY.
ON THE ROAD SO ROUGH AND DUSTY, 'NEATH THE SUMMER SUN'S BURNING RAYS.
BY AND BY HE REACHED THE BUILDING, TO HIS SOUL A HOLY PLACE,
AND THEN HE PAUSED AND WIPED THE SWEAT FROM HIS THIN AND
WRINKLED FACE. BUT HE LOOKED AROUND BEWILDERED, FOR THE
OLD BELL DIDN'T TOLL. AND THE DOORS WERE SHUT AND BOLTED, AND
HE DIDN'T SEE A SOUL, BUT HE SAW A LITTLE NOTICE,
TACKED UPON THE MEETING DOOR. SO HE LIMPED ALONG TO READ IT,
AND HE READ IT O'ER AND O'ER, THEN HE WIPED HIS DUSTY GLASSES,
AND HE READ IT O'ER AGAIN, TILL HIS LEGS BEGIN TO TREMBLE,
AND HIS EYES BEGIN PAIN. AS THE OLD MAN READ THE NOTICE,
HOW IT MADE HIS SPIRIT BURN, PASTOR ON VACATION- CHURCH'
CLOSED TILL HIS RETURN. AND THE OLD MAN SAID.
 WOULD THE FARMER LEAVE HIS CATTLE, OR THE SHEPHERD LEAVE
HIS SHEEP. WHY WHO WOULD GIVE THE CARE AND SHELTER,
OR PROVIDE THEM FOOD TO EAT. SO IT STRIKES ME VERY SIMILAR,
WHEN A MAN WITH HOLY HANDS.  THINKS HE NEEDS A VACATION,
FOR SAKES TENDER LANDS.  DO THE MARKETS CLOSE THEIR DOORS,
JUST TO TAKE A LITTLE REST.  WHY IT WOULD BE THE HEIGHT
OF NONSENSE, FOR THEIR TRADE WOULD BE DISTRESSED.
DID YOU KNOW IT EVER HAPPEN, OR HEAR ANYBODY TELL.
SATAN TAKING A VACATION, SHUTTING UP THE DOOR OF HELL.
AH TELL ME

   WHEN I REACH THAT CITY, OVER ON THE OTHER SHORE.
WOULD I FIND A LITTLE NOTICE, TACKED UPON THE GOLDEN DOOR,
TELLING ME  MID DREADFUL SILENCE, WRITTEN WORDS THAT CUT AND
BURN, JESUS ABSENT, ON VACATION, HEAVEN CLOSED TILL HIS RETURN.

Unknown 

Build Up Each Other

Let nothing come out of your mouth or your pen or your computer that do not build people up. 

Eph 4:29

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Levels of Emotional Needs

Since our Sweeten Life teams are teaching Peer and Professional Helpers in many nations it has been necessary for us to develop guidelines on the various levels of dysfunction, emotional pain and mental distress.

There is a guidebook for Psychiatrists, Psychologists, Counselors, Social Workers and Peer Helpers. It is called the DSM V  and that stands for the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders Fifth Edition.  That is way to complex and out of reach for Peer Helpers, Lay Pastors, family members, etc. so I created my own simple version. Second, you will notice it is only for what they consider to be people with Mental Illness. Peer Helpers, we do not use the term Peer or Lay Counselors for that is illegal in Ohio.

It is important to recognize that the main reason these manuals were developed was to create diagnostic categories of illness so they would be paid by insurance agencies.  If a problem or issue is not listed it does not mean that people do not struggle with it. It means we cannot be paid for helping people stop the behavior because it is not considered to be a disease. Insurance pays only for the treatment of a disease.

I will later share the following categories in more depth but in this introduction I am covering the levels of stress, distress, a person is experiencing at any time when they seek assistance.

Level I. Very Together and Very Healthy in thinking, feeling and acting. (equip to minister to others.)
Level II. Good health mentally, emotionally and relationally. (Train and disciple with focus on healing and growth.)
Level III. Some vague and some specific life altering patterns, habits or characteristics. (Assign a Peer helper to support plus involve in psycho educative activities.)
Level IV. Serious life interrupting patterns, habits, and/or activities. (Needs a well trained Helper plus Peer support.)
Level V. Emotional, relational and habitual lifestyle interrupts life continually. (Intense therapy and ministry needed.) 

These levels are all explained in my book Hope and Change for Humpty Dumpty. 

Gary Sweeten

The Church, Christians and Mental Health

Photo of Peter raising Dorcas from the dead.

Many people, including Rick Warren, have begun to beg Christians and the churches to do something about helping people with what they call mental illness. These kinds of desperate calls for assistance go out every time there is a nationally known tragedy like the Warren's son or Sandy Hook or the Roman Catholic Priest scandals. I agree that the 500,000 or so churches in America desperately need to do something to help the mentally distressed. (I avoid using the mentally ill term.) But, WHAT should and could they do?

In 1969 I attended a three week training seminar with two of the most famous American psychologists of all time. The entire event was led by the team brought together by Dr. Carl Rogers, a former seminarian who was born and reared in a Conservative Christian home in Wheaton, Illinois. Even after Rogers left seminary and his faith behind he restated the Gospel into psychological terms and called Grace "Unconditional Positive Regard" and that was the core of his entire model right along with agape love.

The other psychologist, Orval Hobart Mowrer, was the founder of Integrity Therapy and trained thousands of people who carry on his traditions today. That includes Jay Adams who claims it is straight out of the Bible. That seminar impacted me deeply because of the focus on Lay or Peer Helping and the comments of these two agnostics about the power of the church to bring healing and growth to humanity. Mowrer said, "The early Christian church was the most powerful healing community the world has ever known." He had regained his own sanity and sobriety through Alcoholics Anonymous.

Unfortunately, so many conservative Christians and churches are unfriendly toward anyone with an emotional, relational or mental problem. Instead of compassion, love, and prayer with God's truth, the hurting person gets judgment, rejection, and a lack of caring.

When we did our research on families with a child who had a disability, we discovered that almost 100% of them had seen a wall of rejection from the ministers and members of their churches. We discovered:

No one at the church ever asked how the adults were dealing with the stresses of having a special needs child.

No one from the church had visited the family, prayed for the sick child or the family.

No one asked how to support them.

This is often also true of a family member with a sick adult as well.

The care and cure of the sick has always been a central part of a church mission. However, today's churches are often more committed to the drama on stage rather than the drama's at their members' homes. If a church truly cared for the sick, it could lead to great ministry and expansion in this cold, friendless world.

Gary Sweeten books on ministry and helping hurting hearts

 

A Crisis in Relationships

The tag line for Sweeten Life Systems is:

Building a lifetime of Great Relationships with God, Self and Neighbor. 

Wow! Every day I am reminded of how desperate we are in this nation and around the world to improve our relationships with God, Ourselves and Each Other! When I write or say these things people immediately think of having a terrible crisis.

Murder
Hatred
Terror
Wars
 Divorce
Child Abuse

These are more than normal problems but they garner the majority of headlines on the news. That is normal, I suppose, but even more prominent are the millions of people who live in quiet desperation. Yet, we are a nation with a Judeao-Christian background that promotes a faith which overcomes the evils of the world and promotes joy unspeakable and full of glory.

Anxiety and Depression are the two most common emotional issues facing Western citizens. They are the "Common Cold" of relational struggles. They afflict people from every walk and every faith and every socioeconomic grouping. Rich and poor, wise and unwise, educated and uneducated, religious and secular all face these Mood Disorders. There is not guaranteed pill or vaccination for immunity.

Rick and Kay Warren live in one of the nicest places on earth and are well educated. They are above average spiritually and emotionally. They are kind, warm, loving and gentle. Yet, their young 27 year old son has struggled with Mood Disorders all his life. They prayed continually for that son and cared for him deeply. Despite all the positives in their lives that young man killed himself a few days ago after spending a great evening with his parents.

Why? What were the causes and the possible cures for him and others who live in chronic despair? I read a lot of letters to various web sites and everyone has his/her own ideas. But I have not read very much even from professional therapists that really explain the complexity of causes and the difficulty of cures.

Every one of us seems drawn to a simple, one-step answer to all serious problems. I can't begin to count the number of writers who told us that if we just did __________ the depression would leave permanently.  Do you have a simple answer to Mood Disorders? If so by all means offer it. Maybe in 40 years of Counseling and Ministry I missed it. After that we will quickly solve Global Warming, peace in the Middle East and better relationships with China.

Read my book on theology Healing Release of the Holy Spirit to understand the causes of pain and some suggested cures.

Lazy Christian Ministers

A survey done of ministers by Fuller Institute of Church Growth showed the following:

•       90% work well over 50 hours per week

•       51% said that they felt they were unable to meet the demands of the job

•       82% believed that the ministry had negatively impacted their family life

•       92% said that they were inadequately trained to cope with ministry demands

•       53% averaged 5-6 hours of sleep per night

•       85% spent less than two evenings a week at home with their families

•       43% do not take a regular day off

•       73% have no close or intimate friendships outside their marriage

It appears that these people are slacking off. They are probably getting sleep each day, eating lunch and watching some TV. I think they should be working all the time.

Maybe they are not doing enough to rescue people in need. What if they read Chapter 9. of Hope and Change for Humpty Dumpty.

Gary Sweeten