Gospel Shepherding vs. "Christian Counseling"

At Kaleo Church, we have had the sweet blessing of having a partnership with Soma Communities in Seattle/Tacoma, Wa. They have been training us, as of lately, on Gospel Shepherding. Gospel Shepherding, like all other works of ministry, stems from the view and call that elders are to equip the body of Christ for the work of the ministry (Eph. 4:11-12). Before I compare and contrast Gospel Shepherding with traditional "Christian Counseling," I want to show what equipping the body of Christ means for the body of Christ.

1) This means that the elders/pastors (hopefully you have a plurality of elders) are willing and must love equipping the church for the work of the ministry.

2) This also means that the elders cannot have superiority issues when training up the body of Christ, meaning: There cannot be any arrogance thinking that God has called them (the elders) to handle the whole load of ministry by themselves. Instead, the elders will find joy equipping the body for the work of the ministry.

3) This also means that the body of Christ, when equipped, does not see themselves as having the authority of the elders, but working as a body to serve the body. So, in essence, equipping will continue equipping, which will continue equipping...a cycle that is healthy and matures each part of the body.

So, traditional "Christian Counseling" calls either a pastor or professional counselor to give advice to a person struggling with sin, pre-marital advice, etc. This pastor/counselor will usually meet with a person once a week, at most. Can this really offer a view into this person's life? Most people who are counseling a man/woman struggling with sin are not involved in their everyday life. Their is no solid community that sees the person's struggle, leaving the counselor to use random methods to stop the sinner's behavior. This is because they only see the bad fruit of the sin, not the root.

What about the method of the traditional way? Far too often in Christian Counseling, and all of Christianity, struggling people are counseled with Law. What I mean is that when one struggles with anger, the counselor would respond with, "Be angry and do not sin (Eph. 4:26). Or, someone might be struggling with enjoying their work, to which the counselor might respond, "You need to work for the Lord (Col. 3:23)." Yes, these are from the Word of God, but they are commands that are only possible because of the indicatives that are true of us. These truths are all found in the Gospel. We are a people that deserved to die for our sin, but Christ died in our place. We could not obey the law, so Christ did perfectly for us. By putting our faith in his work, we are given the righteousness and eternal life he deserved. So, when one counsels without reassurance of their true identity and what they are not believing about the Gospel, we leave them trying to "be angry and not sin," or to "work as if working for the Lord."

Gospel Shepherding looks completely different than one on one counseling, although there are times for that. Gospel Shepherding equips the body of Christ, who are actively living in community (this means seeing one another more than at a mid-week Bible study and weekend church service), to encourage or correct one another with the Gospel. You see, when doing life together, people are bound to rub each other the wrong way, making sin habits more visual, and also building a love for one another, resulting in men and women desperate to aid in the sanctification of one another by the Spirit, through the power of the Gospel. Think of how your family knows you and how differently you act around them than you do at a church service. The point is to get the body of Christ living real life together, for the sake of glorifying our God. Gospel Shepherding allows the body to shepherd one another, in real life, instead of seeing a person who does not know how you even live your real life. A person who is involved in your everyday life will be the first to see your struggle with sin, the way your husband/wife, mom/dad would be the first to see sin. Instead of trying to correct the bad fruit (anger, worry, etc.), Gospel Shepherds understand that bad fruit occurs because of unbelief in the Gospel (Hebrew 3:7-4:13). Again, all sin stems from an unbelief in the Gospel. That is why we must constantly remind one another of our identity in the Gospel (Eph. 1-3).

While traditional "Christian Counseling" will give a list of "to-do's," which is Law based, Gospel Shepherding allows sinner's to be restored from disbelieving the Gospel, to a people who are consistently being reminded of who their God is, what He has done, who they are in light of who He is and what He has done, and how they can live as a result. Friends, I beg you, stop seeing the Gospel as a past tense event that gives you a pass to Heaven, but see it for what it is: The means and power of salvation (Rom. 1:16-17) in the PAST (Eph. 2:8), PRESENT (1 Cor. 15:2; Phil. 2:12-13), and FUTURE (Acts 15:11; 1 Peter 1:3-5). The Gospel forms a Community on Mission. Community and Mission cannot happen without the Gospel, so let us see the Gospel as the lifeblood of who we are!

Gospel Community

I am reading a book right now called Total Church by Tim Chester and Steve Timmis (the 2 founders of the Crowded House Ministries in the UK). The book is basically all about shaping churches around the gospel and community, which community in itself must be gospel centered as well, because without the gospel, no community. They have a part that explains the failure of churches in the UK when it comes to gospel centered churches, but I believe this can relate to the majority of churches in America as well. Here it is, word for word, let me know what you think:

"The reason the UK church is not effective in mission is because we are not making disciples who can live well for Christ in today's culture and engage compellingly with the people they meet....Jesus has a 'train and release' strategy, while overall we have a 'convert and retrain' strategy." In the last twenty years, it claimed, we have produced plenty of creative evangelistic materials, but little to help Christians connect their faith to the whole of life. This has created a sacred-secular divide: "the pervasive belief that some things are important to God--such as church, prayer meetings, social action etc. -- but other human activities are at best neutral -- work, school, sport, leisure, the arts, rest, sleep." As a result:

The vast majority of Christians have not been helped to see that who they are and what they do every day in schools, workplaces, or clubs is significant to God, nor that the people they spend time with in those everyday contexts are the people God is calling them to pray for, bless, and witness to. So we pray for our Sunday services but not, for example, for schoolteachers working 40 hours a week in schools among children and adults who on the whole don't know Jesus. We pray for oversees missionaries but not for Christian electricians, builders, shop assistants and managers in our own towns.... We have simply not been envisioned, resourced and supported to share the Good News of Jesus in our everyday contexts.

Pretty good stuff huh? You guys and gals should check the book out, it has blown me away. The authors close this specific chapter with this:

"We need non-full time leaders who can model whole-life, gospel-centered, missional living. It means thinking of our workplaces, homes, and neighborhoods as the location of mission."

I really like that. My own personal opinion is that the Church's biggest failure has been pushing people to invite people to church, instead of preparing them to share the gospel with people. Romans 1:16 says the gospel is the power of salvation, not the Church. We are to live out the gospel, for God uses the gospel alone to save, not our unique ways of getting people in a worship service. I hope this made everyone think like it did me.