Monthly Archives: February 2011

Couples Telling Their Story

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My wife, Sue, and I just spent an inspiring weekend with fifteen couples who attended the Center for Christian Life Enrichment’s 2011 Winter Couples Retreat in Racine, Wisconsin. I was inspired by their courage to pursue their hunger for more intimacy and their willingness to let others coach them in transforming.

One of the first concepts we discussed on the retreat was the challenge for couples to recognize that the foundation of a healthy marriage is the individual strength and maturity of each partner. Each person in the relationship must dedicate themselves to growing up and differentiating from one another. At first, this sounds backwards. In fact, many couples are trying to do the opposite. They are trying to re-capture the “in love” feeling they had while they were dating which results in the quest for the counterfeit to true intimacy. This seductive substitute is what we call enmeshment or fusion.

At CLE, we believe that if a marriage is going to grow beyond infatuation, then partners must take responsibility for developing themselves and fulfilling their life purposes.  While conscious couples are learning and growing, they are also deliberately choosing to invest in their marriages. They are not looking to define themselves by their spouses or their children. The image I have is of two increasingly strong and dedicated individuals investing in their marriage and family out of the rich and bountiful harvest of living their lives to the fullest.

It has become absolutely clear to me that if we intend to genuinely transform our lives, then we are going to need exceptional support. At CLE we provide all types of different counseling services built around an individuals or couples needs.  We generally recommend that people choose a blend of individual and group therapy.  Individual therapy gives someone the opportunity for intensive one on one support from a trained professional while group provides a person the chance to get feedback and support from peers as well as other professionals.

At our couples retreat this past weekend, the tool we focused on developing for enhancing our partnerships was learning how to share our life narrative. A narrative is our story of how we came to be who we are. When I was in the ministry, we routinely helped people write their testimonies, which were their stories of how they came to have a personal relationship with Christ. This weekend we worked on identifying and appreciating the influences that have shaped us into the people we are today.

I was so moved to see how each of the couples were able to have more understanding, patience and grace with one another as we began to understand the back story behind why we are the way we are. Couples were experiencing breakthroughs in having tolerance and empathy for one another as they were reminded of the forces which shaped themselves as well as their partners.

Don’t miss the chance to join us at CLE for one of our life transforming retreats or workshops. We would love to meet you and welcome you into our community.

Kingdom Theology in Costa Rica

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What an eye opening experience to be here in Costa Rica. We came for the purpose of providing training to local pastors and workers in counseling and the treatment of individuals who are struggling to recover from addictions.

We are here with Global Connections which is an arm of Willow Creek Community Church dedicated to fighting global poverty and AIDS in under-resourced communities in Africa and Latin America. Global Connections’ strategy is to work through relationships with local churches, organizations and Global Servants committed to wholistic transformation of their communities.

What I am really moved by is that the church is empowering local congregations to help the under-resourced people in their communities in creative ways that are self sustaining. Global Connections makes available resources to support pastors who care wholistically about all the dimensions of a person’s life – physical, social, economic, and spiritual. They are very careful to equip the local church leaders to foster and develop self sustaining ministries to serve others in need.

Historically, missions has often been guilty of being paternalistic and ethnocentric. Missionaries would come to preach, convert, and train others to conform to the beliefs and norms of their particular belief system, denomination or culture. Under the veneer of helping or saving the lost, the church inadvertently adopted a position of being superior and arrogant, thinking they had not only the right but the responsibility to correct other peoples’ beliefs and culture.

What I have been especially moved by in this outreach effort has been the respect given to each pastor and community we have been a part of. Our purpose is to serve by coming alongside pastors and providing them with the support they have specifically requested from us. We are helping both Christians and non-Christians. We explicitly avoid attempting to shape or influence their theology. The emphasis is on promoting self-sustaining wholistic ministry with a vision for being the hands and feet of Christ—not the mouth!

I have been so appreciative of the values of mutuality and responsibility we at the Center for Christian Life Enrichment share with Global Connections. We are looking at people with positive regard, having a deep-seated respect for their capacity to learn, grow, and transform themselves. We are coming with an attitude of openness and respect along with a desire to learn and grow from their wisdom and understanding.

One of the most inspiring new areas of interest for me has been what several local pastors call Kingdom Theology. My understanding of their belief is that God’s work is here on earth vs. planning and preparing people for heaven. Our responsibility is to respond to the needs of every person, whether they are a Christian or not, demonstrating in action our concern for basic needs of every human being. The mission is to improve the quality of life in the here and now for all people.

There is also a great deal of concern about the earth and wanting to be good stewards of our environment. Their projects often involve promoting “green” ventures. They are working to relieve the pain and suffering of the poor and those whose lives are ravaged by addiction and poverty. Their strategy is to equip people to be self sustaining and encouraging them to invest back into their respective communities. Instead of building  bigger and better churches, these pastors are investing in programs that will support those in need. We have visited kitchens feeding children, drug rehabilitation centers and businesses that can train and employ the under-resourced.

I am very sobered, challenged and inspired to consider how I can invest my life more strategically. I am asking what God would have me do to serve those who are under-resourced. How can the counseling staff at CLE serve our community more wholistically? How can I be living more responsibly, exercising my concern for those in need? What will I do? Continue reading →

Caring in Costa Rica

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What comes to mind when you think of Costa Rica? Central America? Volcanoes? Waterfalls? Jungles? Coffee? Before coming here, all I really knew about Costa Rica was that this was the country my son visited and while there took part in a 300+ foot bungee jump!

Sue and I were invited to be a part of a team from Willow Creek Community Church sent to Costa Rica to teach and train pastors and other volunteers some of the basics of counseling. We have been leading workshops at a church in the heart of San Jose.  We have had over 60 attendees at each of our trainings and they have been so hungry to learn and grow. It has been our first experience teaching cross culturally using translators. What a delight it has been.

Yesterday, we visited a church located in one of the poorest communities in the heart of San Jose, Centro Christiano De Alabanza. We were so inspired by their Pastor, Alberto Castro, who believes that the sole purpose of the church is to love and care for each person in their community as if they were Christ himself. Pastor Alberto makes no distinction between parishioners and the people living on the streets. Each individual is someone Jesus cares about and it is his desire to help everyone from the homeless to the elderly. He sees all people as children of God. Everyone matters.

Our first stop was at a shack with tin siding housing over 200 children all waiting to receive their lunch. They were all dressed in donated clothes sitting so responsibly while waiting for their food. As we served these children, we were sobered to realize that poverty and danger are a way of life for these children. If it wasn’t for the services of this spiritual community, these kids would be the next generation of people lost to homelessness, life on the street, drugs, and ultimately death.

Next we visited two shelters where addicts are invited to come and participate in a nine month rehabilitation program at no cost. I was not able to stop crying as my heart broke for each of these people who powerfully shared their stories of drug abuse and survival on the street. Many of these kids were the age of my own children and had been fighting to survive for their whole lives.

Although their struggles are different than mine, I saw how each of us must fight each day to assume responsibility for our lives and the choices we make. Each of us must acknowledge our need, tell the truth about out what we think and how we feel, and reach out to a community greater than ourselves for the support we need to make the most of our lives. It is not so much about where we have come from. The real question is, “What are we doing with the resources we have been entrusted with?”

I am grateful to experience relationships with others who are growing up in a culture very different from my own. It is a privilege to see courageous people living out their faith in ways that are consistent with what they profess to believe. I am inspired, touched, and challenged to refine my understanding of God and the responsibilities I have to fulfill my life mission.

A Fresh Look At Faith

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As  a new and infatuated teenage follower of Christ, I was hungry to belong and to matter in my new community of faith. After spending months pacing around the perimeter of myYoung Life fellowship, I finally stepped across the line of faith, and risked declaring myself a believer in Jesus Christ.

I now felt like a legitimate Christ follower; however, I was not only hungry to belong–I wanted to matter. I wanted to stand out and make a difference. After observing the way the Christian body worked, I realized that the leaders played guitar and led singing during our times of praise and worship.

So, I set out to learn to play the guitar and began participating as a worship leader in our fellowship gatherings.  That satisfied me for a while. I then realized that the real power and respect seemed to go to those who could speak persuasively and teach the Bible. So, I dedicated myself to becoming a solid student of the Bible. Eventually, others noticed my gifts and I was offered the opportunity to develop into an inspirational speaker and Bible teacher.

This was a time in my life where I believed that faith was the same as certainty. I prayed and studied so that I could know God and understand his will for my life and the lives of those I was influencing. I considered doubt and resistance the enemy of faith. I valued thougths over feelings; the mind over the heart.  I thought that a significant apsect of my spiritual maturity was being certain of what I believed.  I also wanted to share the love of Christ and learn how to persuade  others to believe as Idid.

I think of this period of my development as my spiritual teens. I was filled with confidence, optimism, hope, and a sense of invulnerability. It was not until I was faced with the shocking reality of sexual abuse among my staff and students at Northwestern, that I began to experience an existential crisis of faith. At this time, I remember thinking that the Bible was not enough.

For the first time, I did not feel comfortable sharing a few verses with my students and praying with a survivor who was trying to recover from past sexual abuse. There was something more I knew they needed and I knew I did not know how to support them. I wanted to learn how to help these women to heal their bodies, souls and spirits. Little did I know that my hunger to help others was driven by my need for healing myself. I was prescribing the very medicine I would need when it cam time for me to confront my denial about my own abuse. This experience led me to become a counselor and found the Center for Christian Life Enrichment.

I now see that this shock to my faith was intended to jar me into the next stage of my spiritual development. I was moving from the black and white stage of youthful certainty into a more adult stage where I was facing all that I did not know and was not certain about in my life and walk with Christ.

It has been during this adult stage of my spiritual development that I have learned to appreciate the power of doubt. I was beginning to see that faith was not synonymous with confidence and certainty. Authentic faith requires us to move foward when we do not understand and when we have more questions than answers. If we knew that everything was as it should be, then what would be the need for faith.

We are more apt to rely on faith when we recognize that everything we do is spiritual. All of life, every thought and decision, is a demonstration of what we belive in. Faith has real significance when we must make decisions and step out when things seem to make the least sense. In many ways certaintyand formulas are the luxury of youth.

What do you think Abraham was feeling and thinking when God instructed him to sacrifice his son, Isaac? Would you have questioned for one milisecond whether you were willing to follow and obey God the way Abraham did? Who of us would have thought for one instant, that it was God directing us to murder our son. If I heard of anyone thinking that that message was from God, I would recommnend hospitalizing them instantly.

However, Abraham, moved forward in his obedience. I doubt whether he reached out to anyone for cousel because think he knew that no one in their right mind would support him in his mission. It was Abraham against every reasonable person on earth.  It was Abraham stepping out in faith. He knew the only one he could trust was who Paul Tillich referred to as the God above God–the complex and at times inscrutible being who is beyond our comfortable and predictable projections. Now, this is a fresh and disturbing look at faith.

Authentic Love: The Journey from Infatuation to Intimacy

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When my wife, Sue, and I first met it was electric. I was so drawn to her it was as if nothing else mattered. We dated for a few weeks, got engaged, and were married nine months later. Often, this is the way 21 year olds act when they are idealistic and in love.

Romantic relationships follow a predictable path. People meet, date, become infatuated with each other, marry, mate, and then watch entropy erode away their illusion of intimacy. Infatuation carries most couples through engagement and the early years of marriage. We find at Center for Christian Life Enrichment that infatuation is a time characterized by magical thinking and the desire to be made whole and complete by their significant other. Some think the key to marital bliss is finding their perfectly predestined partner while others marry believing that the love of their life can transform the defects of their significant other. These fairy tales never come true. Infatuation only gets us in the game. It offers no assistance in architecting genuine intimacy.

At CLE, we believe intimacy is the result of courageous honesty, deliberate practice, hard work, and supportive counseling. It is not about finding the best partner…it is about becoming the best partner. It begins by dispelling the romantic myths of being saved by another—being miraculously made whole by your mythical mate. It confronts the mistaken belief that love is something you find instead of forge.

In a mistaken attempt to find intimacy, I did for my wife everything I was hoping she would do for me. I would wash the car instead of making time to talk. I would build a deck instead of creating meaningful opportunities to connect and grow as a family.  I had no idea of how little I understood about intimacy. I had confused intimacy with infatuation. There was no work in falling in love. You don’t form it; you simply fall into it. What I associated with intimacy was a copy of the enmeshment I shared with my mother. What I confused with love was the sense of being lost in another person, where my feelings were their feelings and my desires were their desires. I had no differentiated sense of self.

Enmeshment or fusion is one of the most dangerous counterfeits of intimacy. Enmeshment involves the process of getting lost in another as an unconscious way of avoiding ourselves. We confuse supporting another person with unconsciously trying to live our lives through him or her. Most all spouses and parents struggle to discern the difference between true intimacy and enmeshment.

One of the most helpful tips in building intimacy is that both partners must dedicate themselves to their own individual growth and development. I will not be able to shape something with another that I am not in the process of forming within myself. Intimacy begins with me. It is about me stretching and growing into my Christ-self; not, me finding the right person. As I am individuating and becoming more mature, then I am going to have more and more resources to invest in my partnership.

As I am becoming more and more like Christ, I will be bringing more of myself to my relationships with my wife, my kids, and my trusted partners. As I am growing, I will be expecting more from those I love and they of me. I will be speaking the truth in love when they are not living true to their vision and values and expecting the same from them. I will be taking pleasure in the journey toward genuine intimacy.