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The Role of the
Church in Counseling
Dr. Marc Graham, Director
Biblical Counseling Center of Southeast
Michigan
Introduction:
A. The key way that God has designed for
believers to change and grow is through the mainstream
discipleship ministries of the local church.
1. God has not designed the Christian life to
be lived in an individualistic way.
2. The N.T. clearly teaches that the
Christian life is to be lived in the context of the body of
Christ, with the clear emphasis of the N.T. being upon the local
body of believers, not the church universal.
3. Even the personal spiritual disciplines of
prayer and Bible study are more effectively developed through the
teaching and accountability of the local body of
believers.
a. The very goal of those disciplines is
to bring forth fruit of ministry in and through the
body.
B. Counseling is directed at believers who
are not moving forward through the mainstream discipleship
ministries of the church.
1. They have become "beached" by some life
struggle.
C. The goal of counseling is to get the
believer back to the place where he is growing and ministering
through the local church.
D. In fact, the N.T. calls into question the
salvation of someone who claims to be in Christ but has no
desire to be involved with the people of God
.
1 John 4:7-12,19-21.
E. The clear implication of all of this is
that counseling, apart from the context of the total ministry of
the body, will be completely ineffective .
I. REASONS THAT INVOLVEMENT IN THE
CHURCH IS VITAL TO THE DEVELOPMENT
OF THE
CHRISTIAN.
A. It is a command of God to every
believer. (Heb. 10:25).
1. To be unfaithful to the local church is to
live a life in disobedience to God.
2. If a person is unwilling to submit to
God's authority in this most basic of commands, in what
other areas is he/she unwilling to submit to God?
B. Involvement in the church helps prevent
backsliding and doctrinal error .
1. We need other believers to spur us on in
our walk with Jesus. (Heb. 10:24).
2. We need other believers to admonish
us when we become wayward or complacent. (Rom. 15:14; Gal.
6:1).
3. We need the ministry of the church and
elders to help us stay biblical in our doctrine . (1 Tim.
4:1-15; 2 Tim. 4:1-5).
C. Involvement in the church brings us under
spiritual authority and accountability . (Heb.
13:7,17).
1. The authority that Christ has delegated to
the local church and her leaders is a powerful tool in helping
people who struggle with difficult sins.
2. The counselor who seeks to minister apart
from the authority of the local church lacks important resources to
bring accountability to bear on the stubborn
counselee.
D. Involvement in the church provides the
Christian with access to a fellowship of believers to
encourage him, pray for him, edify him through the use of
spiritual gifts, and come alongside him
in time of struggle. (Gal. 6:2; Rom. 12:5-8, 10-13,
15).
1. The context in which a believer grows and
is built up to Christlikeness is the body of believers. (Eph. 4:15-16).
E. Involvement in the church provides the
Christian with access to opportunities of service which are
important to spiritual development. (Eph. 4:11-12).
F. Involvement in the church provides the
means in which the Christian may enter into worship of God
and receive instruction in God's Word in the corporate
context.
1. Congregational worship is more like Heaven
than private worship. (Heb. 12:22-24; Rev. 5:11-14).
2. "The highest worship of God is the
preaching of the Word." (Martin Luther)
3. Public proclamation of the Word is
commanded by God and edifies the body. (1 Tim.
4:13,16; 2 Tim. 4:1-5; 1
Cor.14:3-4,26,31).
II. INVOLVEMENT IN THE CHURCH IS ONE
OF THE "MEANS OF GRACE" THAT GOD
HAS ORDAINED AS THE TOOLS FOR
CHRISTIAN GROWTH.
A. "By 'the means of grace" I mean five main
things: reading the Bible, private prayer, meeting with other
Christians for worship, taking the Lord's Supper, and keeping
the Lord's Day holy.These things God has graciously appointed
either to bring us to faith in Christ or to help us make progress
as Christians. Our spiritual condition will largely depend on the
way in which we use them." (J.C. Ryle, Walking with God, pp.
12-13).
B. To attempt to counsel while not
incorporating the use of the "means of grace" into the process is
to seek to help the counselee change without the use of the primary
tools God has provided for growth.
C. Requirement for holding the private
counseling sessions ought to include regular attendance at
the public services of the church.
1. Explain to your counselees the "means of
grace" and why they are essential to growth and
change.
III. KEY STATEMENTS ON
THE CHURCH BY DR. DONALD
WHITNEY.
(Taken from his book: Spiritual
Disciplines Within the Church, published by Moody Press,
Chicago, Illinois.).
A. "Christians who do not attend church are
usually the most unbalanced Christians. The difficulty, however, is
that they don't realize it. It is not easy to detect when your
[own] Christian life is unbalanced. Others can usually detect a
lack of balance in us better than we can see it in ourselves.
That's another reason that it is crucial for us to attend church.
The Lord uses His body, the church. to protect us against the
common temptations that lead to imbalance." (p. 25).
B. "In Matthew 18:15-17, Jesus set up an
accountability system. When a professing believer starts living
like an unbeliever, those in the church who know it are to confront
him in love about his sinââ'¬Â¦.If
you aren't part of the church, it has no authority over you and
cannot do what Jesus said to do. Unless you join the church, your
independence places you outside of the way Jesus wants things to
happen." (p. 50).
C. "Emotionally healthy people crave
community. God made us with that desire and we seek to satisfy it
in societies of all
sortsââ'¬Â¦.Spiritually healthy
people---Christians who live in faithful response to the Word and
Spirit of God---have found the community everyone is searching for.
They have found it in what the Bible calls fellowship. Fellowship
is the community for which God customized us. Curiously, however,
some Christians are tempted to think that they can remain
spiritually healthy apart from breathing the fresh air of biblical
fellowship." (pp. 147-48).
D. "He does not save us through fellowship;
saving grace comes only through the life and death of Jesus Christ.
But He does give us sustaining grace---spiritual strength for
Christian living---via koinonia. And God's koinonia grace is not a
duplicate of any other kind of His grace. Since God gives grace and
strength through fellowship, without fellowship you will be a
spiritual weakling, fantasizing in private about your spiritual
prowess, but powerless when it really counts." (p.
153).
E. "Christians wither without fellowship. One
reason is that koinonia encourages us to practice those Spiritual
Disciplines that promote spiritual
healthââ'¬Â¦.Many discount koinonia
but zealously practice certain Spiritual Disciplines in isolation,
such as Bible study. Inevitably, however, they are spiritual
eccentrics, hardened in other ways. They may carom from church to
church like a lopsided pinball, smiling but never softening to
share in the life of the body. Or with a face hardened by
bitterness they may be long-nosed and sharp-tongued toward the
"organized religion" of the church. Rejecting communion with the
people of Jesus, they do not become more like Jesus." (p.
155).
F. "If you have ever read the book of Acts,
you know it is impossible to imagine the members of the church in
Jerusalem not gathering to pray with each other. This was
Christianity in the New Testament." (p. 165).
G. "If congregational or small group prayer
isn't part of your Christian life, there's a problem. Private-only
prayer is not New Testament
Christianityââ'¬Â¦.If you are
unwilling to pray with others, you are too independent
spiritually." (p. 174).
H. "In 1 Timothy 3:15 the Spirit of God
guided the apostle Paul to describe the church as "the church of
the living God, the pillar and ground of truth." The church,
including the expressions of the church locally, is like a pillar
that supports something above it. And that which the church lifts
up is the truth of God. God created the church and gave it the
responsibility to elevate His Word. So anyone who is not learning
in the church distances himself from the only pillar in the world
which upholds the indispensable truth of God." (p.
179).
I. "We are not dependent upon the church to
tell us what the Bible means. But this is not the full picture. The
balancing truth to this is that if we do not learn with the church
we are likely to drift into erroneous, individualistic
interpretations of Scripture. Increasingly we will find ourselves
at odds with the established teaching of the Bible and more
frequently objecting to others, 'Well, that's your
interpretation!'" (p. 185).
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