Raising the Issue of Suicide

Mike Emlet shares how CCEF trains interns in Dealing with Suicidal Counselees. He stresses the importance of asking counselees whether they have thought about suicide.

How we ask questions is important also. "You haven't thought about suicide have you?" is not a helpful inquiry! Such a question communicates, "Surely you haven't had a foolish thought like that, and if you did, I don't really want to hear about it." I try to stress the importance of progression in the line of questions an intern might ask a counselee. For example, a series of questions might look like this:

• "I'm really struck by how discouraged and hopeless you are right now. Do you ever wish you were dead?" (If they deny it, I might press the issue, "Really, never?")
• "Have you had thoughts of trying to make that happen by doing it yourself? Have you had thoughts of killing yourself? When? How often?"
• "Have you thought of some ways you might do it?" If they are vague or deny it, I'll ask about specific methods—"Have you thought about taking an overdose? Have you thought about shooting yourself? Etc." I also want to assess whether they have the means for their chosen method available (e.g., gun, pills, rope, etc.).
• "Have you ‘practiced'?" (In other words, has the person done a "dry run"—e.g., tying a rope to the rafters, putting a loaded gun in the mouth, etc.)
• I would also assess "risk-mitigators"—what reason(s) do they have for living, for not proceeding with suicide.

It's clear from this progression of questions that a person can experience a wide range of suicidal thinking, and our job as counselors is to assess the level of risk and address it accordingly.

Weaknesses in our Theology of Evangelism

Christopher Wright gives his analysis of False Dichotomies in Mission (and part 2) that have weakened our theology and practice of evangelism. His five false dichotomies:

1. Separation of the individual from the cosmic and corporate;
2. Separation of believing from living the gospel;
3. Separation of evangelism and discipleship;
4. Separation of word and deed;
5. Separation of evangelism from ecclesiology.

Regarding the last point, Wright writes:

The church itself is the product of the gospel, and the living demonstration, embodiment of the gospel’s transformative, unifying power (as we have seen in Ephesians), as a community of reconciled sinners. Instead our ecclesiology has a ‘lifeboat church’ or a ‘container church’ picture - the church is just somewhere to keep all the evangelized together until we all get to heaven. This is very deficient and far below Paul’s understanding and teaching.

The bad result of this is that the church itself can be riddled with sin, idolatry, abuses, and disunity, but we don’t care very much, so long as evangelism carries on. This is why part of our purpose in Lausanne must be prophetic, in the biblical sense. The prophets most often addressed, not so much the nations outside and their sins (though they did, of course), but the people of God themselves and their idolatries. If we are to be good news and to preach good news, we must seek a greater humility, repentance and return to the Lord. If we are to introduce Christ to the world we must look like the Christ we represent. So the call for integrity, Christlikeness, unity, etc., within the church, as part of a more robust understanding of what the church is meant to be, is an essential part of our missional task.

Delighting in God Daily

Most of life (at least my life) is made up of the ordinary and routine. In the "dailyness" of life, how do I show that my significance, security and satisfaction are grounded in Jesus? I put together this mnemonic device - based on the Bible's timeline - to help me keep my eyes on Christ.

Creation ... reminds me that the entire universe belongs to God because he made it all. That leads my thoughts in these directions: awe at the beauty of God's world; thanksgiving for God's daily provision; stewardship of the resources God has entrusted to me.

Commandments ... reminds me to obey the Lord, to do his will.

Cross ... reminds me to keep central the gospel of Jesus Christ. The gospel is for me ("All of Life Is Repentance"), for my community, and for the world.

Church ... reminds me to practice the love of Christ. "Let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers" (Galatians 6:10).

Consummation ... reminds me to wait for Christ's return and to set my mind on things above.

The challenge: To remember these things more often in the busyness of business.

What Holds the Church Together

Don Carson on the difference between the church and every other club, group, or organization (including "socially cohesive" local churches):

A close-knit society with shared ideals and goals frequently finds it relatively easy to foster love, tolerance, and inner cohesion. Whether we think of the local rock-climbing club, the regional football team, or a socially cohesive local church, a certain amount of fraternal depth is common enough.... Some measure of transparent love is not all that unusual in such groups.

Ideally the church is different. It is made up of people who are as varied as can be: rich and poor, learned and unlearned, practical and impractical, sophisticated and unsophisticated, aristocratic and plebeian, disciplined and flighty, intense and carefree, extrovert and introvert - and everything in between. The only thing that holds such people together is their shared allegiance to Jesus Christ, their devotion to him, stemming from his indescribable love for them (A Call to Spiritual Reformation, p. 42).

The New Testament Strategy

Joseph Stowell asks the question, "How do we promote the Gospel in a world that cannot and does not want to hear what we have to say?" Then he answers:

We must remember how well the Gospel thrived in a culture far worse than ours, where Christians were more severely marginalized than we are. Theirs too was a highly relativistic and pluralistic environment. The New Testament strategy in this context is simply that we are to be committed to living out the principles of righteousness in such a way that the results of righteous living - our good works - become such compelling evidence of the reality of our faith that those in a world whose unrighteousness brings disintegration and despair will notice the dramatic contrast and in time come to inquire what it is that has made such a dramatic difference between us and them (Shepherding the Church, p. 41).

The Role of the Pastor

The blog post at 9Marks about Triperspectival Leadership (i.e. church leaders tend to be prophets, priests, or kings) reminded me of an article that David Barker wrote about the role of the pastor as prophet, priest and sage. I couldn't find the article, but I did find a sermon that he preached on this subject (emphasis added):

What is a pastor to be and do to be sure that the central focus is “the art of spiritual direction”? What are the foundational things that a pastor is to engage in?

One of the most helpful places I have gone to understand this, for myself and for our church, is to a rather obscure passage in the OT. It is found in the book of Jeremiah and chapter 18 and verse 18. It goes like this:

They said, “Come let us make plans again Jeremiah; for the teaching of the law by the priest will not be lost, nor will the counsel from the wise, nor will the word from the prophets. So come, let’s attack him with our tongues and pay no attention to anything he says.”

What is going on here?

Answer: Israel is threatened with captivity because of her sin. The false prophets were saying that “all is well” and that the voices of the prophet, priest and sage will not cease to be heard because Israel was the special elect people of God. On the other hand, Jeremiah was sending a very different message, and he was not very popular with these prophets or the people for that matter!

But the point that interests me in this verse is this: these three voices were the critical pastoral voices that were heard in that community of believers. These were the voices that God had put in place to guide the spiritual and religious life of the people of God back then. These were the voices of “the art of spiritual direction.” I would submit to you, he continues to do so today. I believe that the foundational task of pastoral ministry in “the art of spiritual direction” is to carry the voice of the prophet, the voice of the priest and the voice of the sage into the life of the church. I believe that these three voices are absolutely crucial to our task as pastors and ordained ministers in the church.

So, what does it mean to carry these voices—to wear these mantles as it were? Let’s talk about each one.

1. The pastor with the voice of the prophet.

The prophet was the revivalist. He was the one who called the people of God back to faithfulness to God in all their daily lives. He was bold, he was loud, he was persuasive, he was passionate. He spoke to believers and preached sermons like this one:

Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD.
“Though your sins are like scarlet,
They shall be as white as snow.
Though they are red like crimson,
They shall be like wool.
If you are willing and obedient,
You will eat the best from the land;
But if you resist and rebel,
You will be devoured by the sword” (Isaiah 1:18-20).

No, the OT prophet was not primarily involved in predicting the future. Very little of what the prophet did had to do with visions, dreams and extra revelations from God. He was all about revival. He was all about confronting hypocrisy among the people of God. He was all about how God could bless a community of people by ensuring that they were people of justice, truth, love and righteousness (mishpat, hesed and sedeqah).

This was a crucial pastoral voice that was heard in that community, and is one of the voices we must use and hear today. I call upon our pastors to rebuke, to challenge, to proclaim the truth of God’s Word and its demands on our lives with passion, conviction and persuasiveness. I call upon our pastors to be the spark that brings revival and blessing from God as we speak with the voice of a prophet among the people of God today. I call upon our congregations to hear and listen to our pastors as prophets—who speak to us about our spiritual fervour, who rebuke and challenge and us, and we listen and respond. Look for the mantle and voice of the prophet in your pastor.

2. The pastor with the voice of the priest.

Now, we get a little nervous about the priest thing. When we think of a priest we see all kinds of religious duty and sacramental ceremony. The priest in the Old Testament had two primary responsibilities:

#1. To make sure that what the community believed and lived out was orthodox and true to the Torah.

#2. To guide the public worship of the nation.

First, then, he was concerned about orthodoxy to Torah.

He was all about the Torah. He was concerned that what the people believed was true to the Word of God. He was concerned that how they lived out their faith was true to the Word of God. The priest was the protector of orthodox faith and practice rooted in the truth of Scripture. He was a theologian. He was an expert in the teachings of Scripture, and he protected and taught these truths.

So, as pastors who wear this mantle, who carry this voice, we are challenged to remember that theological and practical orthodoxy is both to be taught and to be protected by us as pastors.

This is partly why we have ordination. We want to ensure that our pastor is orthodox and that he is competent to defend and teach the things we believe the Bible says are true.

Pastors must always be theologians, teachers, protectors and disseminators of biblical truth. One of the primary qualifications for one who holds the office of elder “able to teach” (1 Tim. 3:2). This is the mantle of the priest. Expect your pastor to wear it well. Again, it is up to the congregation to ensure that he can wear it well, and that the time and resources necessary are provided.

Second, the priest guided public worship.

He was the one who officiated and led in the worship life of the people of God. This is the task of a pastor. One of the most important things we as pastors do is say to our people each week, “Let us come into the presence of the Lord.”

This does not mean that we do it all. This does not mean that we have to be musical (which unfortunately has become synonymous with worship). But we must have a hand in it—guiding, directing, establishing its direction and philosophy.

Worship leaders must listen and be guided by the pastoral voice called the voice of the priest.

Yes, Jesus is our great High Priest. We do not need a priest to make intercession for us. But that has always been true, even in the OT. Every OT believer had access to God in personal prayer and praise, based on the blood of Jesus Christ shed before the foundation of the world (Rev. 13:8).

So we are called to bring a priestly voice in protecting orthodoxy, teaching the Word of God and guiding worship in our faith communities. We need to look for these things in our pastors. We need to ensure that they can do these things well.

#3. The pastor with the voice of the sage.

This is the voice of the seasoned and experienced. This is the voice of the aged and wise. This is the voice of common sense!

This is why the Scripture says that we are not to lay hands on a person suddenly (1 Tim. 5:22). There is to a proving, an evidence of wisdom and sagacity. But at the same time Paul told Timothy to not let anyone despise his youth (1 Tim. 4:12). So there is obviously a place for younger men and women in ministry.

Pastors need to wear the mantle of the sage. We need to be able to give wise counsel and pastoral care. We need to be able to listen and respond with Spirit filled wisdom. The counsel of the sage is called by Qoheleth, “Tent pegs that anchor and ox-goads that prod” (Eccl. 12:11).

The foundational idea among the sages was “the fear of the Lord” (cf. Job 28:28; Prov. 1:7; 9:10; Eccl. 12:13-14). They brought the reverence, worship and awe of God into all realms of practical living. They understood that God made the world and all the aspects of practical life we live—marriage, child-rearing, sexuality, entertainment, work, neighbours, alcohol, morality, money—and that to do them well the fear and adoration of God must guide the manifestations of these kinds of things.

This means several things for us as pastors:

1. We need to be becoming mature ourselves, and that as we grow in maturity we need to learn to listen carefully and take time in giving counsel and advice.

2. We need to have some senior confidants and advisors who can help.

3. We need to be buried in the truth, wisdom and principles for living found in the Scriptures. There is no substitute for knowing the Bible well. There is no greater investment a church can give than to ensure that much time and opportunity is given for a pastor to read, reflect, pray and seek God’s face.

When churches load their pastors up with administrative duties, expectations to be places and do things, and demands for CEO style management they will lose a critical part of what their pastor is called to do and be—to bring wise counsel and a careful and thoughtful listening ear into the spiritual life of the church community—wear the mantle of the sage.

I'm a Blind Man Who Needs Sight

From Rebecca Manley Pippert's book Out of the Saltshaker:

Jesus wants to heal our sight. He wants us to see that the neighbor next door or the people sitting next to us on a plane or in a classroom are not interruptions to our schedule. They are there by divine appointment. Jesus wants us to see their needs, their loneliness, their longings, and he wants to give us the courage to reach out to them (p. 114).