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Help and Family for the Wounded in the Church Today

8/16/2014

 
Loving "community" for the wounded is hard to find and is frequently fragile when you do, here in North America. The emotionally mature are few in number and this has often been the case (read: 1 Corinthians 4:15 (Amplified Bible (AMP)) "15 After all, though you should have ten thousand teachers (guides to direct you) in Christ, yet you do not havemany fathers. For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the glad tidings (the Gospel).") 

Spiritual Parenting and Adoptions are desperately needed by the wounded in loving community, but so many leaders are merely "guides" and not "parents". This is not a negative judgement, it is a painful reality. People like the Apostle Paul are just as lacking now as they were when he wrote this two millennia (two thousand years) ago. The sad thing is that many wounded persons have to look outside already established "communities of faith" to other organizations to get support and "family". Fortunately some churches are adopting healing and parenting structures or new wineskins like Living Waters (www.livingwaterscanada.org) or Celebrate Recovery (www.celebraterecovery.com). 

I say to those in Christian Communities who are touched by the wounded (and if you aren't loving, compassionate and willing to reach out toward the wounded and disenfranchised, I question your faith: James 1:27 (The Message (MSG)) "26-27 Anyone who sets himself up as “religious” by talking a good game is self-deceived. This kind of religion is hot air and only hot air. Real religion, the kind that passes muster before God the Father, is this: Reach out to the homeless and loveless in their plight, and guard against corruption from the godless world."), put your compassion to prayerful action! Start, do something as God leads you from His Heart. Jesus makes it clear when He reads Isaiah 61 in the Temple that He came to heal the "Brokenhearted" and He chooses to do that through us: His Body. Regrettably, we know how immature and broken and dirty His Body is today and many of us grieve over this, for ourselves and for others who are deeply in need of "spiritual adoption". Many who are called Elders are actually Youngers (and must choose between parenting their own families and ministering to the body, often neglecting their own families) and those of Elder chronological age are still emotionally stunted and trying to care for their own needs. How many "seniors" are off galavanting around "fulfilling their dreams" while the body of Christ languishes for need of true spiritual mothers and fathers? 

You think me too harsh or severe, remember Paul's admonishment in the above passage? "Reach out to the homeless and loveless in their plight, and guard against corruption from the godless world." We will not grow to serve in love in this way if we "...get squeezed into the world's mold..." (Romans 12:1) We can only find this kind of loving maturity in Jesus' and in spiritual family and true spiritual family is TOO hard to find these days for many brokenhearted people! Be part of the solution! Want to know more about how you can help, write me, I'd be glad to suggest some options.


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    Christian pastoral counsellor and exhorter/teacher; registered social worker in private practice, full-time since 1999

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