Free Willy & Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Biblical counseling in a formal office is a bit like Free Willy. Do you remember it? The movie about the orca whale from the early nineties? Willy the whale certainly served a purpose in captivity. He provided marine biologists with scientific data. His acrobatics inspired awe in the crowds and lined the pockets of the greedy owner. Yet wild Willy was never at home in his aquarium. He was designed for so much more. And Jesse, the orphan boy who befriends the whale, makes it his mission to free the whale, which ends in the iconic, spectacular jump.
Shreveport Biblical Counseling is a bit like Jesse, Willy’s orphan friend. Our mission is not to keep biblical counseling within the four walls of a counseling room. Ultimately, our mission is to set biblical counseling free into its native habitat: the church. When Jesus, Paul, and Proverbs talk of speaking the truth in love, bearing the burdens of others, and the centrality of wisdom, they did not intend such things only to happen within a formal office. God’s people are to be speaking the truth in love at work, bearing the burdens of family and friends, giving and receiving wisdom with a friend over coffee. That is why SBC’s mission statement is not only to serve the church through the ministry of biblical counseling, but also to equip the church.
In the next month or two we will be rolling out a new wing of our ministry that will serve that purpose of equipping. For now, to whet your appetite for biblical counseling within the church, consider Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s vision of “one another ministry” from his book Life Together.
First, what he calls “the ministry of listening:”
“The first service that one owes to others in the fellowship consists in listening to them. Just as love to God begins with listening to His Word, so the beginning of love for the brethren is learning to listen to them. It is God’s love for us that He not only gives us His Word but also lends us His ear. So it is His work that we do for our brother when we learn to listen to him. Christians, especially ministers, so often think they must always contribute something when they are in the company of others, that this is the one service they have to render. They forget that listening can be a greater service than speaking.”
Next, “the ministry of helpfulness:”
“We must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God. God will constantly be crossing our paths and canceling our plans by sending us people with claims and petitions…It is a strange fact that Christians and even ministers frequently consider their work so important and urgent that they will allow nothing to disturb them … But is is part of the discipline of humility that we must not spare our hand where it can perform a service and that we do not assume that our schedule is our own to manage, but allow it to be arranged by God.”
Then, “the ministry of bearing:”
“The Christian, however, must bear the burden of a brother. He must suffer and endure the brother. It is only when he is a burden that another person is really a brother and not merely an object to be manipulated. The burden of men was so heavy for God Himself that He had to endure the Cross. God verily bore the burden of men in the body of Jesus Christ. But He bore them as a mother carries her child, as a shepherd enfolds the lost lamb that has been found. God took men upon Himself and they weighted Him to the ground, but God remained with them and they with God. In bearing with men God maintained fellowship with them. It is the law of Christ that was fulfilled in the Cross. And Christians must share in this law.”
Lastly, when the first three are in place, the ministry of the Word:
“But God has put this Word into the mouth of men in order that it may be communicated to other men. When one person is struck by the Word, he speaks it to others. God has willed that we should seek and find His living Word in the witness of a brother, in the mouth of man. Therefore, the Christian needs another Christian who speaks God’s Word to him. He needs him again and again when he becomes uncertain and discouraged, for by himself he cannot help himself without belying the truth. He needs his brother man as a bearer and proclaimer of the divine word of salvation. He needs his brother solely because of Jesus Christ. The Christ in his own heart is weaker than the Christ in the word of his brother; his own heart is uncertain, his brother’s is sure.”
Bonhoeffer never used the word “biblical counseling,” but nevertheless in this book he aims his call to ministry at the every day Christian. He encourages and equips the people in the pew, not the pulpit, to do the work of biblical counseling: listening, loving, bearing, speaking. Thus, Dietrich Bonhoeffer freed Willy.
Stay tuned in the coming weeks for SBC’s efforts to do the same.
