Loving Wayward Souls

What do you do when someone you love leaves? And how do you pursue someone who has hurt you, who has sinned against you? Whether you are dealing with an unfaithful marriage partner, a rebellious child, or a wayward friend, the counsel you offer needs to be pursued in a gospel-rooted approach, grounded in truth and practiced in the midst of Christian community. This resource was recorded live at the 2018 Institute: Loving Wayward Souls: Grace for our Prodigals

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Rugged Love for The Wayward Soul

The Lost Sheep

A Fool’s Story: From Simple-ism to Hope

The Gospel Divides Families

By Jim Newheiser

Faith For Waiting

Departures, Desertions and Leadership Suffering

To be a pastor is to experience euphoric peaks and dark valleys. Often the most discouraging and depressing moments for pastors come when those they have served depart or desert the church. It often brings up questions about identity, endurance and calling, all summarized by “pastoral suffering.” This session will explore how the Apostle Paul navigated the same experiences and applied the gospel in powerful ways to the struggles of ministry. More importantly, the session is designed to impart hope to any pastors suffering under the cloud of a painful separation, or wanting to be equipped to help others cope with the loss of those they love.

What is Normal?

By Dale Johnson

Sage Presence: The Welcome Wisdom Offers

When we counsel, parent or befriend someone with trials and troubles, how can we cultivate a listening presence? The wisdom literature of the Bible points us to Jesus and shows us how.

Sage Listening: The Talk Wisdom Uses

Sometimes the best way to overcome defensiveness for those in sorrows, sins or skepticisms is to cultivate the language of metaphor and indirect speech. Jesus, as the fulfillment of the Bible's wisdom literature, teaches us this lost art.

Sage Healing: The Remedies Wisdom Trusts

Sometimes fixes can't come quickly or at all (at least in the way we want). What do we offer others when the puzzle isn't solved and a quick fix isn't an option? The wisdom literature of the Bible shows us the way in Jesus.

Great Men and Their Godly Moms

It may surprise us to learn how many of our Christian heroes were shaped by the attentiveness and godliness of their mothers. Even though they may have had fathers who were present, involved, and godly, still they would insist that their primary spiritual influencer had been their mother. In this session we will draw both challenge and encouragement from a few of them.

Getting Things Done Like a Christian

God created us for a purpose. We exist in this world to do good to others which in turn brings glory to God. In this session we will see how Christians can live their lives with purpose and get things done in a way that serves their God-given mission.

Practical Issues in Church Discipline

By Jim Newheiser

Sound biblical counseling functions in the context of the local church. Counselees must be committed members of a faithful local church which follows biblical principles of church discipline. Counselors work with church leaders to follow biblical principles of church discipline so that counselees can be, if necessary, restored and so that the church will be kept pure.

Dealing with Wayward Parents

By Jim Newheiser

Many young adults face significant challenges from their parents. Issues include controlling parents, parents who disparage one's spouse, parents who don't properly fulfill their role as grandparents, parents who are financially irresponsible, parents who fall into serious sins including immorality and substance abuse, etc. What responsibilities do adult children have to their parents? What should adult children do when their own lives and families are being impacted by the waywardness of their parents?

The Gospel and Mental Health

By Scott Mehl

We hear every day that our nation and our communities are in the midst of a mental health crisis. But, what exactly is mental health? Does the Bible have anything to say about it? How can we, as Christians, understand what the world calls mental health? And what, if anything, do biblical counselors have to offer to those struggling with these common and serious problems?

Counseling Sexual Struggles in Marriage

By Scott Mehl

Sexual struggles are some of the most common, yet unaddressed, difficulties for many married couples. To help a couple grow in their marriage will often involve counseling them through their sexual struggles. But, as always, biblical counsel must begin with a clear biblical vision for what God created sex to be and how couples should view and understand it rightly in light of that design.

The Centrality of Love for Counseling

By Scott Mehl

In our efforts to help, counsel, and disciple others, we seek to gain the appropriate knowledge and skills for the task. But, in our attempt to be good counselors, good disciplers, or even just good friends, we can skip right past the fundamental requirement to all personal ministry: to love. In this session we’ll explore why loving those we’re ministering to and caring for is so centrally important to the work we’ve all been called to.

Resurrecting a Shattered Faith – Luke 24

By Milton Vincent

Some of those whom we call “prodigals” have experienced faith-shattering events that contribute to their loss of hope in Christ, just like Christ’s earliest followers who found themselves reeling from the devastating events of Christ’s suffering and crucifixion. Wonderfully, the resurrected Christ meets these disappointed souls in their despair and reawakens their faith one step at a time. As a result of His thoughtful ministry to them, their faith is revived and deepened; and we are left with an example to follow as we seek to minister to certain prodigals in our lives.

Save the Saints: The Church’s Role and Responsibility in Rescuing the Wandering

By Brian Borgman

The perseverance of the saints is a community effort at finishing the race together. What happens when one stops running? The church community is called to action, to rescue the wandering, to “save the saints.” In this session Brian Borgman uses James 5:19-20 to show us how eternally important it is that we go after wandering prodigals.

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Transcripts

Profile of a Prodigal {Transcript}

The garden offers this extraordinary vision, this remarkable vision of the flourishing life, an existence that if anything was fully true and satisfying and good and delightful, but something happens. What happens? Prone to wander happens because paradise is not enough for these two. I mean, God has one simple rule, just one. That’s all there was, just one, and the serpent seizes upon this small law, this one rule, this one command ultimately based for their good, the serpent seizes upon it and incites this impulse to rebel, this impulse, this instinct to stray, to go rogue.

Rugged Love for The Wayward Soul {Transcript}

See, one of the things we begin to discover as we wait into this world of prodigality is that the worst lies aren’t the ones that our prodigals tell us. The worst lies are the ones we tell ourselves. This is why rugged love starts with strong enough to face evil. This is why I ask you to turn to Romans 12:9 where the word of God says, let love be genuine. Then, it pulls this second idea right up alongside of it, abhor what is evil. Then, we’re going to talk about the third idea in just a second. Let love be genuine.

The Lost Sheep {Transcript}

I was thinking recently about the celebrity suicides we’ve seen recently and how several people have taken their own lives, people who were, from our assessment, living the life, people who seemed to have it all, people who seemed to have what we think would bring happiness, or what the culture around us would bring happiness. I think there’s certain people we can understand why that person would take their life, but these celebrities, like they’ve got it all. They’ve got fame, and they’ve got popularity, and they’ve got money, and they’ve got power. That seems like if I had those things I would be so fulfilled. I think that’s why our culture gets so rocked when celebrities, of all people, take their lives. We just can’t understand, “How could you have all that and still be missing joy?”

The Gospel Divides Families {Transcript}

e’ve already heard a lot about it. There’s some people who suffer in their families with unbelief. And some of the most disturbing words that Jesus ever spoke were about family. And in Luke 12 verse 49, he says, “I’ve come to cast fire upon the earth and how I wish it were already kindled, but I’ve a baptism to undergo, and how distressed I am until it is accomplished. Do you suppose that I came to grant peace on earth. I tell you know, but rather division, for from now on, five members in one household will be divided three against two, two against three. They will be divided father against son and son against father. Mother against daughter and daughter against mother and mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”

A Fool’s Story: From Simple-ism to Hope {Transcript}

One of the skills that you and I have learned is how to get somewhere. Our culture is built on it, teaches you how to get somewhere, especially if you’re in a white collar world, it teaches you how to get somewhere. Well, you went to kindergarten in order to get to … Excuse me, elementary school.

You went to that Subway sandwich. You went to … just being real.

Faith For Waiting {Transcript}