Our preaching must also equip the saints to preach-at home, in the marketplace, at the sports club, on the little league fields, at dance and music recitals, and so on. Our conversation must be absolutely and completely littered with gospel. Is such conversation offensive? Absolutely! We have become so concerned about not being offensive but being “sensitive” that we have stopped preaching and moved into counseling.

Reader, beware! I am a clinically trained pastoral counselor. I teach and counsel the comfort of Christ. But I preach Christ crucified and alive!

Power preaching with signs and wonders abounds in the non-Western world, but seems to be lacking in Western Europe and North America. Those who contend that the most powerful preaching they do is the lives they live are only partially right. Right living witnesses to right preaching but can never replace it! Yes, live what you preach … but preach it!

The writer of The Reformed Pastor, Richard Baxter, noted, “I preached as never sure to preach again, and as a dying man to dying men.” Would that such passionate preaching pointing to Christ overflowed from our church and secular pulpits today!

I agree with George F. Pentecost, “If the truth were known, many sermons are prepared and preached with more regard for the sermon than the souls of the hearers.” Let's prepare our preaching with such urgency and passion that everyone who listens will know gospel truth: Jesus Christ crucified and raised from the dead.

Checklist for Christ-Centered Preaching

Christian Education

Thermostat Kids

Teach teens to turn up the temperature in their culture-not merely reflect it.

Show me your friends and I'll show you your future,” I heard myself repeat to my youth ministry that crisp fall night in September. The focus of the evening was to help them go back to their local high schools and middle schools as “thermostats, not thermometers.”

After nearly four decades in full-time youth ministry, I realized how pivotal that focus really was. I wanted to help launch the students to make a Christ-honoring difference in their school cultures, rather than just blending in.

What is the “thermostat versus thermometer” analogy? Every year as our students return back to school, I want them to see themselves as more than cultural “thermometers,” people who simply reflect the moral climate of their surroundings. I want them to be “thermostats,” people who choose to control the moral climate of their surroundings.

Here are a few specifics that you might want to consider as the teenagers in your youth ministry head back to school:

At the beginning of the school year, we have a commissioning service, complete with a special challenge, prayer and anointing of students to serve as campus missionaries to specific local campuses. Throughout the year, we continue to spotlight their efforts to make a difference on their campuses.

The list of ideas is limitless. But even more important is making sure your teenagers feel like you understand the challenges at school they face are both exciting and yet far from easy. As their leader, remember that youth was created for heroism, not for pleasure. Your young, potential heroes just need to know that you are cheering them on. The results will be revolutionary.

Pastoral Care

Mild or Wild?

Identify the roots of passivity and aggression-and cultivate assertiveness.

Assertiveness is the balance between the extremes of passivity and aggression. Even the most effective leaders struggle with tendencies toward these two poles. Here are some insights into understanding how passivity and aggression develop-and how you can move toward emotional health.

People tend to develop passive personalities for one of two reasons: they have been forced into submission or ignored as children. They do not buck authority, but rather cower in the face of it. That does not mean, however, that they are not seething on the inside or in turmoil emotionally.

Those who are ignored as children tend to grow up feeling as if their ideas are of little consequence and that their presence is largely unwanted or not valued. Often starved for affection and attention, they don't know how to reach out and request what they want and feel rebuffed if others set emotional boundaries.

Passive individuals are unable to express their thoughts and feelings adequately, because they simply do not know how to stand up for themselves. Often they share their anger or hostility with a person and then expect that person to vindicate their cause. Passivity can lead to manipulative behaviors that can destroy a relationship.

Passive people live behind a wall of fear that they are not acceptable or worthy. They may not want to reveal their thoughts and feelings out of fear that others will criticize or ridicule them.

Aggressive people, on the other hand, have often grown up under an iron-fisted child-rearing approach. They become the very opposite of passive-they become openly and sometimes violently aggressive. They refuse to be bullied further, often reject authority and in turn may become bullies themselves.

Some aggressive people were children who had a very different upbringing-their parents gave them too little discipline, allowing them to express defiant and rebellious behavior without any boundaries or restraints placed upon them. These aggressive children grow up to become pushy, intimidating, domineering adults.

Aggressive behavior is often confrontational behavior. Aggressive people may get in your face and point their finger at you, or they may resort to open and sometimes loud belittling and deliberately hurtful comments.

In the corporate business environment, aggressive personalities are those who enjoy hostile takeovers and win-big situations in which other people must grovel as they lose; they also see all actions in other people as threats to their own survival or promotion. They are especially adept at walking over people to get what they want or where they want to be.

The Art of Assertiveness

No person is stuck forever with a passive or an aggressive personality. Here are some action points for cultivating assertiveness:

1. Begin communicating thoughts, feelings, wants and needs more confidently. Even if you don't feel confident on the inside, speak more confidently. The more you do this, the more confident you will feel on the inside.
2. Respect other people and their rights. Purposefully yield to people on occasion by giving up a lane on the freeway or a parking space in a busy parking lot.
3. Don't be a doormat. Tell people what you expect and what you like. Communicate with terms of “appreciation” and “suggestion,” rather than through manipulation (the passive personality) or domination (the aggressive personality).
4. Don't respond apologetically. Passive people have a tendency to say repeatedly, “I know that you don't care what I think,” or “I realize my ideas may not be worth much,” or “I understand that I'm just a housewife and don't know about these things.” Such self-belittling remarks don't win respect-including one's own.
5. Avoid putting others down. The aggressive person must put special effort into combining positive expressions of praise when communicating constructive criticism.
6. Learn to say “no.” Saying “no” isn't selfishness or laziness-it's being a good steward of one's resources, whether physically, emotionally or materially.

Ethics

Privilege Pitfalls

Are your confidential counseling sessions putting you in legal jeopardy?

Recently a counselor working for a Christian ministry was charged with failure to report child abuse. The person she counseled was a minor, and the charge was that the counselor had reason to suspect that the minor had been abused by a parent or legal custodian but that she willfully and unlawfully failed to report such abuse to the authorities.

The state of Florida dismissed the charges against counselor Jennifer Densmore, ruling that the communications were confidential, that Densmore had the right and legal duty not to reveal the contents of the sessions and that Densmore “is not guilty as a matter of law.” However, the incident raised concerns about the legal risks of providing a counseling ministry.

The state argued that the clergy communications privilege, also known as the “priest-penitent privilege,” or the “clergy confidentiality privilege,” did not protect Densmore because among other things, she was not an ordained member of the clergy.

Before you enter into another “confidential” counseling session, consider this: Are your conversations protected by the clergy communications privilege? Are your “confidential” counseling sessions putting you-and those you counsel-in legal jeopardy? While different states have different laws, the same fundamental legal principles apply. Follow these guidelines to protect your counseling sessions:

1. The counselor must be a clergy member whose role is to provide religious counseling. Such clergy members could be those ordained by the church as pastors, priests or ministers, or non-ordained agents of the clergy. However, non-ordained agents must have been selected by the church to serve as religious leaders to provide such religious counseling. The privilege does not apply to conversations with church staff that have not been charged with such counseling duties and responsibilities.
2. The counseling session must be of a religious nature. Say a member comes to you and asks for your help. In the process, the member discloses a recent crime and asks you to help relay the information to the proper agency. Would your conversations with the member be privileged? No. The priest-penitent privilege only applies to penitent communication-communication where one seeks absolution, penitence or contrition.

While, in reality, the secular and religious counseling are easily blurred, it is important to understand that courts will scrutinize and examine the secular versus religious nature of the communication. As such, it is important for you to be mindful of exactly what type of counseling you are providing.
3. The counselor and counselee maintain a religious relationship. Say an individual enters your church and seeks your help. He is in trouble and is fleeing from the police. This is the first time you have met. You counsel him to seek God for guidance and forgiveness. You also persuade him to call the police. Despite the fact that counsel incorporated religious counseling, your conversations would not be privileged. Despite your role as a pastor who provides such religious counseling, the privilege will still not apply. Courts will scrutinize this ad hoc session as one between a clergy and a stranger, and may decline to apply the priest-penitent privilege.
4. Both parties intend the counseling session to be confidential. All parties-the clergy counselors and the individual counselees-must intend for the counseling session to be confidential. If either one of the parties divulges the information discussed to any members of the public, the privilege is lost. Courts will not apply the privilege if the parties themselves did not respect the private and confidential nature of the session.
5. The counseling sessions must be private. Again, the counseling session must be confidential in nature. Individuals not intended to provide or receive the religious counseling cannot be involved in the counseling session. If the counseling sessions are open to uninvolved individuals, the counseling sessions are no longer private. As such, courts will liberally assume that individuals did not intend for the conversations to be confidential or privileged. Thus, if you intend the conversations to be private and privileged, keep them private and privileged.

If counseling is an important part of your ministry, then you must protect it. It's that simple. Save your church or ministry from unnecessary problems and challenges.

Finance

Share the Care

With rising health-insurance costs, it's time to consider a biblical alternative.

Health-insurance premiums are ranging from $600 to $1,200, and many churches are thinking long and hard about the costs for the pastor's health-insurance needs. To add insult to injury, a large percentage of their insurance premium may be directly supporting lifestyles they abhor.

Several ministries have emerged offering non-insurance approaches to paying medical bills. Their track records indicate that the monthly sharing cost typically runs less than half that of conventional insurance coverage, with most members saving between $2,000-$4,000 or more a year. Since the sharing programs offered by these ministries are not insurance and are voluntary-offering no guarantees-it is important that those contemplating the sharing concept fully understand medical sharing programs.

Four ingredients have helped make the sharing programs attractive to believers: (1) It is less expensive; (2) Members feel good that their monthly share is supporting fellow Christians who do not live destructive lifestyles; (3) The sharing programs rally prayer and a sense of community around the member in need; and (4) Each member has a say in how they choose to share with one another through an annual ballot.

Members or subscribers send a specific amount each month responding to a share notice. The share is designated to go to a specific member to assist in paying that assigned member's eligible medical bills.

For example, if a member has an eligible medical need of $8,000, the ministry's software program would assign however many members it will take to pay that bill. Those members assigned would receive a notice with the member's name and address printed. The assigned member is encouraged to contact the member in need with a card or letter of encouragement, put them on their prayer list, plus send their share that month to aid in paying the bills.

The monthly share amount is derived by taking the sum total of the eligible monthly medical bills sent by members and dividing by the sharing households. The share rarely fluctuates from month to month because of the large numbers in the sharing pool. For example, one program has a $250 one-time deductible per year for any medical need that exceeds $250.

Though medical sharing does not have all the “bells and whistles” offered by conventional health insurance, many find the trade-off worthwhile when their healthcare budget decreases by 50 percent or more. For a family that goes to the doctor every time a child has a cough or sniffle, a sharing program may not yield enough significant savings, but for those families or individuals who are reasonably healthy, it may be a godsend.

Before You Leap

Seven questions to ask when considering cooperative healthcare.

1. What is the track record of the ministry? Has the ministry ever experienced months when all the eligible bills were not 100 percent paid?
2. What is the accountability structure of the ministry? Do they have certified audits, and are they available to you? Do they have an independent board of directors (persons not remunerated by the ministry)? What is the structure for oversight?
3. Does the ministry have any provision for catastrophic medical bills? What will happen if there is a close series of major catastrophic bills? Does the ministry provide for this contingency through stop-loss insurance, and, if so, is the policy with a highly rated insurance carrier?
4. If there is a dispute between the member and the ministry regarding eligibility of bills, are there provisions for impartial reviews or arbitration?
5. What about pre-existing issues? Most ministries do not share pre-existing conditions until they are cured and/or go without treatment, medication or symptoms for a period of time.
6. Who sets the rules? Do members vote on issues that affect their monthly share?
7. Does the ministry have programs to assist the members to make lifestyle alterations and avoid catastrophic medical events? You may want to position yourself with ministries that are concerned about future medical bills and how to keep them from escalating.

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