Am I trying to fix my own soul?

“Are we trying to fix souls without consulting the maker of souls?

Yet it is the churches’ job, through the genuine comfort of the Holy Spirit, to care for one another’s souls. But over time, we the church, have become very pragmatic…looking for bigger numbers and quicker ways to grow numerically large. This came with a price, at times, of growing large but growing more spiritually unhealthy. Not true everywhere, but it seems we were always comparing numbers, not health. I have attended enough pastors’ conferences to know what one of the first questions is: “So, how many you runnin’ these days?” We compare ourselves and then feel bad or good based on whether our number is larger. 

In a class I took, Christian psychologist Larry Crabb said, “If we were to relationally disciple one another as we should, we would need far less Christian counselors. Jesus can save our soul, but when it comes to issues of the heart, instead of turning to one another, we pay a hundred dollars an hour to have a friend we can talk to.”^[i] Please don’t think I am disparaging Christian counselors. He wasn’t and I’m not. I am so very grateful that they would go through the training and become very skillful at helping souls wrestle through the angst of living on a fallen planet. I have dear friends who are counselors, who have helped me deeply. I wish them well.  I wish they could help us all learn how to relate to one another better as the body of Christ. We could learn from them. After all, psychology is the study of the soul. And our great God is the one who created the soul. But could we not learn from one another as part of the church to relationally treat each other well and heal each other’s wounds? As I studied in seminary, I realized I was working to see how theology—the study of God—and psychology—the study of the soul—were intertwined. So why not ask the creator of the soul how it should function? At the time this was called integration. But now I see it more as re-integration.

The Maker and the soul must come back together. They should never have come apart. What soul doesn’t want a garden walk with a loving Father? But here we are.

We have relied too much on the classroom and sitting in rows, learning with our minds what God wrote for our hearts.Face to face heart talk is needed.

Relational discipleship is what God intended, but somehow we got caught up in re-imprisonment, behind the glass of our aquarium.” P. 10, 11 in Fish Prison