great-freedom:

[Video]

lessamazingmatt:

God because of the imputed righteousness of Christ to me and his wrath absorbing death on the cross and his resurrection now sees me as perfect and spotless and holy, not because i am but because HE IS

~ Matt Chandler

the two questions i’ve been getting a lot are: “how’d you become a pastor and counselor?” and “what’s your vision?” so here it is:

God saved me when i was 11 years old. in 1993, i attended CCMC spring retreat and accepted Jesus as my Savior and King. I prayed for the first time, and I still remember that night. through high school and college, God  called me be a pastor. God spoke to me through passages about the Word being a sword (Isaiah 49:2, Ephesians 6:17). So after college i went to seminary to be trained in Hebrew and Greek to study and teach the Bible.  in 2006, i began serving at life creek church, and i was on my way to becoming a full-time pastor. during those first 3 years of ministry, many “mental health” situations came up. people struggling with depression, addictions, family problems, anxiety…there were a lot, and they kept coming up again and again. some people in the church went to an outside counseling center, and i started checking them out. after seminary, i took one year to study “pastoral counseling”.

      after that year, i realized this: secular psychology&counseling looks down on the church’s role of counseling, and in the similar way, the church is afraid to trust secular counseling. they seem to be influencing each other negatively but still affecting each other a lot.

    i felt called to bridge the gap between counseling and the church. I want to restore Jesus to counseling and to equip the church to counsel better. so for the past 3 years ive been studying to become a psychologist. my strategy comes from Acts 17:16, it says, “While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols.”

    i see our culture becoming psychologicalized focusing on meeting our “needs”, and trying to be “healthy” through human efforts. our idol is ourselves. Trying to reign in our own selfish kingdoms, even trying to fit God into our kingdom. So my vision is to go into psychology to talk their psychobabble lingo, to have their credentials, and from that position, give Jesus as the solution. in the church, i see counseling as an effective tool to help people grow in Jesus. i see counseling as applied theology, meaning, it’s a specific time and place when a person can talk through how to apply the bible in their heart. 

   my motive in counseling is to 1) help people live maximally for Jesus. 2) save people with the Gospel.

   so practically, i’m supposed to graduate in 2 years, and i’ll be ordained. i want to work at a church and creat a counseling ministry. counseling people and training people to counsel biblically. i also want to work professionally, so that people who are looking for Gospel-centered counseling can have a resource. a couple dreams would be to teach counseling to pastors in seminary, and to run my own counseling center.