Christ dwelt among us not to be served as a king, but to serve others in sacrifice. He gave of his time, money, energy, wisdom, and influence to bring healing both physically and spiritually. In our own lives, we now exhort each other to serve and not be served, but in doing so, we miss a nuance that carries great consequence for the wounded souls in our midst.

Throughout the world, every week, people gather in churches to worship God, celebrate Jesus, and be more closely connected with the Holy Spirit. Each person there carries on vertical relationship with God and horizontal relationships with fellow churchgoers. Each person also brings a unique set of strengths, weaknesses, and wounds of the soul.

How will a church be measured in eternity? We often consider that question concerning individuals, but the assessment is quite valid in a communal sense as well. After all, we have letters in Scripture written to entire communities to instruct, to chasten, to discipline, and sometimes to condemn.

We have our church outreach programs. Sunday schools. Missions giving and sending. We measure baptisms, Bibles handed out, gospel tracts dispatched. We have our accountability groups. Many churches reach thousands of people each week with teaching. Many smaller churches band together in organizations that, combined, call out to millions.

All of those efforts may yield results. But make no mistake - we can dutifully spend our days in pursuit of such activities without taking care of souls near to us. And we can expend our energy completely without tending to the needs of our own souls.

In those efforts, frequently, we hold as our sacred duty to not be served. We feel as though we must add to the church, not subtract from it - like soul care is a zero-sum game where anything we take from the collective is a cost passed on to someone else who may need it more.

The reasons we may feel this way are many and varied, and most of them take root in the fog. But Jesus' meaning was that, being a king, he did not take his kingly rights on this earth. He did not mean that no one should ever seek to have their own physical and spiritual needs ministered.

So let's talk about soul care in the church. Out of those people around the world who attend the gathering of believers, who can honestly say that their soul wounds and weaknesses have been well cared for? Can you provide that assessment for your own church?

What I have found over the years is that soul care gets talked about the most after something went wrong. A scandal happened, or something harmful was said from the pulpit. Politics were played to sideline the vulnerable. Counselors were overly harsh. Physical or spiritual abuse was overlooked or explained away. Whatever the case, the pain of being freshly wounded, dismissed, or rejected incites an honesty to review the character and competence of the soul ministers in that situation.

Christ's earthly ministry was proactive, not reactive. Can we change that soul care narrative from reactionary hindsight analysis to one driven by forward thinking? To do so, we will need ministers trained and experienced in dealing with various sicknesses and syndromes of the soul. They may not just call out sin (though that has its place, of course): they must be able to discern further layers of the intellect, emotions, and will.

What would result is an entire field of study founded upon scripture, the goal being a wise and accurate application of scripture in every case. Ministers need to gain understanding of soul-based pitfalls (such as negative self-talk) that are easy to fall into based on pitting one doctrine over another but not glibly treat them as mere theology problems. They also need to know how common church patterns and practice can interact with soul wounds to cause further harm.

Christ in the Fog walks through a number of such thought patterns, emotive circles, and behavioral sequences that are indicative of sickness and syndromes in the soul. The church needs this and more to bring up ministers who can tend to the complete soul, not just the soul-face visible in church services, small groups, etc.

Each of us, in Christ, is a new creation - God has begun a work of spirit. This seed of the spirit is untouched by our wounds and sins, but the extent to which our experience matches that facet of reality is determined by a great many factors. Our stories continue to be affected by our past, which is engrained within neural networks as a reflection of the state of the soul. None of those factors ought to be discounted, dismissed, or disposed of by a minister, who ought to be trained as a soul-physician.

How will our church be measured?

Reference:

1. "Athletic Bandage" by chrstphre is licensed under CC BY 2.0