What Causes Divorces?

If none of the things I posted above cause divorce, what does? Too often we in our Western culture look at the symptoms of a problem as the real problem and thereby try to cure the disease by eliminating the symptom.

In 1998 a golfer from Spain named Olazabal was unable to walk well enough to play pro golf. His foot hurt him so badly he limped around the house and needed assistance to do anything. He faced certain retirement unless his doctors discovered the cause. But the doctors were stumped and he looked certain retirement in the face.

then he received a letter from a doctor in Germany who said he thought he knew why Mr. Olazabal was in so much pain. So, the millionaire sportsman flew to Germany for an examination. The German doctor discovered that the root of the problem lay in the golfer's back not his feet where everyone else was looking. They fixed his back and the pain in his feet and legs disappeared.

I was given two free tickets to the Master's Golf Tournament in Georgia for 1999. My wife and I went down to see it as the guests of the parents of Rev. James Brown, a Presbyterian Minister. It was a wonderful time and we had a ball. The Masters was won that year by Mr. Olazabal.

What can be the root of marital misery that causes so much pain that the couple abandons its love and commitment to each other and get divorced? What do you think it is or they are?


Sweeten Life Systems

Atheists and Pornography

Porn or Prayer in the Bedroom?

Why would atheists hate Christians and our God so much that they would attack us and the Father with millions of dollars of advertising? Why would they go so far as to try to get men addicted to pornography to keep them from reading the Bible? Do they not know that porn is exploiting women, girls and boys? Do they not realize the damage it does to marriages and family life?

They do not seem to care about the damage their hate filled campaigns cause people. They are deeply dedicated to stopping the growth and influence of Christianity. They will not allow anything to stand in their way, even the abuse of women and children and the destruction of marriages.

I get regular notices about the writings of a Pastor and Theologian from Sweden by the name of K.A. Johnson. He writes about social, cultural and spiritual issues in Scandinavia and Europe. Pornography is used by most males in Europe. A Danish Pastor friend has asked me to teach him how to liberate men from its devastating hold. Both at the Life Way Counseling Centers and Sweeten Life Systems training ministry we have learned how to help men strengthen their commitment to god and family by kicking the porn habit.

The next time I go to Denmark we will continue our conversations and plan ways to train Christian Counselors and Pastors in the healing arts. (Go to my web page and download Hope and Change for Humpty Dumpty.) Peder Poulsen, one of my former students in Denmark has a family counseling center where he ministers God's truth, love and liberation to hundreds of people.

The Finnish Humanist Society started an aggressive, expensive campaign last year in England and Europe to attack God and Christians. Now they have stepped up the hate filled approach to give away porn to men in exchange for Bibles.

Why would they do this? Why porn? Why in exchange for a Bible? Is porn the antithesis of faith in God and will it kill the desire to rad the Bible/ Is the Bible that dangerous to Atheism and Secular Humanism? Will inhaling porn kill a man's desire to love his God. Will it pull men from church and serving others?

The answers must be a resounding "YES!"

If I thought long and hard for a good reason to warn men to avoid pornography I would never have come up with this. If atheists or secular humanists are willing to spend multiplied millions to wean men and women from God by giving away something, they must believe it has potency to change the hearts, souls and minds of the consumers. P&G does not run advertisements that do not work and neither will the Atheist/Humanists. They strongly believe that by giving porn to men and women free they will draw them away from God and family life. Talk about faith in something, they have it in spades!

What do you think? Am I off base on this? Are the Finnish Humanists benign in their activities or are they fully aware of what they are doing?

You can join the conversation!

How to Measure Maturity?

I can remember clearly my first forays into the realm of comparing church successes and by analogy, pastoral leadership success. As a 30 year old volunteer campus minister I was invited to the monthly meetings of the local denominational gatherings with all the local ministers and various denominational officials. I was excited to be with these mature spiritual leaders.

I wanted to learn how to be a "real man of God" and I assumed that I could see them up close and personal here. I must admit that I was sorely disappointed. I discovered that almost all the talk was about numbers, noses and nickels. The number of baptisms, the noses that showed up at the various church meetings and then how many nickels the congregation had contributed to the church.

Whey did they do this? I am sure there are many reasons but the easiest and most direct ways are numbers, noses and nickels. Attendance, giving and commitments are the quickest and most "reliable" ways to communicate how well we are doing in the ministry. Let's face it, measuring spirituality is like catching mercury or measuring the humidity. We only see people at public meetings so we don't really know what people are doing in private.

And, the model of ministry most churches have chosen is preaching and teaching by the ministers. It is not related to the inner spiritual development of believers but the outer, easily counted things like giving and attendance.

Here I am over forty years later and I still do not see many Pastors with different ideas about how to measure maturity of their members. Take a look at the brief article by Dallas Willard to see what you think of his ideas about measuring maturity. I like it a lot and have spent a lot of my ministry trying to foster Christian maturity. But let me say quickly, it is not easy to do.

I mistakenly posted on this blog rather than my other one, Spiritual Healing and Growth. Take a look at it there as well if you wish.

I strongly urge you to read a great book, The Critical Journey, by Janet Hagberg on this topic. It is shown at the top of the page. You can purchase it at amazon.com

Ministry Trip to Denmark

I will be traveling to Denmark from March 21 to March 30 to see my great friend Peder Poulsen and his colleagues and other spiritual power houses. I met Peder way back in the Eighties at Vats, the high mountain ski resort where we gathered some fifty Scandinavian leaders for five days of Holy Spirit worship, praise and learning.

The testimonies that came out of the years we met in Vats were life changing and eternity expanding. Priests, Pastors, Missionaries, Lay Leaders and Para Church Leaders came together with a group from the USA to storm heaven and earth for God's love, power and truth. Many of the graduates of Vats are still expanding the Kingdom of God all over the world through care, counsel, evangelism and training.

The group in Denmark is a remnant of the Vats explosion. Hundreds of Christians have grown up in Christ to take His message to Europe and the nations. One of our friends is Kirsten Callesen, a PhD Psychologist who was a Flight Attendant with SAS when she came to our Teleios Training in the Nineties. God touched her life and called her to get a Masters' in Psychology.

As part of her training, Kirsten did an internship in a clinic that worked with people with Autism. This led Kirsten to take the classes in "Apples of Gold- Listening and develop a similar class for her clients. It worked beautifully and she has developed an entire training program called "The CAT Kit" for parents and children with Aspergers, a section of the Autistic Spectrum. She also finished a PhD in Psychology.

While in Denmark I will get to visit with Kirsten and see her in action plus attend two workshops on treating Autism. God has opened a wonderful door for me to learn how better to serve families with Special needs Kids.

Keep us in your prayers. More on this later.

The Myth of the Expert

Anonymous left a comment on the previous post asking, "What is The Myth of the Expert?" Good question. I left the following comment on the blog but want to add some more content to it for clarification.

The Hopper brothers wrote in the book "The Puritan's Gift" that the key to our economic, social and spiritual strength was the approach to work and relationships we got from the Puritans. The were all ready and willing to pitch in and get "their hands dirty". In Britain and Europe, managers did not ever do practical work so they did not have practical knowledge.

Over the past few decades the USA has developed a "professional class of experts" that is out of touch with practical knowledge. This leads us to rack and ruin because the top bankers have never loaned anyone anything. They are theoretically trained in economics not banking so they ruined the financial industry.

The same is often true in counseling, religion and family life. Experts rely on fuzzy theories not practical life. For years such counselors recommended divorce to women who were frustrated with marriage. Then, the wrecks of millions of divorcees started showing up in their offices and those "experts" started to change their minds.

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In the book "The Churching of America" social researchers Starke and Finke say that there is an inverse relationship between seminary graduation rates and church growth. Since the days of the American Revolution the churches with fewer seminary trained Ministers have out planted and out grown those with "experts" at the helm.

In the Seventies I started doing research for a Doctorate on the best ways to train Christians to care and counsel. Much to my surprise I discovered that lay persons (Peers) were as effective or more effective when compared with Professional "expert" Counselors.

The West seems to be hurdling toward making expertise and education even more central to education, business and especially medicine. The medicalization of all kinds of moods and attitudes is not good for the country and it is driving much of the current increase in medical costs. Counselors made a pact with the "expert model" when we started taking third party payments for our work. Those who pay the piper calls the tune so now we have to pretend that it is our expertise and theoretical education that make us better Counselors. That is a major part of the "Myth of the Expert".

One last point. When Universities started programs for Masters in Business Administration, companies started moving away for requiring managers to have common sense and knowledge of the businesses they were in. This was part of the growing "Myth of the Expert" and leads the USA down a road to bad management and a lack of understanding of the way companies and workers operate.

Unions bought into the "Myth" and started demanding that their members got better jobs based not on skill, understanding and abilities but on "seniority". The term "fairness" replaced the need for someone who really knew the business.

I know of churches that selected Senior Pastors on their ability as "Motivational Speakers". In some cases the person had never himself worked in a church and knew nothing about Sunday school, committee work, hospital visitation, etc. Just as the Chris Farley character on Saturday Night Live was a poor leader so were these men. They had no practical knowledge of how to manage a congregation.

You can buy Hope and Change for Humpty Dumpty at Author House.

NOTE: I am not anti education. I have several advanced degrees. The issue is having practical people and management skills along with the theoretical knowledge.

Missions

Preaching the gospel in Denmark is difficult. Well, not the preaching but the responses are low and church attendance is very low. The State Church in Denmark is Lutheran and I now know why our founders made sure we in American escaped from the horror of a state supported church.

But here is the good news. Creative and innovative church planters have discovered that many of the new immigrants to Denmark are very open to the good news. Over 450,000 new churches have been planted in Denmark in the past decade.


One of the reasons why our ministry of equipping is so critical in Europe lies here. They Christ Followers need good ministry skills and the new church leaders are under trained in practical skills of ministry. Please pray for a revival in Europe. There are more witches there than in Africa.

Gry Sweeten

Equipping Volunteers to Help

I just taught a group of thirty Christian leaders today about the importance of getting themselves and others ready to minister with love. Here is a very brief summary.

The acrostic that serves as a foundation for helping others can be seen in the word GREW.

Genuineness-This requires us to know ourselves and what motivates us to help others. I did an Doctorate in Counselor Education in 1975. My research showed me that the key to helping others was no my knowledge or beautiful advices but how I treated them when we interacted. In order for me to build trust and open communication, I had to come across as a real person not a fake.

Genuineness means that:

I know my own thoughts and feelings
I can name my thoughts and feelings
I can manage my thoughts and feelings
I can share my thoughts and feelings

So, if I am nervous when I talk with others I need to recognize the feelings and know from where they arise in my thought promise. I cannot be very helpful unless I am aware of my onw needs and temptations.

It has been my personal experience that 75% or more of the men and women who want to be trained as Helpers do so because of fleshly, selfishly drives. Unless the training helps students understand the genesis of those selfish desires, the Helper will spread more trouble rather than facilitate health. (See my web page for more information.)


Gary Sweeten
Enjoying the frozen beaches of Tjome, Norway

Helping Special Children Grow

We recently received a grant from the Hatton Foundation to research the needs of families with special needs children and develop models for meeting those needs. This is a huge and exciting venture.

One of our dear friends and former students in Denmark is Kirsten Callesen. She left her former position to get a Masters and Doctorate with specialties in Special Education. Kirsten took the materials she had learned in the

Apples and RCT classes and developed her unique approach for helping kids with Aspergers.

You can see her work at the CAT Kit web site.

It is very exciting to see Seasoned Believers take on such large challenges, especially when they are doing a great job.

Take a lool at this video on how they are working with kids.

Pray that we will be able to develop ministries that are as great as my friends in Denmark. I will visit with Kirsten in March when I go there to teach.

Gary Sweeten

A Joke in Danish

Pardon my weird sense of humor. I posted in Danish that I cannot read as a way to get some attention. Here in English about my upcoming trip back to Scandinavia.

The Lord took me to Kenya, East Africa in 1983 to meet Jens-Petter Jorgensen, one of the founders and leaders of the Holy Spirit renewal in Norway. We became friends and he invited me to speak at a conference for Pastors, Missionaries and Church Leaders in 1986. I along with Larry Chrouch, Ellen Chrouch, Steve Griebling and Hal Schell traveled to Oslo for a conference on healing, counseling and love in the church. God showed up in a very powerful and life changing manner.

That small beginning led Jens-Petter and his organization, OASE (Oasis) to invite us back for leadership training retreats. We met annually at Vats, a ski center high in the mountains of Norway for worship, teaching, small groups and great skiing. Leaders from Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland came for healing and growth.

One of the Danish Leaders was Peder Paulsen. We became friends and he took our materials back home where I visited many times and now Peder is doing family healing and bringing renewal to the nation.

Here we are over twenty years later and I am returning to Norway and Denmark to see my friends, experience God's presence and share what it means to be a healing community filled with the Spirit's truth, power and love. I will also focus on following God as a Seasoned Believer.

Pray for my trip and our gatherings. I arrive in Oslo March 9 and will be ministering there for a week before going on to Denmark and back to the USA on March 19.

I injured both shoulders on the last trip to Russia and I need God's healing grace to take luggage on this trip. Also pray for the necessary financial support.

Thanks,

Gary Sweeten

Lowering Costs of Doing Ministry

Embrace the World
Because the economy has been powering along like a Bull for the last eight years, Christian ministries have been growing like weeds and spending a lot of money to achieve their goals. Now, the Bear Market has changed all that. There is a great article about this issue in the Out of Ur Blog of Christianity Today.



No one knows how long this recession will last or how far the economy will slip, but this may serve as a wakeup call to an American church that has built its missional strategy on the assumption of affluence. If the downturn is protracted, it may cause churches to reevaluate their philosophy of ministry. If those delayed plans to build a larger facility or hire new staff members cannot be taken off the self in two, three, or five years because of the economy, will we be forced to think more creatively about advancing God's mission?
Neil Cole, in an interview in the latest issue of Leadership, said his research concluded that, using traditional church planting methods—hiring staff and building facilities—it would cost $80 billion to reach the city of Atlanta with the gospel. Even in a robust economy, that number is prohibitively large. Perhaps it's time for American church leaders to begin learning from pastors in the developing world who have few resources but where the gospel is spreading nonetheless.

Tom Sine, author of The New Conspirators, has also spoken about the danger of predicating our ministry model on the automobile. Megachurches in particular have flourished by drawing attenders from a wide geographic area. But if average fuel prices rise high enough, we may see driving habits shift as people become more reluctant to commute multiple times a week to a church facility. Economic realities may accelerate the already perceptible trend toward decentralized ministry.
Faith should protect us from the fear seizing many in these uncertain times, but faith should also lead us to greater creativity and an ever increasing trust in God to continue his mission even as resources disappear.


What do you think about this? Are these guys right or can we and should we continue spending so much to achieve so little?
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Sweeten Life has always operated with very low overhead. We get a lot accomplished with a small investment. We do it because we multiply the resources through discipleship and equipping leaders. We have very few large group meetings but rather follow the example and teaching of Jesus.

We can certainly use your financial support this year.

Sweeten Life Systems

P.O. Box 498455

Cincinnati, Ohio 45249

Gary's Cell: 513-300-5065

Memories

I enjoy hearing from friends with who I have ministered over the years. One of the many blessings of being in the same area is seeing friends with who we have shared so much of God's love and power together.

Steve Griebling and I began working together in 1982 when he was at Upper Arlington Lutheran and I was at College Hill Presbyterian. It was a match made in heaven. Our interests and theologies were similar and we had a mutually up building relationship back then.

When I was invited to minister in Norway I asked Steve to accompany me along with Hal Schell and Larry and Ellen Chrouch. It was a divine team that God used to touch lives in a wonderful way.

As a result of our partnership Steve recruited some of his Teleios Workers and we traveled together to Scandinavia and other parts of the USA and the world. Yesterday I heard from Diane, one of Steve's team members. She is still using the Renewed Thinking skills she learned in the Eighties and they continue to "work" as she keeps her thoughts on Jesus.

Thanks Diane. I have many good memories of you, Marcie, Gail, Mary, Jim, Steve, etc on our trips to share the good news. Keep it up!

Gary Sweeten

http://www.sweetenlife.com/

A lifetime of great relationships

Denmark Hello

I met today with four long time friends from Scandinavia. We all came together in Copenhagen to discuss the possibility of having a gathering next spring. Peder Poulsen, Jens-Petter Jorgensen, Regina Joergensen (Gina) and Kristin Callesen to hear from each other what has been happening in our lives since we last met during one fo the varius Teleios events in Scandinavia. All but Jens-Petter are Danes. He is Norwegian.

I met Jens-Petter in Kenya, Africa in October 1983 so it is the 25th anniversary of our first connection. At that time he invited me to come to Norway to speak. Over time we developed a close personal and ministerial relationship. Teleios Norway came out of that fruitful interaction and hundreds of people experienced the love, truth and power of Jesus Christ as a result.

All of them are now Seasoned Believers, who have followed Christ for decades. Attending the Teleios courses and investing in the dept of the Teleios philosophy of Great Relationahips with God and others, each of us has grown in spirit, soul and ministry.

I will write more on those changes later.

Gary Sweeten
Copenhagen, Denmark