Empathy versus Enabling

Drug and alcohol addictions are rampant and seemingly growing in America and the rest of the world. One bad way to try to help an addict is to feel sorry for them and bail them out when they get into trouble.

Several years ago during the time I was still doing Clinical Counseling I was called by a Pastor who asked me to contact a family whose thirty year old son was a chronic addict. The parents had spent all their money and even mortgaged their family home to chronically bail the kid out of trouble.

My discussion with her unfolded why the parents were broke and the son was still addicted.

Mother: Dr. Sweeten, what can I do? My son is in jail and they are insisting that he go to a treatment center.
Gary: How many times has this happened?
Mother: Many times.
Gary: What have you done before?
Mother: We have paid his fine and got him an apartment.
Gary: Did it work to help him change his behavior?
Mother: Well, his life has been difficult. His ex wife left him and took the kids. So, he started doing drugs again.
Gary: So, it did not work to stop him from drinking and doping again.
Mother: The poor boy hasn't had a chance.
Gary: So, you feel sorry for him?
Mother: I feel so badly when he is in trouble.
Gary: Mrs. Johnson, you had better stop feeling so sorry for you son unless you kill him. What you are doing is called "Enabling or Co-Dependence". In order for a person to be an addict there must be an enabler.
Mother: (Crying) But I can't be so cruel and let him stay in jail with all those criminals. I love him too much.
Gary: What you are doing the Bible calls hate not love. It will eventually kill him unless you stop. You and your husband need to attend Al Anon, a group for families with an addicted relative. Al Anon teaches relatives how to understand their loved ones but stop enabling them. Mrs. Johnson, you need treatment more than your son. Call me after you go to Al Anon.

Gary Sweeten

Building a Representative Democracy

In the last post I spoke about the fact that a representative democracy requires its citizens to learn a high level of interpersonal skills. Interacting with others on issues of great importance push our emotional buttons and tempt us to lose our cool. But, as the Bible says, "Be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to anger for human anger does not achieve the righteousness of God". James 1:19-20

For a long time I have tried to train Christians to listen to one another and learn how to quell their angry emotions as well as successfully deal with conflict. It is not easy to do this but the work is worth the patience it takes to accomplish the goal.

In fact, the scripture clearly calls us to allow the Holy Spirit to develop dynamic crop of healthy interpersonal fruit. In Galatians 5 is a list of intra-personal and inter-personal fruit that St. Paul sees as the core of the mature Christian life. They are:

Love
Joy
Peace
Patience
Kindness
Goodness
Faithfulness
Gentleness
Self Control

Part of my doctoral dissertation focused on relating this list with the positive interpersonal skills found in most counseling and management training manuals. St. Paul's list is remarkably similar to the aspects and attitudes found by psychologists in the most effective influencers.

As we Christians grow in God's grace and mercy toward one another and let go of anger, bitterness and judgmentalism the Spirit's positive aspects will be able to thrive in our relationships. This will inevitably lead to better discussions and happier solutions to family and political problems.

The classes we teach in the USA and around the world enables Christians to speak the truth in love and make better decisions. Our American way of life came out of a Christian background that was soaked in free church dialogue. Authoritarian and state church systems were unsuccessful in the Colonies because the early pioneers were looking for freedom from dictators.

As our ministries grow around the world and touch people unused to healthy decision making we will see increasingly large numbers of believers rise up the ladders of politics, business and education. We promote "A lifetime of great relationships".

Sloppy Agape

The Wall Street Journal recently published a breath taking powerful article by a Quaker woman about a phony baloney conference at Yale University on what was falsely billed as a "Muslim-Christian Conference on Reconciliation". The article ends with these two paragraphs and needs to be read in full to be appreciated.

The cost of a phony love-fest between Christian and Muslim leaders could be high. There is already a great imbalance in knowledge or respect, if not both. As part of our confirmation course, when I was a teenage Methodist in rural Ohio in the 1970s, we were taken not only to a synagogue but to a mosque and learned the basics of both faiths. But the Muslim cleric who lectured to us clearly disapproved of Christianity, and the minister misled him to keep the peace. We don't want to be called Mohammedans, the Muslim huffed; we don't worship Mohammed, who was a man. The minister jumped in to assure him that we were just the same—we didn't call ourselves Jesus-ans or anything like that. I nearly gasped at the lie, but I wasn't bold enough to challenge it.
I'm bolder now. (It's amazing what a decade in Africa will do to you.) And truth in theology while theology approaches politics is worth a bold defense.

Essential to Muslim extremism is the notion that the West is decadent and not attached to its professed values. "Violence will weaken political support for Israel" has a religious parallel: "The West resists adopting Islam only because Muslims do not push hard enough against Christianity." Not to speak up for Christianity with complete honesty sends our Muslim interlocutors home with a time-bomb version of us: either that we have no objection to being like them, or that we are in essence like them already. America has made the mistake of assuming our values are universal, and we may be encouraging the same kind of assumption about ourselves.

Those who want to "reconcile" with Muslims, Devil Worshippers, Hindus, Buddhists often miss the mark. They insist that it is always the Christian's duty to allay the fears and sensibilities of others by telling them untruths and watering down our core values. This is not reconciliation but keeping secrets in hopes of getting along. This approach may skip being uncomfortable in the present at the risk of all out war later.

I am a therapist who has often had to help family members, partners and Christians reconcile. In most cases it requires telling each other the truth and confessing our sins in the expectation of forgiveness. Can that happen without being honest? Can that happen with people who do not believe in sin, guilt, confession and forgiveness?

Gary Sweeten

http://www.sweetenlife.com/

Love and Relationships

Let me tell you a story. Karen and I just returned from lunch at "The Chef's Deli" that is located down the road from us in Sharonville. On the way back we spotted a light truck hauling a long trailer with a long sign painted on the side. It was in large bold letters and announced the evangelistic intentions of the driver. Would you like to guess what it said?


I have been all over the world and talked with Believers of every kind and description from almost every tribe and tongue. I love to hear their stories about how God touched them despite all manner of cultural, mental, theological and religious barriers. In almost every case the barrier busting approach that was most effective had a similar theme: Some kind of caring relationship.


In some cases the story was about how God broke through and showed His mercy, grace and love to an unsuspecting unbeliever. At other times it was a friend or family member who showed the love of God through kindness. In many cases God broke in through a dream, vision or miracle and shocked the unbeliever into his senses.


Of all the cases I know, however, none came as a result of reading a slogan on the side of a truck or trailer. In fact, many people see slogans as offensive rather than loving. I remember a time when some organization was promoting the "I Found It Campaign" and placed "I Found It" signs and bumper stickers all over town. In response, a group of Jewish adherents made signs that said, "We Never Lost It".


The Bible is clear that loving relationships are the greatest way to bring people to faith in Christ. Jesus told the Disciples in Luke 9 and 10 to go out and bless the people around them with love and peace. This is the best way to preach good news. Jesus did not not paint impersonal slogans on wagons and ox carts. Instead he touched people with love and care and healing power.

What is your approach?

Want to know the painted slogan?





Heaven or Hell?





It is your choice!





If people driving next to that truck had read and started to confess and repent of their sins we would have seen massive traffic tie ups and accidents. I don't ever remember hearing stories about that happening at bill boards or bumper stickers. Do you?

A Lifetime of great relationships-With myself!

An article on the blog Out of Ur has the following article that I hope you find challenging to you and the church. Take a look at it and see what you think. Are these of concern to you?

August 12, 2008
Great is Thy Effectiveness?
There’s danger in rooting our identity in ministry rather than in Christ.
Something’s wrong. We pastors are the stewards, the spokespeople, the advocates of a message of hope, life, and peace. And yet so few of us seem to be experiencing these qualities in our own lives. Something’s wrong. In a world saturated with fear, insecurity, and stress, we are to show a different way. And yet those at the center of the church are burning out and leaving ministry at a rate of 1,500 per month. If that’s what’s occurring at the heart of the church, why would anyone on the fringe want to move in closer?

Why is the church so ineffective in ministering hope, peace and joy when these are the fruits of the Spirit and the central issues of the Christian life?

You Can Win

I have written several books and done numerous workshops on topics that emphasize developing

A lifetime of---

GREAT RELATIONSHIPS

Now it is your turn to nominate some person or church or school that is developing great relationships with God, neighbors and self.

Steve Sjogren, for example, developed one of the most original and creative ways to evangelize unchurched folks and it is also a cool but simple way to build GREAT RELATIONSHIPS. Steve calls it, Servant Evangelism and it has taken hold all over the world. (See the blog link)

Who else is innovative and simple in the ways they are training folks to love and care for one another? I am teaching tomorrow night at the Vineyard on building great relationships as parents and grand parents.

The person who offers the best suggestion or makes the best nomination as judged by me, after all I am the king of this blog, will get to choose two of my books as prizes.