Michael R. Emlet, M.Div., M.D. practiced as a family physician for 12 years before joining CCEF as a counselor and faculty member. Mike holds an M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania as well as a Master of Divinity degree from Westminster Theological Seminary. He has authored the mini-books: Asperger Syndrome; Help for the Caregiver; OCD; and Angry Children, and has just released his first full-length book: CrossTalk: Where Life & Scripture Meet.
“Knowledge is power.” How many times have we heard that phrase? As Christians we really don’t believe it. Or do we? In this final installment of a series using Zack Eswine’s book Sensing Jesus as a launching pad, I am looking at the temptation toward omniscience, to be a “know-it-all” in life and ministry. Ever since the serpent tempted Adam and Eve to be like God by eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, we humans have had a skewed view of knowledge.
What is your response in life and ministry when things just don’t seem to change? When you labor and sweat and pray, “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” and that prayer seemingly goes unanswered? When after meeting months with a struggling couple they decide to divorce? When your friend’s depressed son commits suicide? When a relationship ends without reconciliation? Are you surprised? Undone? Angry? Fearful? How are you tempted to react?
Parenting so often can feel confusing and overwhelming. We want Biblical wisdom and yet we are not sure where to turn. This bundle contains refreshing, honest and wise counsel directly from Scripture on how to approach our children with God’s agenda and not our own.
In this series of posts I am reflecting on Zack Eswine’s recent book, Sensing Jesus: Life and Ministry as a Human Being. His thesis is that life and ministry is about apprenticing with Jesus to recover our humanity and to help others to do the same. He notes that too much of life and ministry is spent grasping after those things that only God himself possesses.
Sometimes a book grabs you by the scruff of your neck and shakes you around a bit. Or strikes a chord of kindred experience that stirs a poignant ache, a longing for something different. Zack Eswine’s fine book on being a pastor, Sensing Jesus: Life and Ministry as a Human Being (Crossway, 2012) is doing just that—and more—to me. This is an important book for anyone in ministry and I plan to riff off of some of his thoughts in a series of posts over the coming weeks.
Michael Emlet explores the interrelationship of behavioral habits, beliefs, and desires. Habitual actions matter in our sanctification, whether seemingly mundane (brushing your teeth), or seemingly unproblematic (going to the mall), or presumably serious (participating in worship). This article incorporates a review of James K. A. Smith’s Desiring the Kingdom in the context of Emlet’s larger exploration of the significance of habits for counseling.
Same-sex attraction. Homosexuality. Too often the church responds to these struggles with an embarrassed silence--don’t ask, don’t tell--or an angry tirade that produces more division then unity. The result: the individual who struggles with same-sex attraction or who has engaged in homosexual practice feels isolated, confused, and condemned, their own silence and shame perpetuated. As a community of redeemed people who are “tempted, tried, and sometimes failing,” how can we address these struggles with grace and truth?
Writer Anne Lamott has called perfectionism “the voice of the oppressor.” That’s what it feels like: days filled with “must” and “have to” and “should have” and “if only.” Life is a treadmill of obligations. And that’s true whether you are (for the moment) “successful” in your perfectionistic striving or (more commonly) “unsuccessful.” Either way, anxiety, guilt, shame, joylessness, self-condemnation, anger, and procrastination abound. This breakout session will explore the roots and effects of perfectionism and will examine the ways this mindset impacts our view of God, self, and others.
