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The Limits of Therapy: Why a Counselor Can't Replace Your Community (Benjamin Matthew) · Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture

0:01
Speaker 1: The world is becoming increasingly proficient at telling stories that
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Speaker 1: deny God. As such, we need Thinking Christian to become
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Speaker 1: as natural as breathing. Welcome to the Thinking Christian Podcast.
0:11
Speaker 1: I'm doctor James Spencer, and through calm, thoughtful theological discussions,
0:16
Speaker 1: Thinking Christian highlights the ways God is working in the
0:18
Speaker 1: world and questions the underlying social, cultural, and political assumptions
0:23
Speaker 1: that hinder Christians from becoming more like Christ. Now onto
0:27
Speaker 1: today's episode of Thinking Christian.
0:30
Speaker 2: He called to make a difference in mental health.
0:32
Speaker 1: Columbia International University offers graduate counseling degrees that combine professional
0:36
Speaker 1: excellence with Biblical truth from associates. Through doctoral program, CiU
0:40
Speaker 1: prepares you to bring healing and wholeness to others through
0:43
Speaker 1: a biblically based framework of compassion and care. Whether it's
0:47
Speaker 1: their k CREP accredited Masters in Clinical Counseling or their
0:51
Speaker 1: PhD in counselor Education and Supervision, You'll learn from experience
0:55
Speaker 1: faculty who integrate faith with real world application to cultivate
0:58
Speaker 1: a Kingdom impact through disciples who counsel, teach, and train.
1:03
Speaker 1: Whether you're starting your journey or advancing your career, CiU's
1:06
Speaker 1: counseling programs equip you to serve others both professionally and spiritually.
1:11
Speaker 2: Visit CiU dot edu.
1:13
Speaker 1: To learn more about making a difference in mental health
1:15
Speaker 1: through christ centered education.
1:17
Speaker 2: That's CiU dot edu.
1:21
Speaker 1: Hey everyone, welcome to this episode of Thinking Christian of
1:23
Speaker 1: doctor James Spencer, and I'm joined by doctor Ben Matthew.
1:25
Speaker 2: He is a.
1:26
Speaker 1: Professor of counselor education at Columbia International University, and today
1:31
Speaker 1: we're going to be talking a little bit about the
1:33
Speaker 1: limits of therapy in a collapsed culture. And so, Ben,
1:38
Speaker 1: you work with a lot of people in a therapeutic setting.
1:41
Speaker 1: You're still not only training future counselors, but you are
1:45
Speaker 1: yourself a counselor. And so I guess I'm just wondering.
1:48
Speaker 1: You know, Well, let me frame it like this. I
1:52
Speaker 1: talked to actually a couple of other people from CiU,
1:55
Speaker 1: a couple of your colleagues, and one of the things
1:57
Speaker 1: they noted was that often they feel like a paid friend.
2:01
Speaker 1: I think, actually, I've had this conversation too. It's like
2:05
Speaker 1: they're not really dealing with these sort of upper tier
2:08
Speaker 1: psychological challenges.
2:11
Speaker 2: What you're dealing with is more.
2:13
Speaker 1: If I can make the analogy like people keep coming
2:16
Speaker 1: in with the sniffles, and what you're really equipped to
2:19
Speaker 1: do is deal with you know, the flu or you
2:23
Speaker 1: know some other you know, upper tier problem. I assume
2:27
Speaker 1: you experienced that as well, And I'm wondering what do
2:30
Speaker 1: you think that says about the limits of therapy, the
2:34
Speaker 1: limits of counseling within today's world.
2:36
Speaker 3: Yeah, now I appreciate that. Uh. For the record, I
2:40
Speaker 3: think for a second year you were about to announce
2:42
Speaker 3: me as the professor of counsel education. Hey, I'll take
2:46
Speaker 3: it if I need, with all due love and respect
2:50
Speaker 3: to my colleagues here. So yeah, you know, it's a
2:53
Speaker 3: really interesting, uh reality that I engage with sometimes with
2:57
Speaker 3: my clients. This is the phrase that sometimes I'll hear Ben.
3:00
Speaker 3: You know, honestly, if we weren't doing counseling, I would
3:03
Speaker 3: love to just hang out with you and you have coffee. Okay,
3:07
Speaker 3: So aside from the ethical parameters that need to be
3:10
Speaker 3: implicated into that and the encouragement, like, honestly like the
3:15
Speaker 3: fact that nice it is nice that there's a resonance,
3:18
Speaker 3: there's a certain connection that we feel that Yeah, I
3:22
Speaker 3: totally could hang with you and just enjoy your company. Yeah,
3:27
Speaker 3: So there's encouragement on one hand, but at the other hand,
3:30
Speaker 3: I'm like, yeah, but dude, you're spending a lot of
3:32
Speaker 3: time and money for this, Like this is If this
3:35
Speaker 3: is what you're wanting someone to hang out and have coffee,
3:38
Speaker 3: there are a lot better ways and places and resources
3:41
Speaker 3: to evilizes to get that right now. Again, I don't
3:46
Speaker 3: usually get into that with my clients. I don't unless
3:48
Speaker 3: it's something that we kind of go towards. But there
3:50
Speaker 3: is this growing, if I can call it, this non
3:54
Speaker 3: concern in the back of my mind that sometimes clients
3:58
Speaker 3: are just coming in just because they don't have really
4:02
Speaker 3: anyone else to talk to about life and struggles, and
4:05
Speaker 3: I want to be there. That's I love. I feel
4:08
Speaker 3: so blessed to be able to enter into that space.
4:11
Speaker 3: But to the whole point of what this whole series
4:14
Speaker 3: that you and I have been talking about, there are
4:15
Speaker 3: these larger structural issues that it brings to mind that
4:21
Speaker 3: we've now collapsed, meaning making societal engagement down to therapeutic
4:28
Speaker 3: point within an office with one individual, that where I
4:31
Speaker 3: should be finding all these things, where I should be
4:34
Speaker 3: engaging in community to find larger response to life's crises.
4:41
Speaker 3: Is now being done within a model of mental health
4:45
Speaker 3: that I'm both thankful for that were are at least
4:48
Speaker 3: someone they can talk to, But to be honest, deeply
4:52
Speaker 3: concerned about that we're in a lot of ways the
4:54
Speaker 3: only one that people can talk to. There's something about
4:58
Speaker 3: that that that again, I think it's been a recent shift.
5:02
Speaker 3: There has been a destigmatizing of mental health within the
5:06
Speaker 3: past so many years. There's a certain health to that.
5:10
Speaker 3: I'm thankful for that. I think it helps more people
5:13
Speaker 3: engage with the process. The unintended consequence to some degree
5:18
Speaker 3: is that because it's a little more destigmatized, people think,
5:22
Speaker 3: not only can I but that's kind of the only
5:24
Speaker 3: way I can get the help I need. It's the
5:26
Speaker 3: second part that concerns me. It's the belief that it's
5:31
Speaker 3: only in mental health spaces I can get the help
5:33
Speaker 3: that I need to find meaning to combat loneliness, to
5:37
Speaker 3: find a friend that I can have coffee with. I'm like, oh,
5:41
Speaker 3: that says something more about our society, not just the
5:43
Speaker 3: individual across from me.
5:45
Speaker 1: So I got a little bit of a curve ball
5:47
Speaker 1: based on what you just said. So in the spirit
5:50
Speaker 1: of throwing your curve balls and just seeing if I
5:52
Speaker 1: can bait you into saying something crazy. No, you know,
5:57
Speaker 1: I look out at the landscape and I see counseling,
6:01
Speaker 1: and I've I've only ever gone to counseling. And let
6:03
Speaker 1: me maybe give you an analogy. Right, my daughter, Let's
6:10
Speaker 1: say she got injured, not very seriously doing gymnastics, and
6:13
Speaker 1: so one of the recommendations was to send her to
6:16
Speaker 1: a chiropractor. And I'm thinking to myself, well, why would
6:19
Speaker 1: I send her a chiropractor when I could send her
6:21
Speaker 1: to a physical therapist, you know, like.
6:25
Speaker 2: Like that's that within the medical field.
6:28
Speaker 1: And that range like they've got you know, everything from
6:32
Speaker 1: you know, an acupuncturist to maybe a massage therapist, right
6:36
Speaker 1: who do manipulations on the body.
6:38
Speaker 2: And you know those kind of things.
6:40
Speaker 1: And you've got sort of the chiropractice is sort of
6:42
Speaker 1: in the middle, right, and then you've got physical therapists, right,
6:46
Speaker 1: and you can almost use them, I hate to say it,
6:50
Speaker 1: almost interchangeably on some level.
6:53
Speaker 2: And so as I think about.
6:54
Speaker 1: Counseling, one of the things that I found interesting. I
6:57
Speaker 1: was just at a conference here like two days ago,
7:00
Speaker 1: and they were talking, you know, biblical counseling, which is
7:02
Speaker 1: really just an exhirtation from the Word of God, and
7:04
Speaker 1: people are trained to do this somehow. I don't really
7:07
Speaker 1: know a ton about it, but it's not integrated Psychologically's
7:11
Speaker 1: put it that way. You've got spiritual directors who are
7:14
Speaker 1: kind of popping up, and that's getting more and more popular. Coaching, right,
7:20
Speaker 1: these sort of quasi unregulated slash completely unregulated professions that
7:26
Speaker 1: are now what I would say, maybe in the mix
7:30
Speaker 1: with this same layer of people you're dealing with in
7:36
Speaker 1: this sort of friend based counseling mode. I don't know
7:40
Speaker 1: if I've described that well, but a good point. And
7:43
Speaker 1: so what I guess I'm.
7:45
Speaker 2: Wondering is part of it is it's great I think
7:50
Speaker 2: that you have spiritual.
7:51
Speaker 1: Directors and coaches and all these other different kind of
7:53
Speaker 1: people who are now available to also be paid friends.
7:57
Speaker 2: It kind of takes the pressure off of therapy.
8:01
Speaker 1: But it's also part of the problem, isn't it.
8:05
Speaker 3: Oh, this is my shooting myself at the foot by
8:07
Speaker 3: admitting this. I don't know, because this is part of
8:12
Speaker 3: the dilemma I feel, because I have this doctrine of
8:15
Speaker 3: stewardship that informs a lot of what I do, not
8:18
Speaker 3: just clinically as a professional counselor as a professor, as
8:23
Speaker 3: just a human, we are called to give an account
8:27
Speaker 3: for the time and resources God gives us, and we
8:29
Speaker 3: will be held account to the Great Judge one day.
8:33
Speaker 3: Part of that that implicates itself into then when I
8:36
Speaker 3: sit across from someone and they respond that way, we
8:39
Speaker 3: make a connection. It's helping them, It's it's helping them
8:42
Speaker 3: regulate symptoms and develop coping strategies. Like these are all
8:46
Speaker 3: good things that therapy does, but it doesn't have to
8:49
Speaker 3: be just through me. And then I sit there, I'm like,
8:52
Speaker 3: am I being the best steward of this time these resources?
8:56
Speaker 3: I don't know if I am. And in ways that
9:00
Speaker 3: it implicates this other issue that is so lacking, and
9:04
Speaker 3: that to me is where I keep on coming back here. Yeah,
9:07
Speaker 3: it's not just that the problem is that we are
9:09
Speaker 3: available life coaches, you know, therapists or different different levels
9:16
Speaker 3: of social workers. I think there is a place and
9:19
Speaker 3: time for those realities, and I think that's what we
9:21
Speaker 3: do well. Right, I'll speak specifically to my construct of
9:27
Speaker 3: professional counseling. We can provide some helping coping, right, We
9:31
Speaker 3: can provide some response, particularly in trauma informed contexts. Right,
9:37
Speaker 3: there are some good behavioral and relational things that we
9:40
Speaker 3: can bring to bear that helps the individual kind of
9:43
Speaker 3: cope in extraordinary situations. So obviously I'm not diminishing that
9:49
Speaker 3: as a viable and good perspective to be utilized in
9:54
Speaker 3: caring for people. But I'm getting the sneaking suspicion that
9:58
Speaker 3: more and more of what's happen thing in mental health
10:02
Speaker 3: is more of a friend zone of sorts that because
10:07
Speaker 3: it's highlighting what's lost, what's being lost in what should
10:11
Speaker 3: be a normative part of human life, that is community connection,
10:16
Speaker 3: shared meaning working together in both relational and physical spaces
10:23
Speaker 3: at times. I mean part of the growth of digital therapy.
10:26
Speaker 3: I mean, that's another whole area we can get into,
10:28
Speaker 3: is digital therapy and what that looks like. And again,
10:31
Speaker 3: I'm maybe continuing to shoot myself in the other foot
10:34
Speaker 3: at that point. But there's this gnawing concern that I
10:37
Speaker 3: have that are we just kind of adding to the
10:41
Speaker 3: problem just because we can. I don't necessarily know it
10:46
Speaker 3: means if we should, if it's continuing to create more
10:51
Speaker 3: of a problem in the larger constructs that are missing
10:54
Speaker 3: out for human engagement.
10:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, because I guess what comes up to me. This
10:59
Speaker 1: is a little bit plain Devil's advocate maybe, But it's
11:03
Speaker 1: interesting to me number one, that you know, you're having
11:05
Speaker 1: this proliferation of people who will talk to you, right,
11:09
Speaker 1: And I could pay someone to talk to me, right,
11:12
Speaker 1: not like you know, I could pay a therapist, I
11:14
Speaker 1: could pay a spiritual director, I could pay a coach.
11:16
Speaker 2: I could pay you know.
11:17
Speaker 1: And it's just strictly like, I'm not in an executive
11:20
Speaker 1: level position and i want an executive coach to help
11:22
Speaker 1: me through some rough spots, right. It's more like I
11:25
Speaker 1: need a friend right now. And so, as opposed to
11:28
Speaker 1: turning Surrey on and asking her a series of questions,
11:31
Speaker 1: I'm going to go and meet with Ben, right, and
11:34
Speaker 1: Ben's gonna be my buddy for an hour a week, right,
11:37
Speaker 1: And I know it's gonna cost me, but it's not
11:38
Speaker 1: really that much more than a movie, and it's gonna
11:40
Speaker 1: be okay, right, you know, like that sort of mentality.
11:45
Speaker 1: But I'm wondering if there isn't based on the way
11:49
Speaker 1: our culture is gone, if there isn't just more underlying
11:52
Speaker 1: trauma and mental health problems that are now creating this
11:58
Speaker 1: proliferation In other words, when people are like unable to
12:03
Speaker 1: as we've talked about in previous episodes, convey their sadness,
12:07
Speaker 1: articulate their sadness, when they're unable to find any sort of.
12:11
Speaker 2: Stable meaning in.
12:13
Speaker 1: Their lives, when they're overly anxious about what's going to happen.
12:17
Speaker 2: We are seeing a lot of turbulence in.
12:19
Speaker 1: The world right now, and so I'm wondering as these
12:23
Speaker 1: people are coming in, Yes, they're friends, but are you
12:27
Speaker 1: also seeing sort of an odd uptick in the level
12:32
Speaker 1: of mental health problem that your quote unquote friends might
12:35
Speaker 1: be having.
12:36
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I think to think through that is important
12:42
Speaker 3: because the issues that are coming to bear. I want
12:47
Speaker 3: to be careful how I say this, are are real
12:51
Speaker 3: for the person, yes, but they're not really that big, okay,
12:57
Speaker 3: in the sense that if we can provide them some
13:02
Speaker 3: stability in relationship, stability in context of community, if there's
13:07
Speaker 3: a way that we can provide these other things that
13:09
Speaker 3: are so lacking in our cultural social context. Again, I
13:13
Speaker 3: want to give space that it really affects them, but
13:16
Speaker 3: these are not These are not life altering issues that
13:22
Speaker 3: you need specialized help for all the time. Sometimes maybe,
13:26
Speaker 3: but we're getting to a point in our society where
13:28
Speaker 3: we're now because we've so destigmatized mental health, we think
13:33
Speaker 3: this is not just the first, but the only response
13:36
Speaker 3: to get the help that I need. So I do
13:38
Speaker 3: find myself getting to the point with some clients and
13:41
Speaker 3: asking that question, trying to be respectful and ethical in
13:44
Speaker 3: the engagement. Is my space as a professional counselor the
13:48
Speaker 3: best place to deal with these? And the question that
13:51
Speaker 3: often comes back is, well, then who am I going
13:53
Speaker 3: to talk to about this? Like that's a great question
13:56
Speaker 3: to ask, And my hope is that actually exactly exactly
14:02
Speaker 3: where I'm like, let's look through that a little bit
14:06
Speaker 3: and see where that needs to be developed. And by
14:08
Speaker 3: the way, that's going to take some work. It is
14:11
Speaker 3: so much easier just for you to come to my office,
14:14
Speaker 3: plunk down the fee, we'll meet for the hour, and
14:17
Speaker 3: you're done. Man, I will schedule it for you. I
14:20
Speaker 3: will give you a receipt at the end. Like it
14:22
Speaker 3: is easy, peasy, right, no problems whatsoever. This other thing
14:28
Speaker 3: that you probably need that takes a lot more time
14:30
Speaker 3: and effort and energy, and it's not nearly as easy.
14:34
Speaker 3: And yet when I hear a client say that, like,
14:38
Speaker 3: where else am I going to talk to people about
14:39
Speaker 3: these things. I get excited because I think that's exactly
14:44
Speaker 3: where that needs to move. More so, not for all,
14:47
Speaker 3: but for some to a certain degree, because they need
14:50
Speaker 3: to build in those communal contexts that I think actually
14:53
Speaker 3: give the right place, the more normative space, if I
14:57
Speaker 3: can say it that way, for how to deal with
15:00
Speaker 3: some of these struggles in life?
15:02
Speaker 2: So what would you say some of those?
15:05
Speaker 1: And somebody says, like, I've always been a guy who
15:09
Speaker 1: doesn't have many friends, right, just confession time, Right, So
15:13
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm gonna pump you for a free therapy
15:15
Speaker 1: session basically, And so I just don't. I don't tend
15:20
Speaker 1: to keep a lot of friends, right, Like I have
15:24
Speaker 1: a small group of people that I would count as
15:26
Speaker 1: my real friends.
15:27
Speaker 2: And then that's about it, right.
15:29
Speaker 1: And so if I can't get one or more of
15:32
Speaker 1: them on the phone in any given day, right, if
15:35
Speaker 1: I can't grab coffee with somebody, right, I don't have
15:38
Speaker 1: a big I don't have a lot of resources beyond those.
15:45
Speaker 2: Let's say.
15:47
Speaker 1: So let's say I'm coming to you, and I say, well,
15:49
Speaker 1: who would I talk to about these things?
15:52
Speaker 2: Right?
15:53
Speaker 1: How do you help counsel people to actually build those
15:56
Speaker 1: relationships intoday's world.
15:59
Speaker 2: Like, uh, you know, it was a running joke.
16:02
Speaker 1: When I was at an academic dean some of the
16:05
Speaker 1: young ladies would occasionally ask.
16:08
Speaker 2: Me for dating advice. I have no idea why, but
16:10
Speaker 2: I would tell them the same thing every time. I'm like,
16:13
Speaker 2: my wife and I were high school sweethearts.
16:14
Speaker 1: So the only advice I could give you is, you know,
16:17
Speaker 1: awkwardly stand by our locker and ask for the dance.
16:19
Speaker 2: I did, Like, I don't know anything else.
16:22
Speaker 1: It'll worked for me, right, And so like, I think
16:25
Speaker 1: a lot of the things that I would be able
16:27
Speaker 1: to tell someone, like where to go to find friends, right,
16:32
Speaker 1: those are well gone.
16:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, like they're not there anymore. And so how do
16:38
Speaker 2: you how do you counsel people to walk through that
16:40
Speaker 2: a little bit?
16:40
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was talking to one of my kids about
16:43
Speaker 3: the mall the other day. Right, if you could just
16:47
Speaker 3: see like this confused look on their face, Like what
16:51
Speaker 3: you actually went to a physical place, not necessarily shop,
16:55
Speaker 3: but just to hang out with hanging out people? Yeah,
16:58
Speaker 3: like yeah that was I mean the food court, go
17:00
Speaker 3: see a movie maybe with a job, and we'd see,
17:03
Speaker 3: you know, these girls going up the escalators, so all
17:04
Speaker 3: of a sudden, we need to go down the escalator
17:06
Speaker 3: and make these incidents. It was a whole thing, right right,
17:10
Speaker 3: And I could see my kids just like, why would
17:13
Speaker 3: you do that?
17:15
Speaker 2: Exploding?
17:16
Speaker 3: It did not comprehend it at all because to them
17:19
Speaker 3: it just seems so foreign to engage into a place,
17:23
Speaker 3: a particular place in time to then help encourage those
17:28
Speaker 3: relationships to actually move into to use your idea. Rather
17:32
Speaker 3: than standing by her locker room, I would find my
17:36
Speaker 3: space next to you know, the record store or whatever.
17:40
Speaker 3: Oh you you like you too? So do I look
17:42
Speaker 3: at that right right, that those places, those those social
17:48
Speaker 3: spaces are becoming less and less to a certain degree,
17:53
Speaker 3: what I am encouraged by. I do think there is
17:55
Speaker 3: a recognition to somebody. I just I saw this with
18:00
Speaker 3: a university recently as they were advertising one of my
18:04
Speaker 3: sons in university and the other one's about to start.
18:06
Speaker 3: So we're getting tons of university flyers, and one of
18:09
Speaker 3: them came in talking about how they have essentially shared
18:14
Speaker 3: spaces that are intended to be digital free. So one
18:20
Speaker 3: of the advertisements to eighteen year olds, given their marketing
18:24
Speaker 3: research and some of the things they're realizing is that
18:27
Speaker 3: they're intended to say, we want to be intentional about
18:30
Speaker 3: building space to be able to engage. Now, I know
18:34
Speaker 3: that's not for everyone. I know that's not going to
18:36
Speaker 3: be an opportunity, but I am encouraged that I think
18:38
Speaker 3: there is a movement afoot where people are recognizing we
18:41
Speaker 3: do need to be intentional. So I'll say, even here
18:43
Speaker 3: in the town I'm in, what I often tell people
18:46
Speaker 3: is find out what you love and find other people
18:50
Speaker 3: that love it. Find out what you love and find
18:54
Speaker 3: out what other people love it as well. And if
18:57
Speaker 3: you can use that as a at least starting point
19:01
Speaker 3: and use your online Like if you love needle point
19:05
Speaker 3: and bag pipes, I guarantee you there's a website out
19:09
Speaker 3: there that could probably find So I literally was just
19:12
Speaker 3: talking about something about this yesterday. He actually that's why
19:15
Speaker 3: bag pipes came to mind. He plays the bag pipes
19:18
Speaker 3: all right, like he is a really good bag pipe player,
19:21
Speaker 3: And he said the community that he's found within our
19:25
Speaker 3: town of bag pipe players is pretty small, but they're
19:29
Speaker 3: very close. And so even in the most obscure interest,
19:35
Speaker 3: I'm realizing that most communities are starting to develop these spaces,
19:40
Speaker 3: whether it is for high schoolers going into college, or
19:43
Speaker 3: whether it's just the average Joe or Josephine that are recognizing.
19:47
Speaker 3: As much as we can find a face group, group,
19:51
Speaker 3: Facebook group online, how much better if we use that
19:55
Speaker 3: website to say, hey, we're meeting here at this time.
20:00
Speaker 3: A friend of mine just told me about a ukulele
20:01
Speaker 3: group that's meeting at a local brewery strums and brews,
20:07
Speaker 3: and so, if you love beer and if you love
20:10
Speaker 3: ukulele or want to learn how to you, there is
20:12
Speaker 3: a literal group that meets every Tuesday night at this
20:16
Speaker 3: local pub just for that purpose. Wow, I look at
20:22
Speaker 3: opportunities like that. Where again, it is so you mentioned
20:26
Speaker 3: this earlier, James. We have so renormalized our constructs, our
20:32
Speaker 3: social that it just seems so cultish like to then
20:36
Speaker 3: enter into what it looks like of what's now should
20:39
Speaker 3: be the norm. It seems so abnormal. It's gonna feel.
20:43
Speaker 3: And so what I do with my clients when I
20:44
Speaker 3: hear them ask those questions. I need to let you
20:47
Speaker 3: know here's the way to do it, and it is
20:49
Speaker 3: gonna feel really weird. Here's what we can do in therapy.
20:53
Speaker 3: How do I help you manage the weirdness? So you
20:56
Speaker 3: can still enter into the goodness. It's not a matter
20:59
Speaker 3: of avoiding the weird. It's actually saying, how can I
21:02
Speaker 3: build resilience and what is now just feels so odd
21:06
Speaker 3: and foreign, but have the belief that's still better. Yeah,
21:10
Speaker 3: find what you love, find others that love it, engage
21:13
Speaker 3: with the opportunity. No, it's going to be weird, but
21:15
Speaker 3: let's build resilience to actually enter into that. That's a
21:18
Speaker 3: step in the right direction that gives you at least
21:21
Speaker 3: some context to be able to move into what I
21:24
Speaker 3: think is serb in this's largest systemic realities of how
21:27
Speaker 3: we've become so isolated and apart from shared meeting that
21:31
Speaker 3: creates this existential dread that is just so endemic within
21:35
Speaker 3: our culture today.
21:36
Speaker 2: It's interesting.
21:37
Speaker 1: I did this conference over the last day or so,
21:41
Speaker 1: and I met a few people there, and I remember
21:43
Speaker 1: walking away from a couple of conversations.
21:45
Speaker 2: Just in my head going, oh, that was awkward.
21:50
Speaker 3: That was good.
21:52
Speaker 2: That was awkward.
21:53
Speaker 1: But at the end of the day, I'm like, you know,
21:54
Speaker 1: these are the things that I need to do, Like
21:56
Speaker 1: I need to go out and actually meet other human beings,
22:00
Speaker 1: regardless of the awkwardness. But you definitely got the I
22:03
Speaker 1: was like, wow, right, this is awkward. This was wow.
22:08
Speaker 2: It wasn't just the other person, it was me too,
22:10
Speaker 2: Like it was I was both bad. It's like wow,
22:12
Speaker 2: that was just yeah.
22:14
Speaker 1: I mean I wanted to say it just like name
22:16
Speaker 1: it awkward.
22:20
Speaker 3: And I kind of imagine I mean, again, I'll pull
22:23
Speaker 3: on your expertise here, but the fact that Jesus pulls
22:27
Speaker 3: in someone like the Disciples, right, people that on paper
22:32
Speaker 3: should really have no reason to be together. Right, you
22:36
Speaker 3: have a zealot that's also you know, working with a
22:40
Speaker 3: tax collector. There's no reason those two people should be
22:45
Speaker 3: anywhere near. I mean, talk about someone saying, well, that
22:47
Speaker 3: was awkward. I didn't think he was going to be
22:49
Speaker 3: at this meal. And yet the awkwardness that we talked
22:54
Speaker 3: about this earlier, that the struggle through it is actually
22:57
Speaker 3: a means of actual growth both yeah, maturity sanctification through
23:03
Speaker 3: the process. I wonder to what degree even the Disciples
23:06
Speaker 3: is a a bit of a paradigm for consideration of
23:09
Speaker 3: how do we I don't think you need to have
23:12
Speaker 3: one hundred and twenty or seventy, maybe not even twelve,
23:16
Speaker 3: but there is circles of influence that Jesus had with
23:20
Speaker 3: his disciples of closeness, even had one that was you know,
23:25
Speaker 3: on his bosom, as it were, in terms of the closeness,
23:29
Speaker 3: it wasn't always about the numbers, but it was about
23:32
Speaker 3: the intentionality who he connected with. I gotta wonder if
23:36
Speaker 3: there's something there that we can pull on as an
23:38
Speaker 3: exemplar for what we want for today as well.
23:42
Speaker 1: So let me ask just one other question, because I
23:44
Speaker 1: find this to be I'm going to use myself as
23:47
Speaker 1: a paradigm for other people, which is always a little scary.
23:50
Speaker 1: But you know, we have we have four kids. My
23:56
Speaker 1: son is a twenty year old, he's in college. My
23:58
Speaker 1: two daughters are seventeen twins, and they play lacrosse. We
24:01
Speaker 1: travel for a lacrosse an awful lot. And then we
24:04
Speaker 1: adopted a five year old. So we've decided to make
24:08
Speaker 1: our lives more chaotic and so so part of what
24:13
Speaker 1: I what I find as my wife and I are
24:16
Speaker 1: both still employed and have you know, jobs that are
24:19
Speaker 1: fairly busy in and of themselves that it's like who's.
24:22
Speaker 2: Got the time?
24:23
Speaker 3: Yeah? Right, yeah?
24:25
Speaker 1: How do you do you run into people who just
24:28
Speaker 1: have that sort of like cadence of life kind of
24:31
Speaker 1: stuff where it's like, no, I can have work friends,
24:34
Speaker 1: I can have colleagues, I can interact with my kids
24:37
Speaker 1: and obviously my wife, but I don't really have a
24:40
Speaker 1: lot of time for anybody else.
24:42
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is where my cynic comes out a little.
24:45
Speaker 3: Be honest. Now, I need to temper that in the
24:47
Speaker 3: therapeutic moment. I need to earn the right to enter
24:51
Speaker 3: into the cynicism. Let me say this way. Every Sunday,
24:57
Speaker 3: I think because on my iPhone, I have a screen
24:59
Speaker 3: time report that comes up and it shows me how
25:02
Speaker 3: many hours I've spent on my phone, tells me what
25:05
Speaker 3: apps I've been on my phone, it tells me specifically
25:08
Speaker 3: how many times I've picked up my phone. The research
25:13
Speaker 3: is quite clear. We are we have the most luxury
25:17
Speaker 3: time ever in human history than any other civilization, the
25:23
Speaker 3: amount of time we have. Now again, I want to
25:26
Speaker 3: I want to meet them at their perception in that
25:29
Speaker 3: I'm so busy. I don't want to deny that as
25:32
Speaker 3: a reality. That yes, work, family, church, demands of community,
25:37
Speaker 3: those are all pressing for our attention. And we have
25:42
Speaker 3: more luxury time afforded to us as a civilization than
25:45
Speaker 3: has ever happened in human history. The technologies that we've advanced,
25:51
Speaker 3: the structures that we've created, affords to us more time
25:55
Speaker 3: on our hands than we've ever had. And that's proven
25:58
Speaker 3: to me on a weekly based when I get that
26:00
Speaker 3: screen time report. And so that's why I say the
26:04
Speaker 3: Inner City comes out a little where when someone says
26:06
Speaker 3: to me, I just don't have the time, I'm like, Okay, listen,
26:09
Speaker 3: unless you're like the Pope and you've got literally like
26:12
Speaker 3: every minute scheduled out of your life. Yeah, and most
26:15
Speaker 3: of us aren't, or the president or some other high
26:19
Speaker 3: dignitary that literally does have their entire schedules mapped out
26:22
Speaker 3: for them. Right, The question is not do you have
26:26
Speaker 3: the time? The question is what are you putting your
26:27
Speaker 3: time into? Right, And you've probably heard the expression you
26:31
Speaker 3: can find out what you love by two things right,
26:33
Speaker 3: your calendar and your checkbook. The question is are we convinced?
26:39
Speaker 3: Are we not just theologically and cognitively convinced, but are
26:42
Speaker 3: we affectionately convinced that this thing called community, this thing
26:46
Speaker 3: of intentional stepping into awkward places and go on, that
26:50
Speaker 3: was weird, like all the messiness of relational connection is
26:55
Speaker 3: actually better, not just good, but better because I think
27:00
Speaker 3: that will then reorient how I use my calendar, how
27:03
Speaker 3: I use my time, in a way that actually helps
27:06
Speaker 3: people say it's not that I have a lack of time,
27:08
Speaker 3: it's just where I'm putting my time to begin with. Yeah,
27:11
Speaker 3: that's I would argue ninety five percent of us we
27:14
Speaker 3: have the time. It's just how we then position it
27:18
Speaker 3: in a way that again looks different for different people.
27:21
Speaker 3: Like you said before, it doesn't mean that you have
27:23
Speaker 3: to have tons of friends necessarily, you need to have someone,
27:26
Speaker 3: you need to be intentional somewhere in a way that
27:30
Speaker 3: says there are some people, some key people in my
27:33
Speaker 3: life that I can really count on in a reciprocal fashion,
27:37
Speaker 3: both that can rely on me and I can rely
27:39
Speaker 3: on them as well. But I think that that that's
27:42
Speaker 3: a reordering of not just our time, but our passions
27:45
Speaker 3: to then correlate to the time.
27:47
Speaker 2: It's interesting.
27:48
Speaker 1: I mean, I've had that discussion with so many organizations
27:51
Speaker 1: when I consult, because their way of saying we don't
27:54
Speaker 1: have the time is we don't have that kind of resource,
27:57
Speaker 1: right and like you do, you actually do. You're just
28:00
Speaker 1: spending it over here like you've got it. You just
28:04
Speaker 1: you're spending it in all the wrong places, I mean, right,
28:07
Speaker 1: and so I mean I think.
28:08
Speaker 2: That's a really good a really good word. But like.
28:12
Speaker 1: I I tend to agree with you. I don't have
28:15
Speaker 1: the screen time thing on my phone. I'm not going
28:17
Speaker 1: to because I don't want to know. I'm happy to
28:19
Speaker 1: be blissfully ignorant. Yeah, I don't need to know that information.
28:23
Speaker 1: But h but no, I mean it makes intuitive sense
28:27
Speaker 1: to me that for ninety five percent of people, you know,
28:30
Speaker 1: when they're really saying I don't have enough time, what
28:32
Speaker 1: they're really saying is the way I've allocated my time
28:35
Speaker 1: brackets out friendships and community exactly.
28:37
Speaker 3: You know, it's a great way of saying it, exactly.
28:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, that's funny. Well, any other like pro tips.
28:46
Speaker 2: I mean.
28:48
Speaker 1: I think that, you know, getting back involved in church
28:52
Speaker 1: intuitively seems like what I'd want to suggest to people.
28:56
Speaker 1: I don't want to say, hey, go get involved in church.
29:00
Speaker 1: But then I kind of sit back and I'm like.
29:04
Speaker 2: Well get involved.
29:05
Speaker 1: How yeah, right, because it's easy to get involved in
29:08
Speaker 1: the church and be like, you know, busy yourself with
29:11
Speaker 1: something in the church and never actually make any real connections.
29:15
Speaker 1: You're just like the door greeterer, and so you say
29:17
Speaker 1: hello to everyone who comes in or you're you're working security,
29:22
Speaker 1: and unless somebody mouths off, you don't have to do
29:24
Speaker 1: anything with it, you know what I'm saying, Like, there's
29:26
Speaker 1: all these different ways where you can be involved and
29:29
Speaker 1: still not actually engage anything.
29:32
Speaker 3: You can be really really involved and still really lonely.
29:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, kind of like we talked about previously. I mean,
29:38
Speaker 1: even small groups. I think it's sort of like that.
29:41
Speaker 1: It's like, and I don't have anything against small groups,
29:44
Speaker 1: but I would say, just for me, it's easy for
29:48
Speaker 1: me to use that as a checkbox and go, well,
29:51
Speaker 1: I went to small group this week and just sort
29:53
Speaker 1: of be there and relatively checked out because I don't
29:56
Speaker 1: really enjoy it as much as I think other people might.
29:59
Speaker 2: And I'm not you know what I'm saying, Like, I.
30:03
Speaker 1: I think part of it is just I'm a huge geek,
30:05
Speaker 1: and so a lot of times I have trouble setting
30:08
Speaker 1: that aside in a context where we're studying the Bible,
30:10
Speaker 1: like I lose myself and right, I would take total
30:16
Speaker 1: blame for it, right, but there's just something about being
30:20
Speaker 1: in that small group and and like, you know, you're
30:22
Speaker 1: looking at this passage, and I'm like, I wonder what
30:24
Speaker 1: the Greek says there, like.
30:28
Speaker 2: Like I know no one else wants to know that.
30:30
Speaker 3: I was just say, you're saying no one else is
30:32
Speaker 3: asking that question.
30:33
Speaker 2: No one else is asking that question.
30:34
Speaker 1: But in my head, that's where my head goes, and
30:36
Speaker 1: so they don't tend to work.
30:39
Speaker 3: Well for me.
30:40
Speaker 2: I'll say it like that.
30:41
Speaker 1: Those are like it's almost a lot of effort for
30:44
Speaker 1: me to be there and be present, and that's challenging.
30:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, so yeah, what would you what would you suggest?
30:52
Speaker 1: Like, is there a way to be involved in church
30:55
Speaker 1: again that sort of find what you like or find
30:57
Speaker 1: what you love.
30:57
Speaker 2: And find other people who love it kind of ideas?
31:00
Speaker 2: Is that sort of similar within the context?
31:02
Speaker 3: I think so, right, And I think this is the beauty,
31:05
Speaker 3: the struggle, and the beauty of the local church. Right.
31:07
Speaker 3: When Paul talks about different members, different abilities, different different gifts,
31:12
Speaker 3: I don't think I don't think I try to dig
31:16
Speaker 3: into that enough at times. Let me give you an example,
31:19
Speaker 3: I too, am a self proclaimed geek. I like geeking
31:23
Speaker 3: out on stuff like that. I think this is why
31:25
Speaker 3: I enjoy coming to your podcast, because I love these
31:27
Speaker 3: conversations that. I tell it to my wife later, She's like,
31:30
Speaker 3: and he did them on purpose? Like, why what would
31:33
Speaker 3: you do that for? Gas? I love it. I there's
31:38
Speaker 3: something about me finding people in the church that are
31:40
Speaker 3: non geek. I need the non geeks in my life
31:43
Speaker 3: to round me out, to sanctify me, to rub off
31:46
Speaker 3: those hard edges. And I also love finding the other
31:50
Speaker 3: geeks in church. Yeah, there's something about that that just
31:55
Speaker 3: enlivens my heart in a way that helps me then reckon,
31:59
Speaker 3: I what can I bring to the table. Here's something
32:02
Speaker 3: that they're bringing the table. There is this mutual joy
32:05
Speaker 3: that we find in this geekdom of whatever it is
32:08
Speaker 3: that we're talking about, right, And that doesn't have to
32:12
Speaker 3: be that for me. It's also music. I love involving
32:15
Speaker 3: myself in the ministry of music in the local church.
32:19
Speaker 3: I'm not a great musician, but I love getting together
32:22
Speaker 3: with good musicians and utilizing that common shared language of
32:27
Speaker 3: music in a way that just builds my soul up
32:30
Speaker 3: in a way. And so similarly, when I hear other
32:33
Speaker 3: musicians that don't do it well, I'm like, ugh, really like,
32:37
Speaker 3: oh man, that's hurting my soul. And I need that
32:42
Speaker 3: because I need to then how do I temper patience
32:44
Speaker 3: and long suffering and all those other things. But there's
32:47
Speaker 3: something about finding other people and the loves that you
32:50
Speaker 3: have that again, Yeah, I keep on referencing Lewis. A
32:55
Speaker 3: good friend is when you find someone else and they
32:57
Speaker 3: say you two, and you find someone that likes the
33:01
Speaker 3: same things you like and you make this bond. Or
33:04
Speaker 3: as Jerry Seinfeld says, when you walk outside your front
33:08
Speaker 3: door as a little kid, is you live here too,
33:10
Speaker 3: Let's be best friends. And that's how you form your
33:12
Speaker 3: early friendships is because you are in this proximity of right,
33:16
Speaker 3: this is where we're living. I kind of imagine there's
33:18
Speaker 3: something about that that that we need to kind of
33:21
Speaker 3: push into as well. Find the ones that you resonate with.
33:26
Speaker 3: Know that it's not the entirety of the church, and
33:28
Speaker 3: you need to res as we're engaged with others. That's
33:31
Speaker 3: take a place to start right to find the things
33:34
Speaker 3: that you really love, really can either geek out on
33:37
Speaker 3: or play with others, or engage in ways that go
33:41
Speaker 3: beyond just attendance. Being there that really engages your mind
33:47
Speaker 3: and heart as a good place to start as well.
33:51
Speaker 1: Very cool, Well, I think those are some good ways
33:54
Speaker 1: that we can kind of ease our way into, well,
33:58
Speaker 1: not ease our way into, maybe ease our way out
34:00
Speaker 1: of therapy, and sort of said, why don't I try
34:03
Speaker 1: some of these tears first?
34:05
Speaker 2: Let me go make a friend.
34:06
Speaker 1: Let me find somebody in my proximity who's also loved
34:10
Speaker 1: sarcasm and you know, wry humor and in the.
34:15
Speaker 2: Off the Bible, right in the office, right. Let me
34:18
Speaker 2: find that.
34:18
Speaker 1: Person and and develop some relationships before I decide No,
34:24
Speaker 1: I have something more serious I need to deal with,
34:26
Speaker 1: and this does require some therapy. I think that's a
34:29
Speaker 1: good word. And because I don't think it's sustainable the
34:33
Speaker 1: way that we're using therapy or even spiritual directors or
34:37
Speaker 1: any of those things, I just feel like those are
34:41
Speaker 1: and not to put design and maybe you'll disagree with this,
34:44
Speaker 1: but the word that comes to mind, it's like we're
34:46
Speaker 1: creating a transactional economy around getting self help. And I
34:51
Speaker 1: don't think that's what it's intended to be.
34:54
Speaker 3: No, it's it's intended it's meeting the need. Yeah, but
35:00
Speaker 3: it's not good to sustain the need.
35:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, Yeah, that's a good way to put it.
35:05
Speaker 3: I think we need to be here to help in
35:07
Speaker 3: the moment of struggle of both depression and or existential dread. Listen,
35:13
Speaker 3: I think there's a place for that. If we continue
35:16
Speaker 3: to look at the mental health industry and all its
35:18
Speaker 3: corollaries as the only main way to sustain that, I
35:22
Speaker 3: think we're in a world of hurt because it's not
35:25
Speaker 3: it's not structured, it doesn't it can't provide the resources
35:29
Speaker 3: to sustain those larger, onto logical issues. So it's a
35:34
Speaker 3: good place to meet the need, it's not a great
35:36
Speaker 3: place to sustain the need.
35:38
Speaker 2: That's perfect.
35:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's good, Ben, Well, thank you for your perspective
35:42
Speaker 1: on this. Really appreciate you thinking it through with me.
35:45
Speaker 1: And we'll call it an episode there. We'll come back
35:48
Speaker 1: next time. We've got some other topics we're going to
35:51
Speaker 1: be discussing. But the next one's going to be around
35:53
Speaker 1: addiction and numbing and some new some of the new
35:55
Speaker 1: drug trends, and so we're going to dive into that.
35:58
Speaker 1: I know that there are a lot of Christians who
36:00
Speaker 1: have questions around these issues.
36:03
Speaker 2: Used to be a much bigger.
36:03
Speaker 1: Deal, I think within Christianity and using these sort of
36:07
Speaker 1: drugs to alter your brain, now we sort of alter
36:10
Speaker 1: our brain all the time and we don't even think
36:12
Speaker 1: about it, so that's fantastic. But we'll dig into that
36:15
Speaker 1: a little bit in the next episode. But thanks for
36:17
Speaker 1: being here, Thanks everybody for listening. We'll catch you on
36:20
Speaker 1: the next episode of Thinking Christian. I just want to
36:24
Speaker 1: take a second to thank the team at Life Audio
36:26
Speaker 1: for their partnership with us on the Thinking Christian podcast.
36:29
Speaker 1: If you go to lifeaudio dot com, you'll find dozens
36:31
Speaker 1: of other faith centered podcasts in their network. They've got
36:34
Speaker 1: shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting, and more.