Dale Johnson: This week on the podcast, I have with me Dr. Sam Stephens and Dr. Francine Tan. They’re going to help me answer some questions from our listeners, and I’m so excited about these episodes and the ways we get to engage with so many of our listeners. It’s so helpful to know that you’re listening, paying attention, that it’s stimulating your thinking, that you have follow-up questions, you’re willing to ask those, and we want to engage some of those today.
I want to start with this one, guys, as we think about a very real scenario, and this happens all the time. I think this is a great question, and it’s not a hypothetical situation. The listener is asking for us to give them some talking points for a very particular situation. A family member that announces that they are involved in secular therapy. This secular therapy, they want to know what is an appropriate response for a biblical counselor when this happens. I can see this happening at Thanksgiving dinner, or Christmas dinner, or Sunday afternoon dinner, or in the foyer at church, or lots of different places that I know I’ve experienced this same thing.
So, let’s throw that question out there. A family member is now engaged in secular therapy. They’re openly talking about this to their family, and what’s a proper response? Where do we start? What are some good talking points? I’ll just throw that out there to you guys.
Sam Stephens: I think the first one probably is you don’t have to approach it from a biblical counseling apologetic and diatribe right off the out front. I think when I tend to hear these types of things, the first thing I actually think about isn’t even that they’re going to a secular therapist, it’s that they’ve identified some sort of problem in their life, and I want to seek to be a good steward with what they’re sharing with me. There’s a reason they’re telling me this, right? Hopefully it’s not to get a reaction, and that shouldn’t be what I’m known for.
But maybe it’s just because they want to share with someone that they’re struggling. And I usually think in that moment, whatever context I’m in, if it’s in a public setting, or if it’s over dinner, or what have you, how can I appropriately listen well? Apply the same things that we practice in biblical counseling with that person. Listen well, pray for them. And depending on how close of a relationship I have with them, maybe in that conversation or maybe some ones down the road, I can begin to help provide some biblical perspective to those types of things.
Dale Johnson: Yeah, very helpful. Francine, thoughts?
Francine Tan: Yeah, I would even start with, if the family member’s not a believer, then it’s a wonderful opportunity for the gospel. Ephesians 1 says that we were once strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. So that’s all of our disposition apart from Christ.
So, if the person is not a believer, they need the gospel. They need to reframe the problem in light of a bigger problem, which is their need for forgiveness before a holy God. If that family member is a believer, that’s also your thinking on any topic is gonna flow out from your worldview. So what is your view of God? What is your view of sin, sanctification? What is discipleship like in your church? Have you been ministered to well? Have you sought out your pastor? And we are not called to suffer alone. So, even seeing that as an opportunity to bring the word to bear to that person’s life.
Dale Johnson: Yeah, I think we can all acknowledge that a moment like this happens. And we love biblical counseling so much that instinctively, we want to talk about how beautiful and wonderful it is. But Sam, back to your point, I think it’s really important that we say, you know what? Right now is probably not the best moment for us to do an all-out apologetic, right?
So I think about it in terms of when a person comes into my office to see me for counseling and they’re on some medication, it’s sort of a very similar approach. I’m not going into, you know, everything I know about psychopharmacology and the history of it and the effects of it. I mean, I’m not doing that, right? Because that’s not the moment.
What’s really important, Sam, which I think that framework that you built is what they’ve just acknowledged, no matter where they’re going for help, is they’ve acknowledged that there have been some issues that have arisen in their life that they’re very uncomfortable with. And this creates now an opportunity for you, not in a formal way, but an opportunity for you to move in close to a person that is hurting. And they’re reaching out for help. Whoever they’re reaching out to is a cry for help. And I think it’s an opportunity then to listen, hear close what’s going on in their life.
I would start asking some very good questions to talk to them about maybe what occasion brought this up, or have you ever done anything like this in the past, or what was your first session like, or what was the final straw where you were just like, man, I got to go talk to somebody? You know, just normal conversation like that that gets them started, where you can start to hear some of the context of what’s actually happening in their life. And as that relationship dictates, as you mentioned, as that relationship dictates, it allows you to either move in closer, ask more pointed questions, give more context about how what they’re wrestling with is to be understood biblically.
But again, none of that has to happen in a five-minute conversation in front of ten other people. Just you’re demonstrating concern for the person, you’re moving in close, finding out what is it that they’re crying for help about, and that can be just a very helpful conversation starter. It opens the door that you actually care about that, whatever it is that they’re dealing with in their life, that you’re open to that, it’s not awkward to you.
Because listen, here’s the reality. When somebody mentions that in public, whether it be four or five family members or ten, there could be lots of reasons why they’re sharing that. And for most people in the room, that’s awkward. And they don’t know what to do with it. And they don’t, they don’t know what to say. They just sort of distance themselves, well, I’m glad I know that about you, we’ll just move on.
But if you’re engaging then, because you don’t have to be afraid of any of that, it’s just real human problems that a person is dealing with, you can move in close. And who knows that that relationship that you begin at a deeper level, who knows how they’ll circle back.
Maybe in three months, they come back and, you know, I was doing this therapy thing and they were wanting me to do this, this, this, and this, and I just, it wasn’t super helpful. And now they start talking to you, you know. So, who knows where that relationship could go in the ways in which you respond immediately. Not we’re going to jump into apologetic mode. We got to win them to biblical counseling. Let me tell them all the reasons why secular therapy is terrible. Moving close to the problem. I think that was a great point.
Sam Stephens: I think actually this has happened to me now that I think about it in terms of, I’ve had people share with me their experiences with secular therapy. Maybe they were going to a counselor and I don’t know if they were telling me that to get any kind of particular response out of me. I think they were just, they were close friends. They were telling me.
And again, to your point and what I said earlier, I just listen, I pray, depending on my closeness of relationship. There’ve been a few in the past where I’ve actually not even sought to dissuade them from that. Although depending on the depth of the conversation, I would seek to do that because obviously counseling matters and where it’s coming from matters. But I would just seek to actually apply what I know in the Scriptures to them. I would resource them, hey, have you read the Gospel Primer? Let me give you some helpful resources.
Actually, without them even being aware, I’m helping reorient the way they think about their problem. And I’ve actually had a few people come up to me and again, I haven’t intentionally sought this out saying, I really appreciate the way that you have regularly prayed for me. You’ve asked me how I’m doing about these things and my secular therapist doesn’t, I mean, they’re a nice person, but I’m paying them a lot of money in some situations for a 50 minute/hour once a week. And can we get some coffee, could we sit and talk about this? I’d like to, I’m interested. I want to know what the word says about this. I didn’t even think about this as a spiritual problem.
And so that winsomeness, but I think the intentionality was saying, hey, I love you. I care about you. And the word has something to say about this.
To Francine’s point too, the gospel infuses all of this. Don’t approach it from a, I’ve got to get my weapons of warfare ready. No, just love them as Christ loved them. And if you do that, the truth of the Word will prevail. And I think they’ll notice the difference between your loving biblical care and the secular corporate professional care from a secular therapist.
Dale Johnson: Yeah, because reality is that when you move in close to someone like that and you show genuine interest, care and concern over their, some of their deepest problems, that’s unusual in the world we live in. It’s very unusual. We don’t mind maybe showing sort of outward empathy or some sort of like overt concern, just that that’s sort of showy. That’s normal in our culture. But when you have somebody who genuinely cares about something you’re walking through, that’s unusual. And people remember that and they’re hungry for that. So, moving into that relationship.
Let me, I’m going to push back in sort of a way that the question was asked because we do know, right, that whatever they’re going to get from a secular therapist is going to be infused with jaded thinking, unhinged ideas away from concepts of truth. It’s going to cater to the self. There are legitimate concerns about that, okay? While I’m not going to in that moment scream, you know, that person is just going to lie to you, there are things that I’m thinking about in the backdrop, okay?
So, my understanding that secular culture in the type of therapy that I know they’re probably going to hear, I have a framework of what they’re going into and what the therapist may say to them or how the therapist may frame some of these ideas.
So, my questions are going to be driven sort of in that way. Like what do you think is going to be helpful? What are the things that you’re actually searching for? What do you hope the counselor is going to help you with? How are they going to help you assess this? Or if they’ve been to a session, like what’s the strategy been?
And if the person is open, you carry on that dialogue and you learn a little bit more about how they’re assessing the problem, how they’re thinking through the problem. It’s not, you know, I’m just going to burst in and say like, look at all the ways the therapist is going to lie to you. I’m just going to show genuine interest.
And at the places that I’m given opportunity, I’m going to show them how the Bible explains whatever it is they’re walking through better than the way this therapist is framing it or the way our culture is framing it or the way they understand it. And sometimes that can be done, as you mentioned, Sam, by resourcing, right? Biblical counseling literature is written in a certain way, and it’s written with common framework applied to lots of different problems that we face in life. Anxiety, depression, scrupulosity, whatever. There are a lot of opportunities that you could provide maybe a different perspective if they’re willing to hear some of that.
Sam Stephens: And some of those, first off, the biblical counseling literature is growing in great ways. And there’s going to be conversation starters too, right? You just hand a small booklet geared towards helping a counselee think about these things. Well, what are the scriptures? How can I please God? How can I spiritually thrive in the midst of whatever this is? And it can prompt a lot of great conversations.
So again, if we’re looking for easy inroads for developing further conversations, if there’s openness, that’s one way to do it. But I think your point’s well taken too. We’re definitely not diminishing the concern because as a pastor, I served as a lay elder for three years.
I’m deeply concerned about my flock and the people that they may go see in a secular therapeutic culture. I have no guarantee to assume, nor should I assume, that they’re giving them biblically grounded counsel. That’s most likely not happening for sure.
Dale Johnson: Yeah, definite reframing. Francine, any thoughts on that?
Francine Tan: Yeah, I would also say just speaking from a younger generation, those who are seeking therapy is not often a crisis situation. Nowadays it’s just, why not? Let me see a therapist because it’s like a friend and that’s the first person they confide in. And so I think it also speaks to the detriment of how the church is caring and how important it is then going back to discipleship in the context of a local church to have meaningful relationships in the church that they don’t share. And so, then the disconnect of like the problems that they have to it is still always a spiritual need of God and His Word and the gospel.
So, I would say even like just, you know, framing that of like coming alongside, and that’s every counseling situation, right? You’re not bringing everything to bear on topic X, but what’s the most important thing to help them see? What does the Word say? How to give help? And even encouraging friendships within the church.
Dale Johnson: Yeah, I love it. And let me just close out this particular one by kind of summing up some of the things that we talked about.
For a lot of people when they hear somebody’s going to therapy, it is common, right, in our culture. But it also makes people feel awkward. But for a biblical counselor, you don’t have to feel awkward. You’ve sat in lots of sessions. You’ve heard lots of different stories. You’ve seen some of the underbelly of humanity in the inner man. You know what life is like. You’ve experienced some of that yourself, right?
So, we don’t have to be afraid of any of that stuff. We can move in close in a way that’s just radically different. And I think those are important aspects where we don’t have to be afraid. It doesn’t have to be awkward to us. We’re willing to engage at the level they’re willing to engage in.
And as they ask questions, being willing to offer answers from a biblical perspective. And that’s helping to reframe, reshape. I’ll give you one instance where I’ve had conversations like that with individuals. I did not press them super hard. I was just asking questions. And later, three, six months, I can’t remember, they come back to me and they start asking more questions. Because I didn’t say anything super profound in my initial conversation with them. I was just an interested party that they were hurting, and I wanted to hear about it.
They go out. It was not very successful. They thought it was actually a waste of time and money. And they come back to me and start asking questions. And it’s like, wow, okay, that’s really interesting. Because a lot of people in their framework, they don’t think about the church first, Francine, to your point. They don’t think about the church being first.
And so, they may not be just excluding Christ, even though practically that’s what’s happening. But in their minds, they don’t see it categorically fitting in that world. And so, trying to engage that, and then show them along that Christ speaks a lot about this. The Word speaks a lot about what they’re wrestling with in their life, and gives opportunity to them speaking to their heart.
Paul Tripp used to use the concept of entry gate. He was talking about unbelievers. But even to believers, where there’s an entry gate, where you can demonstrate the beauty of the Word in its explanation of human experience. And when we can do that, that’s the stuff that satisfies the soul. And ultimately, that’s what people are longing for when they’re searching out therapy, no matter what kind they’re looking for. We can help give answers to some of those and do it in normal, genuine relationship as you move close to the hurting.
