Pastoral Course Descriptions
Pastoral Course Descriptions
Redeemed Lives
(RL) is a pastoral course designed to help all people recover from the fall-out of the sexual revolution. It has helped thousands of people overcome sexual issues (including homosexual attractions), identity confusion and relational difficulties. RL integrates insights from Biblical theology, Christian spiritual formation, depth psychology and classical Christian philosophy. RL begins with a day-long retreat called the Shepherd’s Voice, which teaches Christians how to hear from God's voice. From there, RL continues as twenty-six weekly meetings consisting of worship, teaching and small group sharing. Consistent attendance and personal vulnerability in the small group is required for continuation in the RL pastoral course. You can download an application for RL here, which will give you information about start dates and cost for each location where RL is offered. RL is offered in a number of locations worldwide, and is also available online as a video course.
Alive Again
Alive Again is a course on deepening our personal relationship with Jesus Christ. The topics covered equip Christians to embrace progressive sanctification over the life span. Alive Again can be used as an adult education class, an evening teaching series or as a program of discipleship that includes small group ministry.Alive Again is divided into two sections that weave around the central theme of knowing ourselves in Jesus Christ. The first section focuses on applying the work of Christ to the soul. In this section we teach on The Virtue of Hope, Practice of the Presence of God, Holy Father-love, and Sin, the Cross and the True Self. Here we lay a foundation for receiving from God all He has accomplished for us through the ministry of His Son, our Lord Jesus. The second section focuses on growing in Christ over the lifespan. In this section we teach on Redemptive Suffering, Self-Hatred, The Holy Christian Imagination, Applying Forgiveness and Growing in Virtue. Here we address how a life-long relationship with Christ Jesus transforms sinners into saints.
Alive Again is a user-friendly program. Each chapter is designed to be taught in 45 minutes. Added to that time may be prayer ministry either from the front or through small groups. Each chapter comes in three formats. First, the Teachers’ Manual provides extensive teaching notes for each chapter in outline form. As the teacher presents the material, the students learn by hearing. Second, the Student Workbook provides fill-in-the-blank outlines for each chapter. As students listen to the teacher, they write down key words that accentuate the central ideas of what is being taught. In this way the students learn by writing. Third, the Transparency Masters or power point give the answers to the fill-in-the-blanks for the outlines in the Student Workbook. This allows the students to see the central ideas they have just heard from the teacher before they write them down. In this way the student learns by seeing. Hence the student is engaged in three ways of learning: hearing, seeing and writing. If small group ministry is used after the teaching, the student has the added benefit of learning through dialogue and prayer. Alive Again course will find themselves embraced by the Father’s love and hear Him say, "For this son of mine was dead and is alive again, he was lost and is found." Luke 15:24
Returning Sons
(RS) is a program of pastoral care and healing for men and women seeking wholeness in their sexuality. RS consists of ten teachings that are designed to minister to the core of human sexuality. These ten teachings divide into two sections. Section one, Finding Our True Self in God, lays a foundation for discovering our identity in Jesus Christ, in the love of the Father and in the power of the Cross. Section two, Central Issues of Human Sexuality, addresses key aspects of sexuality that must be attended to in order for men and women to find wholeness in their sexuality.
Returning Sons is a starting point for those just beginning their journey into sexual wholeness in Christ. RS is also a middle point for those who have followed the Lord Jesus for a while, but have not yet addressed their sexual issues. Each Returning Sons meeting consists of worship, teaching and small group ministry. In worship we focus on the Lord to find an objective standard outside our thoughts and feelings. Through teaching we learn how the redemptive message of the Gospel is applied to human sexuality. Through small group discussion and prayer ministry we apply to the soul the principles just learned.
The name Returning Sons was inspired by the Parable of the Lost Son, found in the Gospel of Luke. After the son has squandered his inheritance on wild living and sexual immorality, he longs to return to his father’s house. Luke 15:20 recounts, "But while he was yet afar off, his father saw him, and was moved with compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him." Such is the posture of our God to all His sons and daughters who long to return to the Father’s house. There, in the Father’s embrace, we find freedom from the bondage of sexual immorality and freedom for holy living.
Shepherd's Voice
Shepherd's Voice is a pastoral course on praying the Bible and the five forms of prayer found in the Our Father for the purpose of discerning God’s voice. A teaching on The Still Small Voice, showing the biblical pattern of God speaking in quietness to the individual, launches the course. From there, the classical discipline of Lectio Divina (praying the Bible) is taught and practiced. Next come five short meditations with devotional exercises on the prayers Jesus taught His disciples in the Our Father: praise, intercession, petition, forgiveness and thanksgiving. Come with assurance that you can learn to discern God’s voice through His Word and prayer.
Growing In Virtue
Growing In Virtue (GIV) is a pastoral course on Christian formation. Each of the seven teachings are divided into three sections. Section one introduces one of the seven classical virtues: faith, hope, love, prudence, courage, temperance and justice. Section two shows which of the classical spiritual disciplines of abstinence or engagement help that virtue to grow. Section three is an assignment for the following week, that will help the soul grow in that virtue.
There have been periods in history when the very word “virtue” became equated with “personal reputation.” During the late nineteenth century this was certainly the case in upper class society. The characters in novels, such as in Jane Austen’s writings, repeatedly speak of “my virtue.” Virtue for a man was his “manly strength.” Virtue for a woman was her “chastity.” Toward the end of the Victorian era, the use of virtue to describe personal character became synonymous with hypocrisy. In certain social circles, a posture of virtue was shown, but in private something different was practiced. This is not to say that all Victorians had the classic “Upstairs / Downstairs” split popularized by the PBS mini-series. However, by the mid-twentieth century there was an aversion to the use of the word virtue altogether. Toward the end of the twentieth century there was a renewal in the Christian meaning of virtue, thanks to the writings of men like William Bennett and Josef Pieper.
Throughout the centuries the Church repeatedly returns to the seven classical virtues as hallmark qualities of the character of Christ Jesus. These seven virtues are traditionally divided into two groups: three theological virtues of faith, hope and love, followed by four cardinal virtues of prudence, courage, temperance and justice. If we seek to be like Jesus, then His virtuous character must be formed in us. The seven virtues are a starting place for understanding the character qualities of Jesus. The Scriptures and the great teachers of Christendom remind us there are many more virtues in addition to these seven. But, these seven repeatedly show themselves to be the foundation upon which all the other virtues of the Christian faith rest.
I am indebted to Josef Pieper for his writings on the virtues. Years ago, Anglican scholar Dr. Robert Krouse recommended Pieper’s two books on the virtues Faith, Hope and Love and The Four Cardinal Virtues, just as I was about to teach an undergraduate course on the Dynamics of the Spiritual Life for the Christian Education Department at Wheaton College. I combined Pieper’s writings with Dallas Willard’s The Spirit of the Disciplines and discovered for myself how easy it is to grow in Christ if we expend just a mustard seed's worth of faith. Most of the time that is all we have to offer, a tiny portion of faith. Growing In Virtue is the outgrowth of that class, as well as numerous weekend seminars and adult education courses on developing the seven classical virtues by practicing spiritual disciplines.
Growing In Virtue (GIV) is designed to aid the Christian in becoming like Jesus over the lifespan. The Scripture promises us “we shall be like him.” What a glorious promise! Ironically, the acrostic for this program, GIV, is a wordplay on give. To give to God and to others with outwardly directed love and concern for justice toward all are central features of the mature Christian soul. Our inspiration for this promise of becoming like Him is found in
John 3:2-3:
Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when He appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. Everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.
We are to collaborate with the Lord Himself as He graciously infuses us with His righteousness. In collaborating with Him to grow in the virtues, we walk a fine line between faith and works. On the one hand, we are truly saved by faith in Jesus Christ and His righteousness is a grace gift that is worked into our souls as we follow Him. On the other hand, the Scriptures clearly teach, “if faith is not accompanied by action, it is dead.” James 2:17
However, in choosing to become more virtuous we are not earning our salvation through our own efforts. Salvation is accomplished alone through the work of Christ on the Cross and is a free gift given to any who will faithfully call upon His Name.
Our collaboration with the Lord to encourage the growth of virtue in the soul is an action of faith. I know of no better way to grow the soul in holiness than through the use of the spiritual disciplines. The practice of the disciplines of abstinence and engagement help the character of Christ to grow in us one virtue at a time. There are at least seven disciplines of abstinence: solitude, silence, fasting, frugality, chastity, secrecy, and sacrifice. And, there are at least eight disciplines of engagement: study, worship, celebration, service, prayer, fellowship, confession, and submission or holy responsiveness. By selectively choosing which disciplines to practice, we can also choose to grow in one of the virtues. That is the modus operandi of Growing In Virtue. Each of the teachings on the individual virtues ends with a section on Suggested Spiritual Disciplines To Grow in This Virtue.
Pastoral Response to Homosexuality:
Mario Bergner gives a one hour lecture at Northern Seminary in Chicago on the various theological, psychological and scientific understandings of homosexuality. Woven in this teaching is Mario’s testimony of his journey out of homosexuality and into heterosexual identification.
