Chaplaincy Classes Start September

NEW JERSEY INSTITUTE OF THEOLOGICAL STUDIES

Pastoral Counseling and Pastoral Education
"Helping people make sense of the puzzles of life."

Are you interested in becoming a Hospital Chaplain? Do you desire to receive training in Pastoral Care Ministry? Well give us a call if you are (609) 346-8343

Every Friday at 6pm till 10pm we are training men and women in an introduction to CPE (Clinical Pastoral Education)

Next 8 Week Session Starts Second Friday in Sept. 2007
Where: Cooper Trauma Hospital
Camden NJ
Meeting in Room 802 at 6PM

Point of Contact: Chaplain Mark H. Stevens, M.Min

Why Pastoral Counseling vs. standard counseling?
We believe that all problems come as a result of the condition of the heart. If the heart is right with God our relationships will reflect that. Pastoral Counseling exists to help, exhort and encourage individuals in a closer and more personal relationship with God. Once a better relationship with God exists, then the function of Pastoral Counseling is to help the client understand who they are in Christ, their purpose, calling, and how to get there.
We have found that the only way to be truly happy in life and fulfilled is to go in the direction that God has called us to as individuals and as a body. In doing so relationships will be better, people will be healed, lives will be changed, families will become more focused, and we will all begin to work together as one body with many parts. In doing so, theses changes in us will be seen in our communities as we will all become more sensitive to the plight of others.
Who Comes to Counseling?
· Individuals
· Couples
· Families
· Those who are searching
· Those seeking premarital and remarriage counseling.
· Those seeking education and consulting
· Life changes i.e. career, marriage or aging
· People in Debt and not sure what to do
· Manage sudden changes and loss
· Others of all faiths
People who recognize any of these conditions:
· Persistent anxiety, or unhappiness
· Depression
· Anger or bitterness
· Poor self-esteem
· Addictions
· Overreacting
· Overspending
· Codependency
· Spiritual crisis
· Stress
· Relationship difficulties in family or at work
· Grief and loss
· Unfinished business in one's life
· Adult children of dysfunctional families
People looking for Spiritual guidance
· Wanting to have a closer relationship with God
· Marriage enrichment
· Desiring community and support
· Life after divorce
· Single parenting
· Marriage preparation [pre-marital counseling]
· Discovering their gifts for service
· Seeking direction for their lives
· Or Just Wanting to Learn "How to Stop The Nonsense in Our Lives."

Discernment

Discernment is more than the work of an individual person. The Spirit acts within the gathered believers (the Church) so they can discern what to do and be. Within that context, specific persons may be given the gift for leading the church as it discerns. Such gifted people are given a 'spiritual eye' for cutting through facades and confusion, for getting to the heart of the matter. They listen closely, notice what's happening in the world around them, and instinctively know what place it has in God's plans. Someone who's gifted in discernment of spirits can find where evil lurks in good things, and where the Spirit is working when things are going wrong.
When the church was starting out, there was only one way she could learn the faith: on her feet. The church had to learn while she was doing. The Spirit had to teach the Christians how to love at the same time as moving them to act on that love, teaching them mercy at the same time as empowering them to live merciful lives.
Christians sometimes forget that what we teach and discuss is inevitably our own understanding of Scripture. Other understandings, if drawn from Scripture and open to be judged by Scripture, are possible and even faithful.
That's why it's so valuable to have the input from 2000 years of churchgoing Christians (tradition) and the billion Christians of today (fellowship). Meaning springs out of life; the Spirit's way is lived and experienced. Even more: it is lived and experienced by being a part of those who believe in Jesus and his good news, a Body whose members are formed and shaped in this way, as found in Scripture. That community teaches each other, recalls history, shares their experiences, and affirms each other's value. It (sometimes) has the strength to say no and to get each of us to amend our understandings and change our ways when we're going astray, and to show a more excellent way in all things.
When you're being checked by the church, you're being checked by others who have also done patient, prayerful, steady study of Scripture. The Spirit didn't give a sense of God's purposes only to you but also to others, in a slightly different way for each of them. If they didn't study God's ways, they won't have that sense, and thus are a less trustworthy part of the discernment process. (You'll never find out one way or the other unless you listen carefully, and have the guts to put away any defensive reactions you might have.)
Church actions should be set up to discern the right direction before it acts, to keep effective tabs on it while it acts, and to debrief after it acts, taking whatever disciplinary actions or clarifying lessons are needed. Do this, expecting that the Spirit will lead, if really asked and really given a chance to lead.
One drawback of the church's role in discernment is that it is made up of people. (It's a benefit in more ways, but here's one way that it's also a drawback.) People are strange, and sometimes do wrong. They are not all-knowing, and have badly-damaged understandings. They can be fooled. People love to be sweet talked, to be showered with puffery and to get their egos stroked. They push aside what's bad news for the camp they're in. It's easy to become a yes-man or to get stuck in the 'no' position. These facts must be kept in mind when discerning with the church. But remember too that these things are also true of you. Your role in discernment requires checking and re-checking and cross-checking, and so does the church's.
Neither you nor the communicated Word nor the Church local or universal are the bridge between the biblical events and our putting the Word into living effect. It is the Holy Spirit's doing.going up...
Having Yourself Held Accountable
Like everything else in this world, our discernments are bound by our imperfections and thus can be false or shallow or merely mistaken. But it helps greatly to have the right attitude toward it :
· Make sure you can be held accountable by specific trusted people, on small things as well as large ones;
· Allow those others to actually do it. Don't fight back nor blindly accept, but pay attention and be a servant about it;
· Be ready to hold others accountable, if need be - even if that makes you uncomfortable.

Dealing With The Devil

Pentecostals believe very strongly in aiming directly at the Devil and his works. Sometimes, that's a must. However, there are many problems with using the 'frontal assault' approach by itself. For instance:
The thing they are attacking may not be Satanic; it may just seem so. We need to understand why a person is the way they are. For example, mental disturbance may look like it's made by the devil, but usually it isn't. Instead of going off condemning people and popular culture, we need to find out why something that seems demonic is so popular. What is the symbolism touching in us that gives it so much effect? It'd be easier to get teenagers away from dabbling in the occult if we really thought about what the occult is appealing to in the teenage mind.
It takes time to develop a relationship of trust with those who are unknowingly doing or supporting the Devil's work. It takes time to show love, and it takes time for that love to be trusted. They're people, and none of them are beyond the reach of Christ's love.
Some people don't really let themselves feel the ugliness of spiritual warfare. They actually want to see spiritual combat, see devils lash out and experience extended struggles with sensational happenings. To them, it's a swashbuckling adventure, and they're the heroes. But think of real guns-and-bombs war here : the carnage, death, destruction, and hatred -- there are some who find that exciting, too. They need to grasp the truth of how horrible such things are.
Satan's work is not at all simple. It goes on at all sorts of different levels from all sorts of thoughts, people, movements, and happenings. Hit it from only one angle, and the Devil works all the other angles that much harder.
So, direct attacks on a work of Satan have their place, but not by themselves. A badly-aimed attack is like a mischosen drug that can kill the patient.

RECONCILIATION AND REPENTANCE
"People who fight fire with fire usually end up with ashes."--- Dear Abby (Abigail vanBuren)

One of the things that is hard for a nation or a society to do is to come to grips with the evils it has done. It tries to make excuses, saying 'it was the best choice we had at the time' or 'we didn't know better', or 'we did what we were told', or 'that was our ancestors, not us'. The Bible says that there's a tie-in between what we know and what we are responsible for (for instance, Heb 10:26), and this is true of whatever groups, cliques, neighborhoods, ethnicities, classes, and races we are in, no less than for each of us as a person. There is also a tie-in between what we know that we are responsible to know, and what we are responsible for; deliberate (or even benign) ignorance is no excuse. Historically, it's always been very easy for us to plead ignorance, but very hard to really get to believe it ourselves, because the truth is out there and some will see it, eventually toppling the house of cards that backs its evils.
When the powers in a society willfully and unjustly harm people, the Holy Spirit is disarmed from working through those powers, since the Spirit is not one to use force to take control. The Spirit can often still be at work anyway, through believers from among the victims of the injustice. Those victims are, after all, the ones who need the binding of wounds and the caring and the feeding and the teaching, the ones who need the support of a powerful God.
But it does not do for a Christian to sit back and scream ruddy murder. That does nothing to transform things or to make them better. The Spirit equips each believing Christian with gifts and skills, and opens doors of opportunity for using those gifts and skills in witness and service to other people. I believe that the New Testament holds within it the key to rebuilding the societies we live in. But it won't be found by developing full-scale social ideologies (which fail, and in any case will turn into socio-political idols). It will be found by looking at the example of Christ, the words of the Prophets, and the letters of Paul.
When I look at all the conflicts in this world, open and sub-surface, I think of Christ. Christ had a way of turning the tables on the world -- and I don't just mean at the Temple. Christ stressed love, honesty, justice, diligence, active caring for others, and reconciliation. Christ made it clear that the relationship with one's neighbors was the key sign of the health of one's relationship with God (see especially Mt 5:21-24). Our societies need Christ's kind of reconciliation more than ever. Paul was even able to speak of Christians having a ministry of reconciliation. He set that ministry into the context of what Christ did in bringing us back together with God; thus, reaching people with the gospel message is the most important aspect of this ministry of reconciliation. Yet, the other part of a reconciliation ministry is that Christ liberates us all to live in solidarity with God and each other. I think a vision of reconciliation is the most important gift that Christian believers can give to the world and the political systems right now.
Indeed, the ultimate reconciliation is already under way, that between God and God's entire fallen creation. Unlike in the responsibility chain above, God (the one who did NOT commit the sin or ruin the relationship) takes on the full role of the responsible One, and has brought it to the point of forming a new relationship. As usual, God did it, we didn't. If God waited around for us to do it, it would never happen, for we are irresponsible. That's what got us into this bind to begin with.
"Every act of forgiveness involves at least three elements:
We rediscover the humanity of the person who has wronged us, seeing that individual as a human being, not just as the one who offended us;
We surrender our right and desire to get even or punish the person;
We revise our feelings toward the individual and are open to a new relationship built on mutual respect.
Seeing the person differently allows our feelings to change."---- Lewis Smedes
"Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future."---- Paul Boese

WHAT IS A FAST?
Fasting is part of the faith life of religions old and new all over the world. In a fast, the believer chooses, for a set time, to do without something that is hard to do without. This is done so that it does not come between the believer and God, so it cannot act as a god over that relationship and over the life of the believer.
Usually, the fast is to do without food. Food is one of the great blessings of God in our lives, a true pleasure and a true necessity. But humans tend to be gluttons; we want to eat more. Our hunger can compel us, force our hand, occupy our thoughts. When we have anything in our lives that we don't or can't say no to, then it is lording over us. But God is Lord; if something else takes up God's place in our lives, it is an idol, and we are living in something akin to idolatry. Fasting helps to bring it back into enough control for us to surrender it to God so it can be returned to its rightful place in life. Food is the foremost example of such a thing.
You can fast from some foods, and not others. You can fast from watching television, having sex, and buying pleasure items, even from buying ordinary stuff. You can fast from hobbies you crave, places you are unhealthily drawn to, music, books, news, and movies. You might even find it necessary to fast from use of the Internet -- though please don't start until you're done using this site. :-) If you can be described as a 'junkie', 'freak', or 'fanatic' about something, that's a good thing to fast from. For most people in North America, and the upper classes all over the earth, the most important fasting may be to fast from being a consumer of goods, for our role as a consumer consumes us spiritually. For Catholics, fasting for Lent is one of the most enduring hallmarks of their tradition.
Fasting In Repentance
1 Samuel 7:6 (national); Joel 1:14; Jonah 3:5-9 (Nineveh); Mark 2:18 (re John the Baptist's followers)
how does this work? You realize that what you did was very wrong. Doing things that way is destructive; it harms others, and thus yourself. Wrongdoing blocks the value you have as a person; it adds to you a hellishness that saps you spiritually. To repent is to reject this hellishness.
What does fasting do that furthers the repentance/healing? Fasting is a discipline. By doing it, you change your way of living for a while, taking away something very basic to the body's health. The whole You enters into [ or 'experiences' ] the unwholeness that your sin creates. Things are not right, and feeling that unrightness through the discomforts of hunger helps to firm up your resolve not to do it again, a resolve to live a different kind of life.
Leviticus 16:29-34 (Yom Kippur), done "that you may humble your souls", and Numbers 29:7-11.
Fasting and Obeying God
"First, let [fasting] be done unto the Lord with our eye singly fixed on Him. Let our intention herein be this, and this alone, to glorify our Father which is in heaven."------- John Wesley, as found in the collection *Sermons On Several Occasions* (Epworth, 1971), p.301
If one of the purposes of fasting is to bring yourself to obey and follow God, then what can fasting mean when life after fasting does not bear the marks of such obedience? In the face of a nation that fasted and wailed before God as if they were holy, but did not live Godly lives, the prophets spoke of the kind of 'fasting' God wanted. Or, as Isaiah said, especially 58:6 :
"Isn't this the fast that I want :to loosen the bonds of wickedness,to undo the bands of the yoke,to let the oppressed go freeand break every yoke?"
The disciples often did not fast at the usual times specified by the Jewish faith. (This was so very different from the Pharisees and the followers of John the Baptist, who would fast regularly.) This was not done to make a point about fasting, but a point about Jesus, since Jesus' coming was God's response to the pleas of all those who had been fasting in repentance and for God to rescue them. Jesus spoke little of fasting, and when he did, it was about the right spirit to fast in. Jesus spoke more often about feasting, comparing the Kingdom of God to a banquet. This was foreshadowed by Zechariah, who prophesied that one day the solemn fast days of the Jewish faith would become "cheerful feasts". Not that Jesus was against fasting. He himself fasted and faced the temptation to use His power to get food to break His fast. He spoke of the role of fasting and prayer in healing and in casting out evil spirits.
The early church expected those who fast to give away what they would have eaten, either in money-value or in food, to those in need. (Shepherd of Hermas 3.5.3; Augustine's Sermon 208). Origen (Homilies on Leviticus, 10) even praised those who fasted in order to give to the poor.
"Is not the neglect of this plain duty (I mean fasting, ranked by our Lord with almsgiving and prayer) one general occasion of deadness among Christians?"--- John Wesley, *The Journal of John Wesley*
Asking God to Change
Fasting to ask God to change course : Ezra 8:21-23
-- why would this matter to God? Because God cares that we care.
When David had been caught by Nathan the Prophet in his evil deed of murder and adultery (2 Sam 12), Nathan ended by forgiving David of his sin, but telling him that the son born from this relationship was to die (verses 13-14). David took his sorrow over this to the Lord in prayer and fasting and tears, laying on the ground, doing nothing else for a whole week (try doing that when you're the sole leader of a nation). But this did not save the son. Once the baby died, David immediately got up, washed and clothed himself, went to worship, and then went to eat. This puzzled the people around him: shouldn't he be fasting over the child's death? David's answer showed how deeply he understood what he was fasting for :
"While the child was alive, I fasted and wept, thinking, 'Who knows, maybe the LORD will be gracious to me so the child may live.' But now that he has died, why should I fast? Can I bring him back again??" (2 Samuel 12:22-23)
David was fasting and weeping out of love for his son, the son his own evil deeds created, the son his own evil deeds killed. He had already come to hate the great sins that he did. He had already mourned as terribly as he could. It was now his task to lead a nation (God's own covenant people), follow God, and comfort Bathsheba who was also mourning over the child that was hers as well as his. But he can't do any of that while he's on the ground fasting and wailing. The time for fasting was over; the time for renewed living was at hand. By setting himself right with God, David was once again blessed by God, as the Lord took that twisted relationship and made from it David's eventual heir, Solomon.
Fasting As Part of Mourning
For most of the rest of us, we have no nation to run. The loss of a loved one affects us so much that we may not care to eat. Or we may come to understand the damage of all those little wrongs we did to that someone, and plead for forgiveness to God. The Bible has many examples of fasting as part of mourning :
· 1 Sam 31:13;
· 2 Sam 1:12;
· Joel 2:12;
· Nehemiah 1:4 (sad news)
Another aspect of this is to fast to commemorate a catastrophe -- the traditional Jewish fasts for the events described in :
· Jeremiah 52:12-13, 39:2;
· 2 Kings 25:1-2;
· Ezekiel 24:1-2;
· Jeremiah 41:1-2; Esther 4:16.

The Scam

The Nine Week Timetable
Recently, I was watching a TV "ministry" (hucksters) who were urging people to send them money and they were guaranteeing a 100 fold return on the seed-faith money. Well, if I took them at their word and started with "sowing" $10 a week, I should start expecting to receive a $1000 a week in return. If after that I gave 10 percent of the $1000 ($100) I received per week, I could then expect to receive $100,000 per week. If after that I gave 10 percent of the $100,000 ($10,000) per week, I could then expect to receive $10, 000, 000 per week. In nine weeks I would be richer than Bill Gates (net worth ~ $30 billion) who is an atheist and does not give anything to the Lord's work. The following table summarizes the results:
Period
Amount Given ($)
Amount Received ($)
1
10
1000
2
100
10,000
3
1000
100,000
4
10,000
1,000,000
5
100,000
10,000,000
6
1,000,000
100,000,000
7
10,000,000
1,000,000,000
8
100,000,000
10,000,000,000
9
1,000,000,000
100,000,000,000
If instead I gave this amount once a year, I still would be the richest man in the world in ten years. If this is really what Jesus meant, then why do these "ministers" have to ask for money at all? Could not they apply the same principles and reap the money themselves?

Quotes From Teachers of the Prosperity Doctrine.
..useless wranglings of men of corrupt minds and destitute of the truth, who suppose that godliness is a means of gain...I Timothy 6: 5..
Marilyn Hickey:
"What do you need? Start creating it. Start speaking about it. Start speaking it into being. Speak to your billfold. Say, "You big, thick billfold full of money." Speak to your checkbook. Say, "You, checkbook, you. You've never been so prosperous since I owned you. You're just jammed full of money." (Marilyn Hickey, "Claim Your Miracles" (Denver: Marilyn Hickey Ministries, n.d., audiotape #186, side 2)
Benny Hinn:
"Poverty is from the devil and that God wants all Christians prosperous." (Benny Hinn, TBN, 11/6/90)
"Say after me, all of you, everybody say it, 'The wealth of the wicked is mine.' [The audience repeats.] One more time, (The audience repeats) One more time. (The audience repeats it again)" (Benny Hinn. Praise-a-Thon, TBN, April 1990) (Its an old practice that if you hear something said by your own voice long enough you will believe it).
"The Lord giveth and NEVER taketh away. And just because [Job] said, 'Blessed be the name of the Lord,' don't mean that he's right. When he said, 'Blessed be the name,' he was just being religious." (TBN, Nov., 1990).
I’m sick and tired of hearing about streets of gold. I don’t need gold in Heaven, I gotta have it now. I mean, when I get to glory, all my bills will be paid, brother. I won’t have bills in glory. I gotta have it here. You say, ‘Well, Benny Hinn, isn’t it woderful to have streets of gold i heaven?’ Well, of course, but if I hear the thing one more time of how it will be and how it was, I’m gonna kick somebody” (Benny Hinn, “Praise the Lord”. Nov 8th 1990. Audiotape.)
Juanita Bynum:
"Your miracle is attached to what's in your pocket right now! You're trying to hold on to it, but God sent me to tell you to, 'Let it go! Let it go!'" (Juanita Bynum, TBN, Fall Praise-A-Thon, November 1, 2004)
"God said, 'Pick up the phone right now!' He said, '1,000 persons, you are going to sow the $1,000 seed.' You got to! You got to tonight! There is a miracle on it! I know what I'm talking about! He brought me in here to tell you that!" (TBN, Fall Praise-A-Thon, November 1, 2004)
"Somebody right here in television land, God said, '$1,000.' You're sitting there saying, 'You know what? All I got is $1,000.' If that's all you got, oh Jesus! Then you got the miracle seed in your hand!" (TBN, Fall Praise-A-Thon, November 1, 2003)
"You need to send a thousand dollars. If you can’t send a thousand, send five hundred...if all you have is a nickel, wrap it in tissue and put it in an envelope. If all you have is your clothes, send them." (TBN, Fall Praise-A-Thon, November 8, 2003)
"If all you have is $79.36, I double-dare you to empty your bank account. Close your account." (TBN, Fall Praise-A-Thon, November 8, 2003)
"If you want the power, you have to sow the seed." (TBN, Fall Praise-A-Thon, November 8, 2003)
"You’ve got three days to get that into your mailbox. I’m not afraid to say this. I am walking in my authority…if you don’t postmark it by the tenth, we will not accept it. God says you have three days to get your thousand-dollar seed in the mail." (TBN, Fall Praise-A-Thon, November 8, 2003)
"You cannot violate the principle. You have to give. If you don’t have any money then you’d better get a penny in your hand or something." (TBN, Fall Praise-A-Thon, November 8, 2003)
"The Lord told me to give you these socks…In your time of prayer, you are to wear them, and you will walk in authority. Be careful what you say, because what you say will come to pass." (TBN, Fall Praise-A-Thon, November 8, 2003)
"Some of ya'll sitting there holding your wallet...God said, 'Give it to me! Give it to me! Give it to me! Show me how much you love me! Give it to me! I want to know if you're mine! If you're really mine. How come you can't hear me say, write the check?'" (TBN, Fall Praise-A-Thon, November 1, 2004)
"Some of you watching and you might be saying, 'Let me pray about it and see if God is talking to me.' You don't have to see if God is talking to you if you got a $77.00 seed offering in any bank account or pocket. He is talking to you. You need to pick up the phone because I'm telling you, tonight there is an anointing in this studio with your name on it. You need to get a seed into the network tonight." ("Daystar Fall Share-A-Thon," September 21, 2004)
"I'm going to get my seed in the ground because what I make happen for somebody else, God is going to make happen for me. Pick up the phone! I don't care if the lines are busy for half the night. Keep on trying! Put it on redial! Put it on redial! Tell the Devil that, 'I got an emergency! I need something! I need something from God and God needs something from me!'" ("Daystar Fall Share-A-Thon," September 21, 2004)
"Pick up the phone! It may be your last $77.00 seed offering. But you pick up the phone and you make that pledge. Because God is ready to turn some things around for you!"("Daystar Fall Share-A-Thon," September 21, 2004)
"If you're one of those three people that the Lord spoke through me moments ago about a million dollar gift. Whether you're that professional athlete, whether you're that successful businessman or whether you're that woman that has been blessed. You do what the Lord is telling you to do. Because, when God speaks about a significant seed, He has a significant miracle on His mind. [Jaunita Bynum: "Yes!"] God doesn't play games! And that's serious business when you start talking about levels like that. [Jaunita Bynum: "That's Right!"] That's because God has a significant miracle on His mind." (Marcus Lamb, "Daystar Fall Share-A-Thon," September 21, 2004)
Bishop Neil Ellis
“in ten months” there will be a revival, and “souls will be saved”, but “in the midst of this there will be an economic revival”. (Bishop Neil Ellis, TBN, September 16th 2002)
He will pastor a church “That has to be, has to be, poverty free”. This “has to happen”. He added.. Because of the ‘anointing’, (His Emphasis). “I am not supposed to be pastoring poor people”. (He did add that God will send poor people to him but only so they get a release from poverty).
Bishop Harold and Brenda Ray
Our goal is as simple as it is strategic: To create wealth! And empower our people to steward that wealth for the purposes of the kingdom, the strengthening of their communities and for the economic well being of their children's children! (Emphasis in red on their official web site)
Fred Price
“most employers at least have enough common decency about them that they don't ask somebody to work for them for free.... If a man has enough nicety about him to do that, can't you at least believe that the Father God is not asking you to serve Him for free either?” (D.L. McConnell p.170 op. cit. F. Price Faith, Foolishness, presumption p.7)
The whole point is I'm trying to get you to see - to get you out of this malaise of thinking that Jesus and the disciples were poor and then relating that to you - thinking that you, as a child of God, have to follow Jesus. The Bible says that He has left us an example that we should follow His steps. That's the reason why I drive a Rolls Royce. I'm following Jesus' steps. Fred Price. (Ever Increasing Faith on Trinity Broadcasting Network, December 9, 1990.)
You can talk about me all you want while I'm driving by in my Rolls Royce that's paid for, and I got the pink slip on it. Talk all you want. Bad mouth all you want. Don't hurt me in the least. Doesn't bother me. It's a whole lot easier to be persecuted when I'm riding in my car and I got the pink slip than it is when I'm riding in a car and owe my soul to the company store. Fred Price. (Ever Increasing Faith program, TBN, March 29, 1992.)
“Yeah, God has pleasure in the prosperity. So he must have displeasure in the poverty. So if he does, then poverty couldn't be from God. Yeah, but Brother Price, but God allows it. God lets it happen. You're right, he does. He does, because you do. He can't do anything about it” (Ever Increasing Faith 11/16/90).
“The Bible says that He [Jesus] had a treasurer-a treasury they called it “the bag”); that they had one man who was the treasurer, named Judas Iscariot; and the rascal was stealing out of the bag for three-and-a-half years and nobody knew that he was stealing. You know why? Because there was so much in it, He couldn't tell. Nobody could tell that anything was missing. If He had three oranges in the bottom of the bag and he stole two of them, don't tell me He wouldn't know that some was missing. Beside that, if Jesus didn't have anything, what do you need a treasury for? A treasury is for surplus. It's not for that which you're spending. It's only for surplus-to hold it until you need to spend it. Therefore, He must have had a whole lot that needed to be held in advance that He wasn't spending. So He must have had more than He was living on.” (“Ever Increasing Faith” program TBN Nov.23, 1990)
John Hagee
"Jesus was not poor...Jesus had a nice house! John 1:38 says that Jesus turned to those that were following him and said, 'Come with me.' And they said, 'Where dwellest thou?' He said, 'Come and see.' And Jesus took that whole crowd home with Him to stay in His house. That meant it was a big house! Jesus wore fine clothes! John 19:23 says, 'He had a seamless robe.' Roman soldiers gambled for it at the foot of the cross. It was a designer original! It was valuable enough for them to want it!...And then there are christians that have a poverty complex that says, 'Well, I feel guilty about having nice things.' Jesus didn't!"(John Hagee, Praise-A-Thon, Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN), November 5, 2004)
"The anointing will do these things, Luke 4:8 says, 'He has annointed me to preach the good news to the poor.' What's the good news to the poor? The good news to the poor is this, Christ took our poverty at the cross, and he gave you the riches of Abraham. Brother, that's enough to make a baptist get in the aisle and start dancing. If you have the anointing you don't have the curse of poverty."(John Hagee, Audio-clip, Bible Answer-man, February 25, 2004, Hank Hanegraaff)
"This book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth' [quoting Josh. 1:8 KJV]. That's the spoken Word of God. 'And then thou shalt prosper and have good success.' When? After you speak and act upon the Word of God. And you've been hearing that tonight out of the mouth of [well-known Faith teacher] John Avanzini."(John Hagee, Praise-A-Thon, Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN), 4 Nov. 1992. Christian Research Institute Article on John Hagee)
"Poverty is caused by sin and disobeying the Word of God."(John Hagee, Praise-A-Thon, Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN), 16 April, 1993. Christian Research Institute Article on John Hagee)
"Poverty is a curse."(John Hagee, Praise-A-Thon, Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN), 4 Nov, 1992. Christian Research Institute Article on John Hagee)
John Avanzini
"...Jesus lived in great prosperity..." (John Avanzini, Was Jesus Poor?, Believer's Voice of Victory, January, 1996, p. 8)
"The fact is, Jesus had a nice house." (John Avanzini, Was Jesus Poor?, Believer's Voice of Victory, January, 1996, p. 9)
"Another thing you may not realize is that Jesus wore designer clothes...Why do you need to know that? Because until you know that Jesus was prosperous, you won't be either. You may have His kindness, you may have His gentleness, you may have all His other attributes, but you'll never have His prosperity." (John Avanzini, Was Jesus Poor?, Believer's Voice of Victory, January, 1996, p. 8)
Gloria Copeland (Kenneth Copeland’s wife)
"Give $10 and receive $1000; Give $1000 and receive $100,000 … give one house and receive one hundred houses or a house worth one hundred times as much. Give one airplane and receive one hundred times the value of the airplane. … In short, Mark 10:30 is a very good deal" (in her book God's Will Is Prosperity: p. 54).
T.D. Jakes
“Jakes, who drives a Mercedes, has moved with his wife and their five children to a luxurious seven-bedroom home with swimming pool in the White Rock Lake area of Dallas. He said the home cost more than $1 million. ‘I do think we need some Christians who are in first class as well as coach,’ Jakes said.” (Jim Jones, “Rising-star evangelist ministers to interracial congregation,” The Fort Worth Star Telegram, Aug.)
“Besides, Jakes says — during an interview and in his sermons — Jesus was a rich man. He had to have been, in order to have supported his disciples and their families during his ministry.” (Kaylois Henry, “Bishop Jakes Is Ready. Are You?,” The Dallas Observer magazine, June 20-26, 1996, pg. 22.)
“The myth of the poor Jesus needs to be destroyed, because it’s holding people back.” (Ibid., pg. 31.)
Incidentally Jakes refers to an adulterous man as a “frightened little boy” and a wife beater as a “terrified little boy.” (Jakes, Loose That Man, op. cit., pp. 123-124.)
Robert Tilton
"Being poor is a sin, when God promises prosperity. New house? New car? That's chicken feed. That's nothing compared to what God wants to do for you" (Charismatic Chaos, p. 285 quoted from a Trinity Broadcasting Network program in 1990).
Jesse Duplantis
..speaking about Mark 4
Duplantis: This is the most important chapter in the Bible, in my opinion, because it deals with sowing and reaping….Now notice this sower here. He sows 4 times. He sows verse 4, he sows 5, he sows verse7, he sows verse 8. This man here loses 75% of his seed! He loses verse 4, he loses verse 5, he loses verse 7. Now he gets blessed on verse 8, thank you Jesus! But he lost verse 4, verse 5, verse 7. I wonder how many you lost?Now the Lord told us to go into the world and preach the gospel to every creature, didn't He? It costs billions of dollars to do that, between the satellite communication hookup and everything! Everything! Well, how come we haven't done it yet? Because we've lost verse 4, we've lost verse 5, we've lost verse 7. Every once in a while we get blessed on verse 8. But just think if you got blessed 30, 60 or 100 fold on verse 4; 30, 60 or 100 fold on verse 5; 30, 60 or 100 fold on verse 7; 30, 60 or 100 fold on verse 8, look out Toronto! Now you could buy it. Because every time you give God $50, He gives you $5000. Every time you give Him $100, He gives you $10,000. Every time you give Him $1000, He gives you $100,000. Every time you give him $100,000, $10 million. Before you know it, that building is yours, because they will sell it for the right price. You pick the denomination, God picks the multiplication.Verse 23 of Mark 4: If any man have ears to hear, how does faith come? So you can substitute to read 'if any man have ears to faith, let him faith."…So it's up to you what you give. But you see if you forget what you sow and do not name your seed, then the devil will steal your harvest and you don't know - 'God, the devil's stolen' - you can't figure out what is happening.…The multiplication system of God that God put into the family. Now I had a theologian tell me one time, "I tell you what, Brother Jesse, if you truly understood the Word of God, you would realize that Mark Chapter 4 is not dealing with economic substance. It's dealing with seed." I said, "Sir, you can't eat 30,000 acres of corn."…I had a man say, "You look so prosperous, Brother Jesse." I said, "Well, I'm backed by a very rich Jew. Yeah!! Yes, I am! His Name is Jesus. I'm backed by Him." (Jesse Duplantis, Trinity Broadcasting Network, September 21, 1998)
Rick Joyner
"I do believe you know wealth in a sense is like energy you can't destroy it, its just transferred, and I believe in a great economic collapse. The wealth of the world will not destroyed it will be transferred, and I believe a lot of it will be transferred to the believers." (Rick Joyner CBN Jan. 3, 2000)
Rod Parsley
"I'm talkin’ about your money. You know one of the greatest things that is going to happen in the year 2,000 were about to see the church rise up with a revelation that only this generation has ever been given of Gods word concerning high finances in the kingdom of God. And we are just about to see the greatest transfer of wealth out of the hand of the wicked into the hand of the just." (Rod Parsley. Jan.7,2000 Breakthrough).
Creflo Dollar
"Well, you need to hear about money, because you ain't gonna have no love and joy and peace until you get some money!" (Creflo Dollar, Praise the Lord, July 20, 1999)

How to Comfort the Grief Stricken?

Don't desert. After the initial contact with the patient, there is a tendency to leave the bereaved alone and forsaken. If this has been true for you, question yourself as to why you did that? Was it out of concern that you might further distress those who have suffered loss? In other words, were you afraid that you might trigger another round of tears which can look like you are bringing more pain on them then they already have?
Be a pathway. Look at your presence as a pathway to healing. And healing often comes through pain. The rule of thumb is the quicker and more intensely a person grieves, the sooner they heal. This rule does not negate a person’s will or choice. It just reminds caregivers that being with a griever and giving them permission to feel and express their grief, is what we’re all about.
Don't try to fix the pain. Bereavement is painful. There must be pain before there can be healing. The most difficult thing to learn about comforting is to permit the bereaved to live their own pain. It is one thing to sorrow with a person but quite another thing to interfere with their pain. We are not doing anyone a service by trying to take their pain from them.
Listen with your heart. Grieving is a matter of the heart rather than the head. Listening to the feelings of the bereaved is most important, permitting the sorrow to surface and the pain to be openly expressed. Invite all feelings to surface and listen through the silences. Your being there is more important than knowing what to say.
Accept all expressions of grief without censoring. Often there are aggressive feelings expressed, including anger, resentment, guilt and shame. Sometimes the bereaved feel cheated by God. Let them be angry. God understands grief. The only time to intervene is if the anger is expressed in a way that may physically hurt someone. The way to healing ones anger is through first acknowledging and processing it. Then is when a person is more likely to begin abandoning it.
Permit the bereaved opportunity to talk. This is a vital part of the healing process. Enforced silence in this regard can be very detrimental and prevent recovery. Gently ask the bereaved if they would like to talk about their loved one.
Be sincere. Do not make a pretense at being interested in the bereaved if you are not. Pretense really can hurt. Think how you want to be treated and always seek to be kind.
“Be swift to HEAR and slow to speak”
Helping a Woman Grieve
· Listening. Helping begins with your ability to be an active listener. Your physical presence and desire to listen without judgment are critical helping tools. Don't worry so much about what you'll say. Just concentrate on listening to the words that are being shared with you. Resist the urge to preach and educate the grieving person. Women will generally vent verbally more than men, allow her to vent!
· Having compassion. Give your friend permission to express his feelings without fear of criticism. Learn from your friend; don't instruct or set expectations about how he should respond. Never say, "I know how you feel." You don't. Think of yourself as someone who walks alongside-not behind or in front of-the one who is mourning. If the woman in question allows it give her a hug, sometimes a hug means more than anything you could possibly say.
· Being there. Your ongoing and reliable presence is the most important gift you can give your grieving friend. While you can't take the pain away, you can enter into it through being there for him. Remain available in the weeks, months, and years to come. Remember that your friend may need you more later on than at the time of the death. The loneliest time is months after the funeral, when all the friends and family has gone away. Take her out to lunch sometimes or have her over for coffee and Danish.

What is Grieving?

Grieving is the process of emotional and life adjustment you go through after a loss. Grieving after a loved one's death is also known as bereavement.
Grieving is a personal experience. Depending on who you are and the nature of your loss, your process of grieving will be different from another person's experience. There is no "normal and expected" period of time for grieving. Some people adjust to a new life within several weeks or months. Others take a year or more, particularly when their daily life has been radically changed or their loss was traumatic and unexpected.
What are common symptoms of grief and grieving?
A wide range of feelings and symptoms are common during grieving. While feeling shock, numbness, sadness, anger, guilt, anxiety, or fear, you may also find moments of relief, peace, or happiness. While grieving is not simply sadness, “the blues,” or depression, you may become depressed or overly anxious during the grieving process.
The stress of grief and grieving can take a physical toll on your body. Sleeplessness is common, as is a weakened immune system over time. If you have a chronic illness, grieving can worsen your condition.
Although it may be possible to postpone grieving, it is not possible to avoid grieving altogether. If life circumstances make it difficult for you to stop, feel, and live through the grieving process, you can expect grief to eventually erupt sometime in the future. In the meantime, unresolved grief can affect your quality of life and relationships with others.
What is anticipatory grief?
Anticipatory grief is similar to the normal process of mourning, but it occurs before the actual death (in anticipation of the death).
While mourning is usually discussed in regards to the family and loved ones of a dying person, anticipatory grief can be experienced by the family, loved ones, and the child dying. Anticipatory grief occurs before death, often as a result of a terminal diagnosis or to a life-threatening illness, when death is a possibility. This grief has some common stages among people in the same situation, however, every individual and family is different and experiences grief, death, and illness in their own unique way.²
What are the different phases of anticipatory grief?
Grief and mourning do not have specified volumes or time restrictions. Each individual expresses his/her grief and bereavement in his/her own way and time. Anticipatory grief may include the following phases, though not exclusively in this order. Grief is often an expression which includes each of these phases or stages in multiple times, intensities, and orders.¹
· Phase IIn this stage, an individual realizes that death is inevitable and there is no expectation for a cure. Sadness and depression are often associated with this first stage of grief.
· Phase IIThe next phase of anticipatory grief is concern for the dying person. Family members may regret arguments or disciplining the dying child. For the dying child, concern may be increased for him/herself and his/her own fears of death, or because of the emotions expressed by loved ones around him/her.
· Phase IIIIn this phase, the actual death may be "rehearsed." The physical process of death and what may happen after death are concerns in this phase. Funeral arrangements and saying good-bye to loved ones may occur as a result of some anticipatory grieving.
· Phase IVIn the last phase, loved ones may be imagining what their lives are going to be like without the person that is dying. Parents may be thinking about the unused toys left behind, missed proms and birthdays, or even what they are going to tell the child's teachers when school is missed. Siblings may wonder what it will be like to lose their brother or sister.
The person dying may think about life after death. The person dying may also try to imagine what it will be like for his/her loved ones to live without him/her.

Dealing With Grief

Chapter One – Dealing with the Grieving in General and by Gender

Friends, relatives, and neighbors are usually supportive at the time of a death and during the wake and funeral that follows. Food, flowers, and physical presence are among the thoughtful expressions. But after the funeral, many grieving people wonder where their friends are. In some ways they need support and caring from their friends even more when the reality hits and the long process of grief begins. Ways of helping grieving people are as limitless as your imagination. Some suggestions are:
Try to understand the grief process rather than be annoyed by it.
"I'm sorry" or "I care" is all that is necessary to say; a squeeze of the hand, a hug, a kiss can say the words.
Don't say: "You will get over it in time." They will never stop missing the person who died. Time may soften the hurt, but it will not just go away. There will always be a scar.
Listen, listen, listen. Talking about the pain slowly lessens its sting. Most bereaved persons need to talk. It is helpful for someone to listen. Try to become an effective listener.
Don't tell people: "It's God's will." Explanations do not console.
Encourage expressions of specific feelings: anger, guilt, frustration, confusion, depression, hate.
Be patient. Mourning takes time. People need you. Stand by them for as long as possible. There is no timetable for grief. Do not give a pep talk or suggest a timetable.
Talk about the good memories. They help the healing process.
Suggest that grieving people take part in support groups. Sharing similar experiences helps healing.
Be there caring, saying "I'm sorry" and helping in practical ways.
Sincerely ask, "How are you doing?" Bereaved persons can tell if you want to hear "fine" or if you really want to know.
Help bereaved to eliminate expectations as to how they should feel and when they will be healed.
Be approachable, aware, and interested.
Be accepting of the person, of his/her feelings, his/her confusion.
Acts of thoughtfulness-a note, visit, plant, helpful book, plate of cookies, phone call, invitation to lunch or to go shopping, coffee.
Be confidential with what is shared with you.
WHAT IS GRIEF?
GRIEF is the normal and natural reaction to loss of any kind.
GRIEF is the pain and desperate longing you feel when you lose someone who has given meaning and purpose to your life.
GRIEF is that silent, night life terror and sadness that comes a hundred times a day when you start to speak to someone who is no longer there.
GRIEF is the helpless wishing that things were different, when you know they are not and never will be the same again.
GRIEF is a whole cluster of adjustments, apprehensions, and uncertainties that strike life making it difficult to reorganize and redirect your energies.
GRIEF is like a long valley, a winding valley where any bend may reveal a totally new landscape.
GRIEF is the angry reaction of a man - so filled with shock, uncertainty, and confusion that he strikes out at the nearest person.
GRIEF is the aching your body feels when you long to hold your baby who died after such a brief life - and you just can’t anymore.
GRIEF is a normal and healthy sense of loss. The emotions involved are real, and they need to be recognized and expressed.
GRIEF is unique and unpredictable and each person will experience it in his or her own way.
GRIEF is a part of every life. Grief is no respecter of age or person.
GRIEF is an attempt to bring life back into focus after the lenses have gotten turned out of focus.
GRIEF is the entire range of naturally occurring human emotions that accompany loss.
GRIEF is pain. Grief begins with the first raw awareness of the change but then becomes a terrific struggle: a violent disputing of the facts, a striving for life again, a revising of terms by which we know ourselves, a surrender to despair, finally a conscious acceptance of the change. This is painful and difficult but when accomplished, it brings rebirth and growth.

Grief is your emotional reaction to a significant loss. The words sorrow and heartache are often used to describe feelings of grief. Whether you lose a beloved person, animal, place, or object, or a valued way of life (such as your job, marriage, or good health), some level of grief will naturally follow.
Anticipatory grief is grief that strikes in advance of an impending loss.¹ you may feel anticipatory grief for a loved one who is sick and dying. Similarly, both children and adults often feel the pain of losses brought on by an upcoming move or divorce. This anticipatory grief helps us prepare for such losses.

My Life as a Chaplain

I chose to develop this thesis to assist people that minister to the sick, the dying, and the people that have been affected by the careless words and insensitivity of others. I have experienced pain and tragedy in my own personal life and as a Hospital Chaplain and Prison Minister I have seen my fair share of pain. I spent 23 years in the Air Force and I have seen the effects of war and death. I came home from Desert Storm and came down with an Auto-Immune disease (Sarcoidosis) like many of my fellow service men, we suffer for reasons no one can or is willing to give an answer. I am blind in one eye, I am in pain 24/7 from the rheumatoid condition caused by the Sarcoidosis and I also have Lymphadema from lymph node damage from the Sarcoidosis.
I have lost two good paying jobs because of my illness; I also had to care for my mother that had bone cancer, renal failure, and Dementia. Needless to say all of these things affected me and my wife’s life drastically. One day I sat in my car the day I was told I was losing my job due to illness, and I contemplated suicide for the first time in my life, and the only thing that kept me from picking up my survival knife and slitting my throat was anger…yes anger! Anger towards the military, anger towards everyone that couldn’t see how much pain I was in, and anger at myself for allowing self-pity to destroy me. I made a decision that day that I would help people that were in pain.
If you read this book and wonder why I placed information about various religions and groups, this is why; I am a Christian and I believe in Jesus as Lord and Savior, I am also convinced that in order to help people we have to understand why people think the way they do, and what belief system shaped their paradigms. As a chaplain I minister to all races, faiths, and cultures. I do not compromise my beliefs, but I try to understand all beliefs. I will share a brief story with you to help you fully understand where I am coming from. I went into a man’s room one night to offer prayer; he looked at me wearing my clergy collar and turn away as if to say “No thanks!” So I noticed he was watching the Phillies on television, I also noticed on his chart that he was Jewish, now I could have given up and walked away, but this man was dying of cancer. So I asked him what the score of the game is. He turned and looked at me and told me, so I said thanks, I told him I was rooting for the Mets, and he smiled and said he was too. I sat with this dying man for about three innings of baseball and we discussed nothing but baseball, we never mentioned God for 3 innings. When I got up to leave he looked at me and said…”Thanks Chaplain” Now what this man never knew was I can pray and watch baseball at the same time! He asked me to pray for him before I left, and I did!
When we realize that humans are not statistic for our outreach chart at church and souls in need of healing then we will really be doing Kingdom work. Jesus was a great listener as well as teacher. When we listen to people we earn the right to pray and preach later on.

Chaplain Mark Stevens, M.Min