If you've been following this blog for a while, you know I have not written much lately. This is because a few months ago I started working on my Masters in Counseling degree. This coming Friday I will actually finish two more classes and will have a total of 12 hours completed. The program is a 60 hour program. I will try and be a little more faithful in writing on here.
My last two classes have been on multicultural competence and ethics and counselor identity. It has been an interesting semester as I have studied another culture and learned more about the importance of following a code of ethics. The last week, we looked at couple counseling and group therapy.
One of the videos I watched recently showed two students at Liberty, one of who is from Puerto Rico and the other from Japan. The student from Japan had only been in the U.S. about a year. He mentioned that students here in the U.S. are much more assertive in talking in class. Also, he mentioned that the church was one place that he felt like transcended culture. Due to the different cultures he felt very, very different from everyone else, but in the church he felt accepted.
I think it is a very good example of how the church can transcend race and socioeconomic issues and bring people together. Unfortunately, in many cases it does not bring people together. Whether it is the senior adults not appreciating the youth or the youth not appreciating the traditions from the past or whatever it is. The church sometimes appears to be just one more social club that divides people into categories. But, then we can look at Jesus and see that he had a whole different set of categories than we do. He was willing for prostitutes and tax collectors and even Pharisees to come listen to him. He didn't turn people away because of what they had done. He didn't just judge and condemn people because they didn't act like he did. More than anything, Jesus loved people of all sizes and shapes and backgrounds.
There is a story in John 4 about one day when Jesus stopped by a well. It was in the heat of the day and Jesus and his followers had been traveling. A woman came to the well near where he sat with the intention of drawing water. She was a woman with a history and was probably trying to avoid the other women in town by coming to the well in the middle of the day. She was shocked that Jesus would even speak with her. She was probably more shocked when he told her he knew she had had five husbands and the one she was with now she wasn't married to.
My point is, that Jesus spoke to her anyway, without condemning her. He did more than that though, he offered her and anyone who would call on him "living water" (John 4:14). This reminds me of something I said one of the first times I preached back in 2001. I said, "where sin is great, grace is greater." That is the way that God treats us, with grace and mercy.
My last two classes have been on multicultural competence and ethics and counselor identity. It has been an interesting semester as I have studied another culture and learned more about the importance of following a code of ethics. The last week, we looked at couple counseling and group therapy.
One of the videos I watched recently showed two students at Liberty, one of who is from Puerto Rico and the other from Japan. The student from Japan had only been in the U.S. about a year. He mentioned that students here in the U.S. are much more assertive in talking in class. Also, he mentioned that the church was one place that he felt like transcended culture. Due to the different cultures he felt very, very different from everyone else, but in the church he felt accepted.
I think it is a very good example of how the church can transcend race and socioeconomic issues and bring people together. Unfortunately, in many cases it does not bring people together. Whether it is the senior adults not appreciating the youth or the youth not appreciating the traditions from the past or whatever it is. The church sometimes appears to be just one more social club that divides people into categories. But, then we can look at Jesus and see that he had a whole different set of categories than we do. He was willing for prostitutes and tax collectors and even Pharisees to come listen to him. He didn't turn people away because of what they had done. He didn't just judge and condemn people because they didn't act like he did. More than anything, Jesus loved people of all sizes and shapes and backgrounds.
My point is, that Jesus spoke to her anyway, without condemning her. He did more than that though, he offered her and anyone who would call on him "living water" (John 4:14). This reminds me of something I said one of the first times I preached back in 2001. I said, "where sin is great, grace is greater." That is the way that God treats us, with grace and mercy.
