How to Spiritually Abuse Those You Minister To!
This "tongue in cheek" article is meant to be taken with a grain of salt, while still, in a humorous way, alerting us to attitudes and beliefs that may inadvertantly lead to potential spiritual abuse.
- Assume that every emotional or mental issue is a spiritual issue, versus believing that every issue has spiritual implications; for example, believing that all issues are demonic
- Only deal in psychological aspects of woundedness and ignoring the spiritual aspects; our enemy Satan is involved at all levels of woundedness -- sometimes he causes the wound himself, but he always tries to prevent the emotional AND spiritual healing that are needed for full recovery
- Faulty view of emotions; seeing emotions as not important (equating them as "the flesh") therefore believing that there is no room for emotional healing or viewing emotions as signs of spiritual immaturity or lack of spirituality
- Discount ALL medical interventions and medications believing that Christians should never take medications to help regulate brain chemistry
- Blame the person’s sincerity or spiritual maturity if you “method” of help fails
- Assume that medications should ALWAYS be used for apparent mental issues
- Assume that medications should NEVER be used for apparent mental issues
- Be a “di-cotemist” not a “tri-cotemist”, i.e., have a world view of only two types of people: healthy or sick, instead of three types of people: healthy, people at the beginning of their healing process and all of us who at various times are working through difficult issues in our lives.
- Have faulty theology; emphasize a “New Creation theory” in which the past is not important so we should "forget what lies behind. . ."; (this view does not take into account that when Paul said that, he had already had an encounter(s) with the Lord that brought truth to his past; therefore he could now move forward;)
- Believe that Christians can’t have demonic influences in their lives; this forces you to disbelieve the person’s reports of supernatural events or inner voices
so you treat such a person as mentally ill
- Having an imbalanced deliverance approach that includes always screaming at or restraining the person (only using "power encounters" when doing spiritual warfare)
- Overemphasizing one aspect of healing and growth; you may say, “You’ll never be healed if you don’t repent” or if you “don’t forgive;”or "you weren’t serious about your forgiving;" (instead of realizing that forgiveness is a command, but it is also a byproduct of seeing the situation from the Lord's perspective, also realizing that forgiveness is a process and may need to be reaffirmed)
- Promising unattainable expectations such as “We’ll get you healed” or “You can be free in two easy sessions!”
- Using a "one size fits all" approach; that is, having only one "method" and trying to fit that method into everyone's healing process; believing that: “This is the one and only method and if used properly, it always works.”
- Inappropriate reparenting; taking the role of a parent in the adult person's life and focusing on controlling instead of facilitating the healing process thus putting the person in an ultra-dependent mode; not respecting their personal choices
- Abandoning them; this is when the helper pulls out of the relationship with the person because the helper is overwhelmed and can’t handle it or is experiencing burnout; this can be avoided if the helper has clear boundaries from the Lord in their relationship with the person in the first place
- Breaching trust and/or confidentiality; passing on information to others, even under the pretext of prayer concerns, can destroy the relationship
- When ministering to the most shattered, disregard a DID diagnosis and treat all the “voices” inside a person as demonic.
- After an embarrassing “episode”, treat the person like a space alien!
