Ministry Training

NewHeart  provides an holistic approach to emotional healing that acknowledges and allows for the integration of spiritual realities into the healing process. Its mission is to serve and resource both the helping professions and the local church through education, training and ongoing mentoring. It enhances the healing ministry of churches and counsellors by offering skill-based training and offers personal follow-up and support as the learned skills are implemented and fine tuned.

History of Training

In the past, through Alpine Counselling Services(Hurstville, NSW) we have run apprenticeships in Theophostic Prayer Ministry. ( If you are unfamiliar with what theophostic ministry is see here for an introduction.) These were for people who had already watched Dr Ed Smith's basic training videos( "Theophostic Ministry" is a registered trade mark belonging to Dr Smith) and who were ready to start practising this ministry. They were run in small group settings meeting once a week over a period of 10-12 weeks. Initially the facilitator would demonstrate the ministry on one group member and then in subsequent weeks participants would take turns in either being ministered to or directing the ministry under the guidance of the facilitator. Participants would learn by watching, by personally experiencing being ministered to and by practicing doing the ministry themselves. A major part of the learning was also the group debriefing in a supportive environment where all questions could be answered. Along with this, participants would read the Dr Smith's extensive Basic Seminar Manual.

Overall, these groups were fruitful, however scope for improvement remained. Over the years we increased the length of the group time so we could include more time for questions and answers and we started watching the videos together as this was helpful for group dynamics: people got to know each other more quickly which in turn helped develop trust. Some groups wanted to watch me minister a lot more than once. To accomodate this after about week six or seven we would divide into two groups when it came to ministry time with the second one run by a co-faciltator. This was a great development. It meant that in those later weeks two people would get to practise the ministry each week (and two be ministered to) and there was the advantage that people could choose whichever group they wanted to be in, or not be in.

One of the factors that led to the great success of the later apprenticeships was the fact that particicpants practised the procedures being learnt between sessions. This meant we would begin sessions by hearing about and debriefing what participants had experienced during the week as well as questions that had arisen as a result of the last weeks ministry. In general those who practised the ministry the most and volunteered to receive it the most got the feel for it the best.

Did some people have negative experiences?

Over the years of runing this training we found a number of challenges. Problems would arise when a trainee, outside the training setting, would lead a client back into a painful memory and then not be able to resolve it swiftly. Although this can be normal while learning the process, expectations were often for quick results and people especially pastors would then withdraw support for the ministry leaving both the person receiving the ministry and the trainee in an undesirable position.The other difficulty encountered was that a minister in early stages of development would lead a client into pain and be shocked by this and frightened to pursue completing the process of resolving it. These difficulties were largely overcome by establishing clear contracts for those who work in churches with their pastors and setting up ongoing training and support structures.

Limitations of  the "Theophostic" process.

The so called "theophostic" process is amazing in how quickly it can take a person back to the underlying causes of current emotional discomfort and then resolve these. If there is a drawback it is precisely that it can take a person back to unresloved pain so effectively. A skilled facilitator can quickly go past many defense mechanisms which have previously stopped a person being in contact with the real source of their pain. This is a great thing when healing of that wound is achieved by the end of the session. Skilled facilitators get used to how quickly this process can work. However, if time runs out a person may be left to sit with newly discovered unresolved pain until it can be resolved at a later date. Understandably  people generally don't like this: they come to be freed from pain, not to become more aware of it.

Another weakness in the "Theophostic" approach is that it is not designed to build up a persons capacity to face unresolved pain. For people not ready to face their pain Smith has basically said, 'they will come back when they are ready'. The Theophostic method is a highly effective method for resolving pain not a therapy to increase a persons capacity to be able to face their pain. This issue and the challenge of building capacity has been taken up by Dr Karl Lehman.

The ongoing contribution of Dr Karl Lehman

Christian psychiatrist Karl Lehman, has written extensively on many aspects of inner healing;  brain, mind, spirit and the God who is with us, 'Immanuel'. He has comprehensively treated the topic of building capacity in people so they become able to face unresolved traumas and fully process them. One of the many great qualities of  Dr Lehman is that he writes detailed answers to the questions he pursues. These are immensely helpful to those pursuing such understanding and are availble free to download from his website www.kclehman.com 

For an abbreviated presentation on Capacity see Lehman on Youtube 

Incorporating "Capacity" building into ministry training.

As Lehman has pointed out, when a person can perceive the presence of Jesus his/her capacity goes right up and makes possible processing painful experiences that  were previously too threatening.

The most common aspect of capacity building that non professionals miss, is simply being diligent in  tuning in and being with a person and responding to them in an appropriate and timely way. This is what builds capacity in an infant and it continues to be important throughout life. Such attunement is especially important in the process of healing early childhood wounds.

Aside from attunement and relational dynamics other factors that build capacity are relieving presure on brain-mind-spirit that comes from generational influences and engaging and nurturing the spirit directly. By dealing with generational influences and building up the spirit first the healing process proceeds more naturally and unfolds in a more holistic way.

Central to the process is explicitly building a persons ability to experience joy. This involves brain training and growth. It requires emotional work to achieve such growth. However, just as increasing one's ability to perform at the gym will increase if you know what to work at and put in that work so will your capacity for joy increase if  you put in the appropriate work. Capacity for joy, and the ability to return to joy after being in negative emotions, increase as the right brain training is pursued over time.