As we counsel someone, it’s important to remember to teach and encourage the cultivation of biblical community. As Christians, we are saved into Christ’s Body, the Church, so we need to make sure our counselees understand that part of their identity in Christ. In counseling, we have the opportunity to paint a picture of God’s grand design for a people and the purpose of community in relation to the issues we face. My goal in this blog is to highlight just some of the things we can focus on as we teach about biblical community and the role of accountability with other believers.
1) Demonstrate God’s design for a people
Why is community important for a believer? Because God created and redeemed a people, not just a person. This is demonstrated throughout redemptive history. In the beginning, God created Adam and Eve to live and make Him known by increasing in number (Genesis 1:28). Later we see that God called Abraham and said He would have community with Abraham’s descendants, which would outnumber the stars in the sky (Genesis 15:5). Throughout the Old Testament, God protected and guided His people, Israel, a community of those He had made a covenant with.
In the New Testament, we see Jesus building a close community around Him through His disciples, and a larger community with all those who chose to believe and follow Him during His earthly ministry. Before He ascended into Heaven, He promised that where He was going, He was preparing a place with many rooms (John 14:2), space for a community of people to live together with Him some day.
In Revelation we see those who are saved described as a “a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language” (Revelation 7:9). From the beginning to the end of God’s Word, we see God calling and saving a people for Himself. This design is intentional and studying these stories with a counselee can be a great way to emphasize the value of community.
2) Community is Necessary for Growing in Obedience
Another aspect to teach our counselees is how biblical community is integral to obeying God’s commands. Throughout the Bible, it is clear that God expects us to live in community! First, we see this in the Mosaic Law given to the Israelites. Consider the 10 Commandments (Exodus 20:12-17): 6 of the 10 commandments involve our relationship with others, specifically within the community of God’s people. These commands directly impacted the way the Israelites treated and lived with one another. The rest of the Law of Moses gave extremely specific directions for how God wanted His people to interact with each other and with outsiders as a testimony to the One True God (Deuteronomy 4:6-8).
The New Testament is full of instruction on what Body Life should look like for the Christian—how we are to live as a chosen people (1 Peter 2:9). Jesus taught about how to relate to others and the purposes of church community (Matthew 18), and one of the most detailed set of instructions comes from the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7. The other New Testament writers expand on His commands with more specific instruction and application for the Christian life. Consider some of the “one another” commands in the New Testament:
Galatians 6:10
“…let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.”
Hebrews 10:24-25
“And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another...”
Colossians 3:16
“Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another…”
These are just a few of the many commands that have to do with “one another”-ing. Considering all these teachings, how can we obey all of God’s Word if we’re not living in community with others? The answer is, we can’t. For individuals who isolate themselves, it’s impossible for them to live out the life that Christ has called us to live. When we encounter counselees who choose a more reclusive or antisocial way of life, we need to instruct them on why that doesn’t align with what God’s Word teaches us. Take them to the passages I’ve referenced, or other “one another” commands, and help them see the beauty of living life with Christ’s bride. Only in community can we find others to speak truth into our lives, which helps us grow in maturity.
3) How to Develop Biblical Community
After we instruct a counselee on why community is important and necessary, we should help them understand how to start developing biblical community. My goal in this section is to give a few practical ways on how to actively pursue community the way God designed it.
Priorities
One main way to practically develop biblical community is by teaching a right understanding of biblical priorities. The Scriptures demonstrate the need to first prioritize our relationship with God, then with our families, then with other believers, and then finally with the non-believers in our life. If someone is not operating out of those biblical priorities in relationships, it will be extremely hard to develop biblical community. Asking investigative questions to figure out how someone is spending their time or what makes them happy/sad/angry is a good way to reveal someone’s priorities. You can also look at someone’s calendar to see what they prioritize. Many people put church and community in the backseat, while careers, sports, hobbies, romantic relationships, TV, gaming, and entertainment get to drive the wheel of our daily lives. Identifying worldly priorities is crucial, since our misaligned priorities breed wrong thoughts about not needing the church.
Church Attendance
Isn’t it sad yet true that we so easily consider the church as optional? Throughout your counseling cases, take time to teach your counselee to prioritize the big “C” Church by being with the little “c” church, the Body of Christ, on Sunday mornings. That may sometimes mean reorienting a work or vacation schedule or handing off other responsibilities or commitments. There are obviously times when one cannot make it to church—but how often is someone using the weekends as a chance to get-away versus to purposefully stay and build up the Body? You may also have to counsel someone to prioritize church amidst a hard life season, whether that be raising young children, someone working overtime, or when dealing with a sickness or trial. It’s very easy to turn Sunday into a day about how I can “recharge” rather than how I can draw nearer to the Lord and worship Him rightly in community with other believers.
Serving
Besides regular church attendance, teach that another great step to developing relationships is through serving. If your counselee faithfully attends a church but still doesn’t feel connected, ask what ways he or she is serving. There is no better way to develop close community and friendships than by serving together. As a believer and member of the local church, we are part of the spiritual gift to the other congregants for service in the Body. Encourage your counselee to try to serve where there’s a need, not just in ways she feels gifted in. Help your counselee see that we can trust God to use whatever service we offer as a pleasing aroma to Him to build up His Body.
4) The Role of Accountability in Community
One last aspect of Christian fellowship and community that we need to help counselees understand is that of accountability with other believers. Accountability is when we purposely bring others into our lives to help us grow. This could look like accountability partners who are helping us stay focused on being disciplined in a specific area of sin and growth in our lives, but it also comes from just general accountability through doing life with other believers. The goal of teaching accountability to our counselees is that they would utilize and benefit from others helping them grow. Some examples of accountability relationships would be church membership, mentorship, and Christian friendships.
Church Membership
A person who joins a church as a member is asking the church to help keep them accountable during their personal walk of faith, but a member also serves the rest of the Church Body by keeping the other members and leadership accountable. 1 Corinthians 12 has a beautiful discussion on believers being members of one body, especially verses 21-27. It’s incredibly important to emphasize this role of the church and of church membership to our counselees, especially before they transition out of the counseling relationship. How will they keep growing if they don’t have a local body around them to help them avoid sin and pursue righteousness? In my counseling cases, I always assign church attendance as homework (watching online doesn’t cut it). If someone isn’t a member of a church, I assign them to take the church membership class or ask their pastors about the process of becoming a member. I always emphasize the importance of getting involved with a local church in order to develop better accountability.
Mentorship
I think that all counselors should also be encouraging their counselees to find a mentor in their local church to help them as they transition out of formal counseling. Mentorship should be about finding someone “older” or wiser to hold them accountable to obeying God’s Word. This is an important step in helping counselees continue growing and being discipled after leaving counseling.
Many churches don’t have formal mentor ministries in place, while some do. Help your counselee explore the options before them. Encourage them to seek out someone older, wiser, more mature, or who has experience in a certain area they wish to grow in. Help him or her to think about people at their church that they would want to be mentored by. Brainstorm with them ways to get connected to those individuals. This might be as simple as having your counselee start serving in the same ministries as potential mentor. Encourage them to take initiative in building relationships with those they could be mentored by.
If they have a mentor, consider having them join you in the last counseling sessions to help transition out. For teaching, all of Titus chapter 2 demonstrates the biblical principles involved in the discipling process, especially verses 1 through 8. We need other believers to be speaking these truths into our lives, and that’s one of the reasons Christ gave us His church. You can’t find that kind of help for your life among unbelievers or on your own.
Christian friendships
More casual Christian friendships and relationships within the church, like in small groups or Bible studies, are extremely important for accountability. We should encourage our counselees to pursue Christian friends with whom they can be open about their sin struggles, and to ask for prayer, help, and to be held accountable. Having close Christian friends helps us live out one another commands like in Hebrews 10:23-25, which reaps the benefit of growing in Christlikeness as we do so.
For a practical application of how to grow in these types of relationships, I will assign counselees the homework of reaching out to a Christian friend and sharing with them some of their counseling homework. I have them ask the friend if they will check in on how the homework is going throughout the week, or just ask them what she’s learning in counseling and how she’s applying it. Just like there is motivation to pursue righteousness because we will be held accountable by God someday, there is also motivation to work on the areas we need to grow in when we know that others are praying for us and spurring us on.
Application questions
Finally, I want to finish this topic on biblical community and accountability by leaving you with some practical application questions and steps to walk through with your counselee:
- Church membership/Community
- Are they a member of a church? If no, why not?
- Assign church attendance as homework while counseling.
- Encourage serving and reaching out to others.
- Mentorship
- Are there “older” men or women in their life as models? Do they have a mentor? Does their church have a mentorship program?
- Challenge them to pursue a relationship with someone and ask about becoming a mentor.
- Friends/Family
- Who are their closest friends? Are they believers? Do they have a Christian friend to go to for help/advice?
- Do they need to evaluate their current social commitments?
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