.jpg)
Church Psychology
Mental Health Professionals looking at the intersections of social & behavioral science and the formed Christian life. Visit us for free resources and more at www.ChurchPsychology.org
Church Psychology
Season One Final Episode!
We have come to our final episode of season one! As we reflect on our journey, we delve into the evolving expressions of care and counseling within the Church and discuss the crucial role of integration.
Looking ahead, we have a shared vision for the Negev Institute: to provide more holistic programs, training, and resources to empower churches in responding to people's needs. We're excited about the prospect of broadening our conversations to encompass more diverse voices in the dialogue around Christian formation and mental health. As part of this vision, we're going to be exploring complex storytelling in our next season of Church Psychology. Whether you've been with us from the start or this is your first time tuning in, we invite you to be part of this enlightening journey as we navigate the fascinating intersection of faith, theology, and mental health.
Hey there everyone.
Speaker 1:This is Dr David Hall with Church Psychology.
Speaker 1:We have reached the end of Season 1 of Church Psychology and this is our final episode and in today, matt and I are going to talk about some of what we've enjoyed about the season, what to look for in the season to come, and also about some of the general work that's a part of the Nagev Institute, which is the organization behind the Church Psychology podcast, and just Matt and I kind of share some of our vision of what the Nagev Institute is about specifically as it relates to connecting the community of believers with helpful and practical and applicable resources from the world of mental health that fit within our general belief system about Christian formation.
Speaker 1:We're going to talk some about that things, that other things we have available within the Nagev Institute and really want to encourage you to be a part of this conversation with us as we are trying to build those bridges and to be, just at this point, the people that show up to speak to that area and that need of the Church in the context of mental health. I'm going to talk about again what we're hoping for for the season to come with Church Psychology in 2024. And we hope that you will join us for this episode. Now we're going to slide into that intro music.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Church Psychology, a podcast of the Nagev Institute. We are mental health professionals looking at the intersections of social and behavioral science in the Christian life. Please connect with our free resources in our open community library at ChurchPsychologyorg. We would be grateful if you would follow, like or subscribe to Church Psychology wherever you're finding us, and also leave us a review as we start. If we are to love the Lord, our God, with all of our mind, it makes sense to work on our headsets. Let's get to work Well. Welcome back everybody to the Church Psychology podcast. My name is Matt Schooniman. I'm here for our season finale with Dr David Hall. Hey, david.
Speaker 1:Hello Matt, again so big episode. It may be a little different for people, but for those who are catching us the first time, this is not a great episode necessary to catch this first time go back and listen to the early ones this season, or maybe a great one, because we'll talk about kind of what it's been for us so far.
Speaker 1:So we are reaching the end of 2023. And this is Matt and I are taking a short break in recording episodes, and so we're kind of wrapping this up as the first season of Church Psychology podcast to be back with season two in early 2024. And but we're just going to take some time today to talk about what this process has been and specifically to talk about what Church Psychology has been a part of as a program, of this larger thing that Matt and I are a part of called the Gev Institute, and so we started recording in the spring.
Speaker 2:Well, we started releasing in July. Yes, you're right. Yes, you're right, At the beginning of this year. We didn't release until July.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and a lot has happened over the course of this year.
Speaker 2:As every year does you know?
Speaker 1:Yeah, but I feel like in the context of Matt and I doing this, my wife ended up having major surgery and then I ended up having surgery not major but in and so Any surgery, I feel like is on the major scale, so yeah, and so that was the context of that of.
Speaker 1:You know, we work in a group practice that has had some new people come on and that's been enjoyable new relationships and it's been interesting to evolve the conversation. So for us, for the podcast, goal specifically is, you know, as we say in the intro, looking at the intersection of behavioral science and the formed Christian life of what does that look like? And yeah, and because it's a natural place for Matt and I to think and work in, because you know Matt's bivocational, as a mental health counselor and as someone in the pastoral space, I've worked in kind of an integration, faith and psychology mindset my entire career. I was training a program that specifically like trained me that way. So I think about this a lot, yeah, but we realized that kind of not everyone has these conversations, not everyone kind of thinks about where the two kind of come together and they're kind of meaningful questions about well, is this more of a? Do I need to talk to my pastor or my therapist about this?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and so we wanted to give you a little boat.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, it's good. You know, I think that maybe we could spend just a minute even talking about what is integration and why are we so passionate about it. You know, a lot of I've been trying to do some research, even as our church kind of navigates, on how do we care for people. We're kind of in a season right now at our church where we're exploring what do people need as even comes to care or counsel, in using that term more broadly than just the profession of counseling. You know, and there's been a lot of pathways and we may have talked about this near the beginning, but of different forms of counseling that even the church has expressed through time, whether it's been, for I know this might be a Catholic beginning kind of thing, but spiritual direction is a form.
Speaker 2:There's, you know the term biblical counseling of, you know, using scripture as the guide of different things. You have people within church space that provide professional counseling. They're not necessarily connected to the staff of the church but they use that space but they try to integrate, and so you know, there's been all these angles of how do we kind of combine, in a sense, the care of people with faith and theology, and so I think that that's where we're trying to find. It's not a clear here's the perfect line. You often lean kind of back and forth as you go along. I think a lot of what we do is trying to find kind of the intersection of these places. Like you said, pulling the truce from both sides, because you and I both have been trained more professionally within the kind of mental health realm than we have theology, yeah.
Speaker 1:For those who have listened to me butcher re-quarters this season, you can tell that I'm not a scholar of biblical languages.
Speaker 2:But maybe the question to you, dave, is why is it so important that we do this? To gain? I don't know. And the word that we've used well in the word we've used a lot this season is tension, and we'll probably continue to do it, but it's important for us to hold the tension.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I can tell you why I think it's important. Whether this is truly important, I don't know, but it's just what I think is important in this. There are two levels of it. One we live in an age and a culture in the West for the most part, that has elevated those of us who work in the mental health profession in a certain way. It's something I've noticed just even over the course of my career, where earlier in my career, going to see a mental health professional, what was a more unique sort of thing, oftentimes it was something people were more embarrassed to talk about. People were in. Over the past 20 years, the general wider acceptance of therapy and going to therapy has exploded and I think a lot of that has been positive. Yeah, but as we also live in an increasing secularization, I think there's this kind of some people are kind of using the voice of mental health and professional mental health to replace spiritual formation at times and those who value both which I value both trying to figure out what are the lines between the two.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so, that's one aspect, and the other reason I think it's important is because the church and in the larger sense of the community of believers together, and whatever denomination space that looks like the church, is more open to the science of mental health than I've ever seen it. But there's a well-founded suspicion about some of the underlying beliefs and motives for a lot of people in mental health, because professional therapy, since Sigmund Freud, so for 100-plus years has generally been a fairly hostile place for two religions, not just the Christian religion but religion in general, and a lot of the underlying beliefs and ideas that drive certain things in mental health are not necessarily aligned with Christian belief about the nature of people and the nature of the problem of suffering and all those sorts of things. And so integration is about where these things meet. You talk about biblical counseling. Biblical counseling is a model of counseling that, for the sake of oversimplifying a little bit, is it's a rejection of the secular science or a practice of counseling. And what does kind of the Bible is the source of all counsel come from? And though I believe absolutely in the authoritative nature of scripture, as the integration is, what I say is that there are things that we have learned from the scientific process, of what we've learned about behavioral health, and I'll give a caveat here there are things that have been done in therapy that come from theory that aren't necessarily supported by science, and what I mean by science is we know that when we apply these principles or we do things in this way, this is a likely outcome.
Speaker 1:I believe in the scriptural mandate towards sober living, to not live enslaved to passions or lust or addiction or kind of whatever that is. I absolutely believe that. But I also believe that, as we are called to seek out wisdom, that it makes sense to look at what have been the scientific principles that have come up that have shown how people can change behavior and change their mind. And I believe that whatever I do as a therapist has to be subordinate to the calls of scripture. But that doesn't mean that I don't Scripture doesn't teach us any number of things that we pursue in our livelihoods, whether it's you're an auto boom meal mechanic or a financial advisor. I mean there are principles that we can live under, but it doesn't teach us the details. And ultimately, I see scripture being about a specific narrative and story about God's relationship with his creative people as humans.
Speaker 1:But that doesn't necessarily cover everything about human habit, behavior, emotions. It covers a specific part of it, of God's relations, and it's a huge part of it, but God does not tell us and part of it is sometimes we put on scripture things that scripture doesn't say you know, don't listen to anything else that you may come across. That seems like it is. Just how does this subordinate to it? So some of it is this idea of that, to summarize why I think it's important One. I think we live in a world that is seeking counsel from both mental health and spiritual leadership, and so figuring out what are the lines between the two makes sense, and I deeply desire for the church to be equipped more and more with the congruent tools of mental health in the process of Christian formation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I would add two things. One, that I believe the integration works. I've seen it work. People have grown not only healing from what is happening, but also closer to Christ throughout the process. And it's not to say that what we bring to the table, even through the Negev Institute or Church of Psychology, is like the only thing that works. It's not that it's just the integration works. And two, I think we're entering into, if not already there, in the cultural context of things that if we don't integrate well, we're not going to be able to help people in their time of greatest need. I was having a conversation with our student ministries pastor and he was reflecting on things that he feels like he needs as it relates to mental health understanding, because he was saying something to the effect of our the culture or the mental health crisis that we thought was coming is here and they're experiencing it now.
Speaker 2:And I think that's the story for a lot of churches out there right now is that we're facing a lot of hardship and things that we don't know how to really address, and so we need to combine forces. You know, mental health professionals and church staff need to come together, because I think it's the integration has to happen to effect change so it works and it's important, yeah, and that's what at least we're convicted of.
Speaker 1:That's right. That's right, yeah. And so church psychology has been a fun process for us to kind of begin some of these conversations of what we you, matt and I feel both very passionate about. And we've talked a little bit about the Nagev Institute throughout the series but want to kind of revisit that. So church psychology is a specific program within the Nagev Institute and the general goal of the Nagev Institute is how to equip the church, the big C church, in around the areas of felt need, around what can be offered in social and behavioral science, with a particular mindset of how those resources can be curated or formed best for church use, recognizing that there is a need as Matt talks about the mental health crisis that we feel we're living in, which a lot of data to support that. But you know we part of the mission in the game is looking at what have been the barriers that have been in place between mental health and church communities for that meeting of resources and how, what are the ways that we can help overcome that, whether it's helping churches sort through, because what's hard is we live in part of living in the information age is information is all over the place, and there's a lot that Matt and I talk about in the working Nagev Institute. That isn't about how do we create a whole new program for this issue, because that may not be what's needed, but like how do we help decision makers and communities figure out, like what's the best resource for us to use and how will this resource be best applied in our context? And so it's connecting churches with the resources that are speaking most to their felt needs around areas of mental behavioral health, and the podcast started just as one of those things.
Speaker 1:Nagev Institute is designed to be a pretty holistic program or pretty holistic group that could have multiple programs, because we're pretty open to this idea of that. Whatever ends up working, we're happy to explore. Sometimes, different groups can have ideas. Well, we're going to do this exclusively through this thing, and so at this point, 2023 was the first full year for Nagev Institute and we've done a few different things. The podcast has been one of our main programs. We've also done some trainings and webinars. Actually, if you're part of our free community library, which you can access at churchpsychologyorg, you can see some of the things we have of existing.
Speaker 1:We've done these short trainings on.
Speaker 1:A lot of our topics have been social media and how that has formed, because that was just a felt area, particularly in youth culture but in general, where we heard people talk about.
Speaker 1:We also did our first live event this year we did it in late summer 2023 where we had a group of it was mental health counselors, but also people who worked in schools and different pastors, people that worked in churches and just kind of why group people come and we did a more intensive day long training on social media and that still that was recorded. Our goals to get that edited and up and available in some form. But that was a bigger thing and we are Matt and I are very excited of different possibilities that we're looking in front of us in 2024. We've had different church groups ask us about what is developing lay counseling resources in their church because realizing that there's some things that it's hard to get people to a professional to, either because of resource limitations, or there may be just things that doesn't necessarily require someone with a master's degree to sit with, but just how to inform just caring individuals in a congregation to counsel well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and to be able to sit with others, pain and the complexities of the things that people go through. I mean, I think we go through some of the things that we've gone through in a lot of our life. If they're being exposed more, it's not as easy to hide, even reflecting back on some of our episodes. As far as generational change, the family unit and what that looks like, people have less connection to resources of comfort and care and so they do turn to the church more for some of these needs, whether through small groups or care ministries or different things. And I think a lot of the people in those areas feel sometimes ill-equipped to handle the questions or the concerns or the weight of grief that some people have.
Speaker 2:And it's not to say that everyone should be able to do it. You know some of it's gifting and that kind of thing. But we have a hope. I believe that we can support churches in their ability to offer care in a way that maybe takes the weight off of like, because it sometimes bottlenecks when it comes to professional work. Sometimes what I've seen is that pastors will be like, oh, I can't deal with that with you, you have to go to a professional and sometimes that's accurate. You know there are things there that are difficult, but but sometimes there are things that they can address or they can like engage that a life group leader or a small group leader can speak into or sit with and so for us to want to maybe you know if you're listening to this or if you're a church leader that's like, yeah, we would really value some type of encouragement or coaching on this.
Speaker 2:Those are the type of things that we feel led to bring to the table, yeah, and to support.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so wherever there can be gaps that we can help fill, either through our own efforts or through the connection of other people's resources and efforts for the church in the needs and pain points around questions in mental health, that's the overarching mission of the Gavin Institute. And, yeah, you know, as we are looking into 2024, the future, as we're looking at we are for those who are catching this podcast, that you may be listening to this episode years in the future, but you know, the church psychology, you know.
Speaker 1:Connect with us. You know we have a contact form on that and certainly by joining our free community library. That's one of the main ways we look to stay connected with people. We want to hear, particularly as you are working in different contexts, whether it's it's a prayer, church ministry, you're a pastor, you're even just just somebody who cares about some of these things. You could be a professional in the mental health space. We'd love to hear from you and hear about what, what are the things that that you see, what is your passion point? Because you know, to kind of begin these conversations, feels. You know, matt, and I would like to think we're not presumptuous enough to think like, well, what we have is the answer.
Speaker 2:Right or the only thing Right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we, we just want to be the people that show up, and part of how we understand faithful living is not necessarily to say like I, you know I've got the answer of this, or even God's empowered me to do this thing. Yeah, we just feel like what is it just to show up Things? I'm looking forward to specifically coming back to church psychology for the podcast in the next year. You know our first season has been, you know, conversations with Matt and I about a lot of different topics and it will continue to be that. But we're I'm particularly looking forward to other voices that we're going to be bringing in as guests, because we we really want to bring into these conversations people that are working in the Christian formation, the mental health and the place where we're going to be the Christian formation, the mental health and the places where they meet together.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and you know I've got a few different interviews that we're lining up and talking to you for people in the next season to come and going back to you know, reaching out to us through the contact form on church psychologyorg If you have particular topics. You know Matt and I have kind of come up with topics based off of our clinical work and conversations we have at the counseling center that we work out together amongst the staff of, like huh, this seems like a thing, yeah, and it's usually. You know, I'll go and research a whole bunch and then figure out like, ok, here's the, here the talking points, mm, hmm, and you know, that's what, that's how it's come up so far. But we, you know, we also want to hear like what are, what are things that are that feel like the conversations that should be had.
Speaker 1:Now, sometimes things may come up and we may direct in other places. We may feel like you know this conversation really, you know this person's really handling this conversation well, yeah, and so we, our goal isn't necessarily to avoid anything, but, but we'll try to speak to things in the ways that are the most faithful and honest and recognizing what our knowledge base and skill sets are, Mm, hmm, but we will certainly encourage and support and direct where we find things to.
Speaker 2:So yeah, yeah, I hope. Yeah, me too, and I'm excited about the other voices being a part of this. You know we we we've said this before but we recognize we are two middle-aged white men. You know, like we, if you see us on YouTube, you know we're. We are who we are.
Speaker 2:But to speak faithfully into things we can't do at all, because we don't have the experience of what it's like to be a woman in this culture, what it's like to be of a different race or to be of these things, and hopefully to bring those voices into the conversation so that we can learn from each other and grow kind of collectively in this process of of integration, and because experiences are vastly different at times and we recognize we come from a framework of our, not only our work, but of our experience in life. Now, that doesn't change the gospel message or the truth of the scriptures, but it can sometimes, like I would say, skew how I see it sometimes, and so all that to be said is the more voices that can join us in this process of bringing this material to light or to to bring the integration of faith and mental health together, the better, you know.
Speaker 1:So that's my hope, as we do. Yeah, that's what I'm really excited about. So, for those who have been with us so far, we're grateful for you, and if there are episodes that you've missed, what I mean, what have been the ones we've done this season, matt? What are the ones that that you've thought about the most, that you've enjoyed?
Speaker 2:That's a good question. I think how we talked about trauma was a big one for me. The one about I can't remember if it's one about generations or about family stung out to just how there's moments in these conversations where something will hit me in the midst of it as we're recording, and it felt like one of those hit home In part of it. I think one of them. I told some more of my story of significant loss in my family. Those are just vulnerable things. They're vulnerable things to bring up in conversation, especially in a recorded conversation.
Speaker 1:Going out to the world?
Speaker 2:Yeah, but they resonate throughout after having the talk and even going back and listening to them when they're posted later. They impact, and so those standouts to me, what about yours?
Speaker 1:Well, I got it listed out right now because I wanted to get episode title. I've been on podcasts before, I've had several friends do podcasts and if people in the first few episodes felt like there were some good things for you, great, and some of it is just you get through the first few episodes and really just like, okay, we just got to get them out there and build some momentum. I really enjoyed episode eight of this season of anxiety and that was fun for me because one of the things I enjoyed similar to what you've talked about, of what happens when we have these moments even in our conversations that we're recording. I really enjoyed that from a research perspective because you get into some of what are the words that scripture uses for anxiety and for me that just kind of offered a different perspective of anxiety that I hadn't thought of before because I hadn't looked at the Greek in what are the words.
Speaker 1:So that was episode eight Episode I guess this was episode 10, we talked about kind of happiness and what does that mean? How do we interpret pain? But probably my, our episode 11 was on the phrase that you use a lot about authenticity, transparency and vulnerability. That was that's one that a lot of y'all have reached out about that. I've really enjoyed our nice and kind one, but probably different from what you've said before. Episode wait, what was this? Don't see the number on it, but this was episode, our complex storytelling episode, and I'm not seeing the numbers on this one, like I'm going through and like certain ones will show me the episode numbers. That would have been episode like 17, I guess, but it's the total complex storytelling beyond just heroes, villains and victims, and for me that was. I got even some emails in recent weeks about that from different people that had listened to that and for them it. I think one of the more impactful statements that someone made to me about that was they did.
Speaker 1:They were relating this idea of someone who was leading a group for men struggling with sexual addiction, sexual integrity, which is part of you know, they're part of it with our counseling center, matt, and that this idea of not giving they were reflecting to me, that it gave words to the experience of how do I recognize my own brokenness without just making it a one dimensional.
Speaker 1:I'm just a bad person and you know there's a theme throughout every episode. We talk about the tension, we talk about this idea of that part of living as God's created beings in a fallen world is that there is good and there's bad. It's not, and I'm I think some people will be really resistant to that because it feels like you're saying there's no such thing as good or like it's not that I absolutely believe in good and I absolutely believe in evil, but I believe as humans we are affected by both. And to oversimplify what our experience is, and definitely our experience of others, I think sometimes we want to all or nothing things and I think that's what I see so much of that, my counseling work, of that. People want to make it all or nothing.
Speaker 1:This person is the best and as soon as they've done something that has hurt me or broken my trust and they're the worst, or myself you'll be able to see, like I can, when particularly when you're realistic and you can see the broken parts of your life to feel like is there anything worthy in me? Is there anything in a salvation aspect of things? We definitely believe it's by the grace of God that we're called His children, we're brought in, but even in that, even underneath that grace, we still struggle. And how do we live in that tension and so anyway, those are things I've thought about.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're grateful that some of these things have made impact on those listening and we hope that that continues, because it's not just about hearing our voices. We could have enough conversations not recorded between day and night.
Speaker 1:I get really over listening, because I won't listen to all our episodes when they come out, but sometimes there'll be ones that I'll want to just review and things like that, but I'll just like, ugh, listen to myself I'm like shut up.
Speaker 2:Oh no, no, we love your voice, David. Maybe not everybody does, but I'm okay with it.
Speaker 1:But again so grateful for those who've been on the ride so far and realizing that you may be listening to this at some point in the future and you may be back listening to things, but our goal is we do not plan to be the be all, end all of any of these topics, but as we can give words to maybe something that has not had words for you before, and if there can be just a little bit of light and for us, as I said, matt and I just think about like, are we just showing up where we think we're supposed to show up? It's not.
Speaker 1:We're here to save the world, but you know, it's just being faithful in that, and I hope that that's what we've been able to do so far this season. And I'll just say too, I've been very grateful, matt, as you, for the work you've put into this, for these conversations. It's when I think as much as I get irritated listening to myself. The idea of trying to do this by myself just sounds miserable.
Speaker 2:Yeah, likewise, yeah, likewise. Well, thank you for that and for all those listening. You know we do want to view it as a partnership, not only between David and I, but with you all, and so you're vital to us, continuing in the sense of how you speak into it, how you join us in the process, and so come along for a ride.
Speaker 1:So again, come on churchpsychologyorg, join us with the free community library. I'll give you access to some of the material we have. That's only for the community people and it gives us a way to let you know as new things are coming out, when the next season's coming out, if you're catching this before that and we just again. So appreciate everybody, and but as we wrap up season one, I have been Dr David Hall.
Speaker 2:And you have been.
Speaker 1:Matt Shubaka Shunamans.
Speaker 2:Ha ha ha. I have a friend at church who has recently started calling me Maddie Shushu, and I can't do anything but laugh about it. My name has always had the element of making fun.
Speaker 1:So bring it on. Shubaka's been my favorite so far.
Speaker 2:Shubaka's been great. You know I'll take it. I'll take it. Well, thank you everybody. Thanks for listening and we'll talk to you next year. Yeah, bye. Thank you again for being a part of our latest episode of church psychology. If you have enjoyed it, we hope that you will share this episode with others in your life, and please do remember to follow, like and or subscribe to church psychology wherever you're finding us, and leave us a review. We look forward to connecting with you again soon.